October 27, 2010

This is great!

I have to say, when I started running for the Petit Family Foundation in 2008 I never thought a team would come together this quickly. This is great stuff! I am very much looking forward to this group getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully we will be able to spark the interest of folks from all over the US. I know that's thinking big, but hey, why not?

As Meg alluded to in her earlier post, I ran track up at St. Lawrence University. Now, I was more aligned with the "field" portion of track and field, as Doc was. You would never catch me running anything over 2 miles. I was more comfortable jumping into sand or onto high jump pits. Not much distance training need for those two disciplines. I ended up running the 400m later on, but that was about the extent of my mileage. But, two knee surgeries and an ankle reconstruction later, my days of competitive jumping are over.

For those that know me, my energy levels are, well, high...So, I started running a few 5ks and got the running bug. Soon I was running up to 5 miles at a time, a feat for me, and started thinking about marathon running. Using Dr. Petit's words, "Help a neighbor, fight for a cause, love your family" as inspiration, I made it through the 2008 Marine Corps marathon...kind of unscathed. I will leave those details to another post. Since then, I have run several other races and folks have joined me. Two years later, we now have 15 members!

I very much look forward to watching this team grow and compete. The Hyannis Marathon Relay looks like our next target, so keep checking back for more details.

See you out on the roads!

-Brian

My inspiration

Had to add my inspiration :)

New kicks

Check out my new PFF trainers! I will certainly stand out, these bad boys are briiiiiiight.

October 25, 2010

GREAT JOB

Brian, Meg, and Tim and whoever else helped. Great job on setting up the site. we need to be sure to link it to our site and FB as well. I ran CC in HS as well as Track and Field (long jump/triple jump). However until the GE 5k in July 2008 I had not run in a race since the Great race in Pittsburgh in 1981, a respectable 41:30 for 10 K. Fast forward to 2008 and give it about one week of training and it becomes clear why I ran/walked about 45:00 for a 5k! The relay team did a great job in the Hartford ING marathon relay with Brian, Meg, Doug, Garret (6:10/mile leg), and Caroline (youngest team member at 13 and running about 7 minute miles now, probably better in the past month). The team raised close to $3,000 and donations continue to trickle in.

Petit Family Running Team officially begins!

Hi all! So thought I'd start it off -- Bri thanks for doing an awesome job with all of this technical stuff!! Figured I'd just do a quick bio....I ran with Brian at St. Lawrence -- where I think both of us found out how cool it was to be at a school with so much pride, and at the same time pretty much cemented our love for running. Although Brian didn't find his love for distance running until quite a bit later in life (he thought the 1000m in the multi's was far). I ran cross country after developing a love for the masochistic sport in high school, and then was cajoled into running indoor and outdoor track by the rest of my teammates (and to be honest, there wasn't that much else going on in canton, NY) so I followed suit. While I have to say indoor track in northern New York state could be used as punishment in some venues, SLU running and team spirit and learning to push yourself to the physical limits is something I'll take with me for the rest of my life.

Which brings me to today...5 years out of college, living in Boston, and was still going strong...completed my first half-marathon last year and some epic endurance 100 and 200 mile relays (relays being the key word, 6 and 12-member teams) in the hills of New Hampshire and Vermont. So here I thought I had a pretty good handle on the competitive, yet recreational running of the post-collegiate arena. But then last December I caught the dreaded Plantar Fascitis in my right foot, and I haven't been able to get the best of it since! Like any dumb runner, I tried rest for about 2 weeks and saw no results, so I quit that method and just went back to running right through it. That has continued throughout 2010, but a few weeks ago after several battles between my mind and body about running, I thought I'd take an actual break, do some cross training, and see if I can't kick this thing for good!! So I'm currently rocking out with some ellipticalling, some lap swimming at the local Y and dabbling in soccer games once a week.

But hope to be back to running by December, and ready to roll for any/all races in 2011!! I did not have the pleasure of knowing Dr. Petit's amazing family, but I think like many others, just reading about them is inspiring enough to put my life aside for a second and not just think about others but actually act on those well-intentioned thoughts. And while I realize they are completely different individuals, Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" has always reminded me of Gandhi's quote "Be the change". Same idea...set to music! I'm honored to be on the PFF running team and can't wait to see what we can do! Oh, and if anyone has any tips re: this annoying condition, I am all ears!! Happy training!

Megan Reeve