Hi Ironteam!
 
It’s hard to believe that it is almost May!  It’s great to see all of you grow as athletes and come together as a Team.  You have all come a long way since kick off and I am very proud of all of you!!  Keep it up!

IN THIS UPDATE:

• Important Dates and Deadlines
• Fundraising Info
• Travel Information
• The Cause
• Fun Stuff

IMPORTANT DATES & DEADLINES

Tuesday, April 20th          Captain’s spin at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale, 6:30pm
Wednesday, April 21st     Coached swim at Burgess Pool, 6:45pm
Saturday, April 24th         Captain’s ride, 8:00am
Sunday, April 25th           Coached workout at Gunderson High School, 8:00am
Tuesday, April 27th          Captain’s spin at Sports Basement in Sunnyvale, 6:30pm

**Please see the Coach’s & Captain’s updates for more details on the above workouts**

TRAVEL INFORMATION

Vineman Hotel:

Hilton Sonoma Wine Country in Santa Rosa; http://www.winecountryhilton.com/
3555 Round Barn Blvd, Santa Rosa, California 95403; Phone: 707-523-7555.

Canada Hotel:

Ramada Inn in Penticton:  www.PentictonRamada.com, 1050 Eckhardt Ave. West, Penticton, British Columbia V2A 2C3; 250-492-8926.

Canada folks- I will send you a separate email with the flight info. 

I will be sending out the travel forms for both Vineman and Canada early next week.

FUNDRAISING INFO

CARWASH!  A Carwash is a great way to jumpstart your fundraising.  Get together with some of your teammates and organize a carwash at Sports Basement.  I did a carwash at Sports Basement and raised over $300 in a about 2 ½ hours.  Here’s how I did it:

Step 1: set a date with Sports Basement (a Saturday afternoon would be best)
Step 2: gather supplies- I raided my dad’s garage and got buckets, hoses, those fancy spray nozzles, rags, soap, windex, and towels.  It’s better to borrow supplies, that way you have very little out-of-pocket expense.
Step 3: make some catchy flyers and signs.  I emailed the flyers to everyone in my address book.  I also made some signs and set them all around the outside of Sports Basement.
Step 4: Find a crew.  I enlisted the help of my dad, brother, and cousin.  All I had to do was direct people to the carwash and had my crew wash the cars!
Step 5:  Set your price.  Suggest a minimum donation of $10.  People will donate more.  I had two people donate $50 to have their cars washed!

That’s about it.  Let me know if you have any questions about setting up a carwash fundraiser.

THE CAUSE

I wanted to share with you another great TNT story.  This is from Lisa Young (a TNT director):

I just wanted to share with you an unplanned mission moment from our team’s hike yesterday.
 
Yesterday, our MSC and SV Hike Teams had a combined hike at Big Basin State Park (and what an amazing place to hike - waterfalls! redwoods! banana slugs!). At about the midway point in our hike, as we headed back up towards the trailhead, we began crossing paths with runners competing in a trail run (marathon and ultra marathon distances). We were heading up the trail, they were heading down the trail to their finish line on the coast. It wasn’t a problem to move to the side of the trail as they came running by, and we made an impromptu cheering section along the trail for them. As we cheered each runner, several runners cheered us back with, “Go, Team” or “I did my first marathon with TNT!”
 
Having these runners cheer us on and tell us, “Good job!” was pretty amazing, considering they had already run 16 miles and still had over 10 miles left to run. But that wasn’t the best part. The best part came about a mile from the trailhead when three of us stopped to adjust a backpack. A runner was coming up the trail towards us, and before we could give him a ‘good job!’ he told us his wife was ‘doing one of those events’. I asked him which one, and he told us she was training with the cycle team for Tahoe. At that point he stopped and told us his story. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his name…
 
He told us he was diagnosed in August, 2008, with AML. He thanked us for what we were doing, told us we were saving lives, and that he was only alive today because of the ‘excellent’ research that LLS had funded. He shook Mike’s hand, looked us all in the eye as he thanked us again, and ran off to finish his race. Wow. There he was, less than 2 years from his diagnosis, running at least a marathon that day, and congratulating US on what we were doing! Needless to say, that made every mile of the day’s hike more meaningful.
 
Thanks to all of you for helping people like that inspiring runner, and saving lives so we can have more stories like this. 

FUN STUFF

Sweatshirt Incentive
There will be one more chance to earn a cool TNT sweatshirt.  If you meet your minimum by the next recommitment date of May 13th, you will get a sweatshirt (and don’t worry to those who already have a sweatshirt- you will get another cool TNT prize if you meet your minimum by then). 

Top Fundraiser
Congratulations to Jon for being the first participant to reach his minimum! 

Team fundraising goal: $325,000
Total raised so far: $71,978.81

-Franny