August Charity of the Month: Children of the Wilderness

Charity of the Month is the way Team Tizzel is helping to support some very worthy organizations. As part of this program, we dedicate a post to a charity that we will sponsor that month.

July: We sponsored the UNICEF U.S. Fund to help victims of the earthquake that hit Nepal a few months ago. We donated $125 to UNICEF through their online link at UNICEFUSA.org.

August's Charity:

Children in the Wildreness

http://www.childreninthewilderness.com

We took our first trip to Africa in 2005 when we visited Botswana, Zambia, and South Africa. We fell in love with every aspect of that trip (except the long layovers in Heathrow and 11+ hour flights) which included stunning nature, close encounters with wildlife, and kind people with strong ties to their culture. Most of the great memories from our trips to Africa are associated with our guides and camp staff. They are the ones who infect you with the desire to return.

The camps we have stayed at are owned and managed by a company named Wilderness Safaris. These small camps are focused on giving guests the best natural experience Africa has to offer. They do not allow hunting, and our guides in Botswana were not armed. The safety of the animals is paramount and there will never be a swarm of vehicles invading their spaces. Wildreness Safari camps work in partnership with the local communities helping to educate and provide jobs for further sustainability. Wildreness Safaris is also working with many organizations to reintroduce the black rhino to Botswana. We look forward to returning to Wildreness Safari camps in November when we visit Namibia.

Children in the Wildreness is the charity arm of Wildreness Safaris. Their education programs give local children an appreciation for the environment and teach them how to protect it. Long term programs help to provide career opportunities in the growing safari industry, which can help lead to job opportunities anywhere around the world.

From their website:

Children in the Wilderness is a non-profit organisation supported by ecotourism company Wilderness Safaris to facilitate sustainable conservation through leadership development and education of rural children in Africa.

Insight, care and commitment are required to conserve Africa’s pristine wilderness and wildlife areas. If we are to ensure that these places continue to exist – in this generation and those to come – we need the rural children of Africa to understand the importance of conservation and its relevance in their lives. Hence, our Children in the Wilderness programme: an environmental and life skills educational programme for children, focusing on the next generation of decision-makers; inspiring them to care for their natural heritage and to become the custodians of these areas in the future.

To learn more, visit the Children in the Wildrenss website and check out the donation link to find some very affordable ways you can help.

 

 

2014 WDW Marathon Week - Half Marathon

The big mile days were coming up with the half marathon on Saturday and the full marathon for Holly on Sunday. We decided we needed to keep the time on our feet light after Friday's 10K so we had a no-park day agenda. After the race we relaxed in the room a bit before hitting Fantasia Gardens for some mini golf. After that we went offsite with a few friends for lunch at Sea Dog Brewery (worth the visit). Next we had a Team AllCheers meet (where Dave fell asleep) and a Mickey Miles Podcast meet. A few of us had some drinks over at The Crew's Cup before heading to dinner at Il Mulino. We had a surprise dinner guest: Joe Taricani from The Marathon Show. Our meals were a bit delayed and we ended up in bed a little later than we had planned.

Two iPhone alarms going off at the same time that our wake up call started told us it was 2:15am. The third early wake up call led Holly to think that once was enough for Dopey. It was starting to feel like Groundhog Day. Up early, drive to Epcot, team picture, shuffle to the corrals and wait in the corrals.

We prepped everything we needed to prep and left the room around 3am. Disney likes to have you at the start area as soon as possible so they can make you walk for at least 20 minutes to the start line and sit in your corral forever (assuming you are in the mid-to-back corrals). At our Team AllEars meet-up we snapped our customary team photo and started grouping with others in our corrals. We were in Corral K with about 15 other friends. The walk to the corral (including potty break) was probably a half hour. Much better than last year. One funny/embarrassing thing did happen to Holly in the corrals. The gang decided to sing Happy Birthday to her. 1) Holly's Birthday is in June. 2) They unknowingly started singing right before the moment of silence began.

runDisney had a new corral system in-place this year. There were more corrals than before with varying numbers of people in each corral. The first few corrals had less people than the later corrals. Launch times for each corral varied as well. The table below (which we created to help out Team AllEars spectators) turned out to be a good estimate:

One nice thing runDisney does is to send off each corral with their own fireworks show. Apparently the addition of so many more corrals must have caused a technical glitch by the time they hit Corral K. No fireworks for us, but we did get a Team AllEars shout out from Rudy.

The group was going to split up a bit today. Dave was going for a PR so he flew solo. Half of the group was going to use Galloway 30/30 intervals and Holly's group was going to do 2:1 interval.

As far as the review of the race course, just read last year's report. It was the same race, different day. The sport cars were in the location, Stitch was still outside The Poly, and still no Duffy photo opp in Epcot. We thought it was less congested than the previous year going through the castle, even cone alley.

Holly's comments: We had a blast. It was an honor to see our friend Joe Weeks run up Main Street for the first time. A funny moment was when Joe turned back towards me as I was videoing him running up Main Street. He ran back to me and grabbed me and tried to spin me around. Yep, I’m heavier than I look! I’m glad I didn’t kill him! The notorious cone alley was better than previous times so I think the new corral spacing was an improvement. After Cone alley is the long run down World Drive back to Epcot. This is where every year I feel tired and start thinking about having to run a full marathon the next day. The funny thing is was even though we were all tired we ran fastest during this stretch. We were happy to get back into Epcot and we met up with some other teammates here and crossed in a big group. Happy to be done with one more race!

Team AllEars was out in force for the race. They were everywhere! The support from the Team means so much.

Dave's comments: Fortunately the morning wasn't as warm as it was the day before during the 10K, but it was still humid. I was also out there with (in my mind) a non-functioning Garmin. Since I could not get a satellite signal I thought the only thing it was good for was a heart monitor. In order to make sure I kept pace for my goal I used my iPhone timer and calculated the pace every mile. Over some drinks in Epcot later that day I learned the stop watch function still worked. Doh!

I didn't stop for pictures, or to say hello to our teammates spectating (with the exception of Laura's spectacular at Mile 7 - there was food and cold towels). I'm rude that way just plowing through it all. To make matters worse, I sweated out my iPod around mile 7. That made for a few boring miles. Even the kites at mile 11 didn't hold any interest. In the end I got a 9 minute PR and met my time goal. I still haven't found a passion for doing half marathons, and with this one being my second on the same course, I don't see a need to ever repeat this race again.

That closed Dave's races for the weekend. Holly surprised Dave with a gift - his own Grumpy medal. Since our team ran with the concept of naming Grumpy for the combination of the 5K, 10K, and Half she had medals made up for everyone on our team that participated in those three events only. This was a very nice surprise. Before hitting our main Team AllEars meet we hit Epcot for a quick lap around the World Showcase.

Here's our Half Marathon Video:

2014 WDW Marathon Weekend Quick Update

Ok, so we ended up being very busy all weekend and had no time to post updates. With races, team meets, park touring, and having fun with friends we never spent any quiet time in our room. We will have full posts coming over the next few days and weeks.

We wanted to thank you for supporting our fundraising efforts. This year Team Tizzel raised $11,000 to help fight breast cancer! Thank you so much. The overall Team AllEars total was over $104,000. The total raised by Team AllEars for the past five years is over $330,000 with Team Tizzel's efforts contributing over $30,000 to that total. Thank you all!

 

Close-up of this year's Team Tizzel shirt

 

 

Meet the Muppets

Some folks on our charity running team, Team AllEars, had a great idea to help build a little fun into our daily lives. Following the premise of The Flat Stanley Project, our team members have been sending four Muppet Pook-a-looz across the country. Pook-a-looz was a short-lived brand of Disney plush toys that depicted characters as flatter characterchures of the original. The Muppets were dispatched across the country after their introduction at the Wine Country Half Marathon.

For a month or so we hosted the Fozzie Pook-a-looz. He traveled north with us to Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota for Grandma's Marathon. Most recently, he traveled to Chicago to join a few other Team AllEars members in the Rock & Roll Half Marathon.





We probably had a little too much fun with Fozzie. The ringleader of the Muppets thought we should be the first to host Fozzie since he was a bear and Tizzel was also a bear. On our team page we shared some of the fun times the two had together in this video:

Last week at the Rock & Roll Chicago Half Marathon something tragic happened.

Eddie was passing Fozzie over to teammate Stan for a photo opp. Unfortunately they had this bright idea while standing on a bridge over the Chicago River..... Fozzie ended up in the drink.


This loss was announced to the team moments later via Facebook post. Within minutes tributes were posted:

Our team Facebook page erupted with comments. Most were sad, but some were skeptical and suspected foul play. Public outcry and media coverage demanded an investigation.

The next day we learned the truth as the film from the race was finally uploaded to Vimeo:

Yep! Eddie procured a stunt-double to take the fall. We shipped the real Fozzie off to the next team member signed up to look after him. We'll miss Fozzie. So will Tizzel.

Team Tizzel Total

We wanted to post sooner, but this has been one BUSY WDW Marathon Weekend.   The Races, expo, meets, and parks have kept us pretty active.

We're proud to show you the following photo:

Dave was in full Duffy outfit for the WDW Fiesta 5k. That means we met our fundraising target of $3,000.   We're excited to tell you Team Tizzel raised over $5,900 with more coming in!  

Thank you all for your support.  With your help this year  Team AllEars raised over $67,000 to help those with breast cancer.  This brings our three year total to over $143,000.  Today's team meet was very emotional and showed us that cancer touches everyone in some way. We are proud to be part of this great running/Disney community.

The 5k was fun and Holly had a great time in today's Half Marathon.   Tomorrow, she'll run half of the marathon in the Chip and Dale Marathon Relay Race.  We'll have more details posted over the next few days.

Thank you all once again!

It's Almost Here

We are a few days away from WDW Marathon Weekend.  Stay tuned to see if this is how Dave will look for the 5k:

There's still time to make a credit card donation by following the instructions in THIS LINK. 

Thanks for following us this year!  Live updates to come next week.