Tricked by the Mayor!

Posted on April 28, 2013 by love4gambiajenn

The Dinner Room

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend the annual NSGA African dinner and auction. I was told that this would be a good opportunity to share information about my Love4Gambia campaign, and to enjoy a great meal and good company. I was also told that there would be a brief presentation about Love4Gambia 2013, with a message

Olga Milosevich talking about Love4Gambia 2013

from the 2012 runner, Andrea Moritz, and a god luck wish from the Mayor of Halifax, Mike Savage. I was told to bring my running shoes that were donated to my run in January by Aerobics First. The mayor was going to hand them over to me as a symbol of good luck with my 424km run across The Gambia. Woohoo!, support from the Mayor, that’s pretty neat! The only thing was that I have been running in the shoes since January (varying 60-85km per week), and they are quite dirty, stinky, etc. Not exactly something I want the mayor to have to hold onto. Nevertheless, I showed up with the runners in a grocery bag and gave them to the event coordinator to have ready.

New Shoes from The Mayor and Aerobics First!

The event was excellent: well organized, with wonderful food, entertainment, company, and auction items. When it was my turn to come up on stage I was jittery nervous, hoping not to jumble my words, trip, and so forth. The MC, Olga Milosevich, and the Mayor, Mike Savage, both had very kind words for me. Then, quite unexpectedly, the mayor pulled out a new pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 16s! Holy moly, I was expecting my regular old running shoes, not a brand new pair! I was definitely surprised! I would like to thank Mike Savage or his good luck wishes, and Aerobics First for donating another pair of running shoes to train in for my Love4Gambia campaign. Thanks to everyone at the dinner for their

New Mizuno Runners!

wishes of good luck. It really means a lot to me to do this with so much support from Nova Scotia. This event was definitely a great re-motivator to continue pushing in my training and fundraising efforts.

Thanks again to everyone!

Jennifer

If you would like to support my run and health for children across The Gambia, you can donate HERE. Thanks!

Training Update

Posted on April 24, 2012 by andreamoritz

With less than two months to go before my departure for the Gambia and with three great training races just around the corner, I thought it may be time for another training update to let you know how my preparation to run across the Gambia is going.

Needless to say, I have been running a lot! After laying down a solid base in January and February, I have spent the last couple of months increasing my weekly mileage to over 100 kilometers. At first, this increase left me feeling tired and with heavy legs, but by now the body has adjusted and I am feeling fantastic!

Increasing the mileage also meant adding another running day. While I often just managed to get out for five runs each week, I have been consistently getting six running days in each week for most of March and April.

On one of those running days, my workout consists of a 13 kilometer run to the office followed by another 13 kilometers at the end of the work day for the commute home. Even on those days, my legs have been feeling good and I will now begin to add a second day per week to do this double workout.

In addition to running lots of mileage, I have also introduced some quality runs. On Tuesdays, I either join the gang at the track or I do a solo tempo run. It’s been fun mixing it up a bit! Since the snow has melted in the Gatineau hills, I’ve also gone back to doing more trail running, which around here equates running hills. At first, my body was not happy with this change, particularly since all the city running this winter was flat, but now I have started to adjust to this as well.

Next weekend, I am looking forward to heading to St. Catharines with Team Love4Gambia to run the Chocolate Race 10 miler. Since this will be just a training run, there will be no taper and Sunday’s race will cap off yet another 115 km week. Then on May 18th, we will be heading for Halifax to join the Team for the Blue Nose Marathon and the weekend after, I will also be taking in the Ottawa Race Weekend with Team Love4Gambia. These two marathons will also just be training runs to get some long mileage in while in good company of a few thousand other runners, including our amazing team members.

Due to a shoulder injury from a silly fall at the start of the ski season, all my cross great cross training plans came to naught. The shoulder is still causing pain and have not been able to ski or do yoga. Even strength training options are limited, since many movements still cause discomfort. The MRI I had last week should shed some more light on what’s going on, but fortunately this has not had an effect on running!

It is hard to believe that in two months from now, I will be running in the Gambia! I really look forward to the experience and to meeting many wonderful people on the journey across the country.

I am really grateful that my body has adapted so well to the increased training load while getting little rest due to pressures at work and lots of time spent fundraising. I am even more grateful to the support of the many donors, our Team Love4Gambia members running in the Blue Nose, Ottawa and Chocolate Race weekends, my amazing sponsors Mizuno, Aerobics First and Gatorade and to my training partner (and general partner in crime!) Marc! Thank you for your continued support!

Andrea

Love4Gambia News – Save the Dates!

Posted on April 13, 2012 by andreamoritz

It has been quiet on the Love4Gambia blog for the last couple of weeks! But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working away to cook up a few events and to spread the word about Love4Gambia! Lots of activities to come …

The Tooth Gallery's latest exhibition

Silent Auction and African Soirée

First of all, I am pleased to announce the Love4Gambia Silent Auction and African Soirée on Saturday, April 14 at 7:00 p.m.. The evening will be hosted at the Tooth Gallery, the office of dentist Dr. Jill M. Taylor, which does not only offer state of the art dentistry, but also regularly features the work of local, emerging artists. Each artist is welcomed with a reception at the Gallery, which lends itself to entertaining and showcasing art. Please come join me at this unique gallery that will challenge your view of dentistry.

Sacher Torte from Stubbe Chocolates

Not only will you enjoy the cool venue, but there are also amazing items on the auction block: would you like to see your Ottawa Senators in the play-offs (I have faith!)? Bid on a pair of tickets courtesy of Bruno Paravan, Manager, Residential Mortgages with TD Canada Trust. Need a day at the spa? Treat yourself to a $250 voucher from Le Spa and The Hair Loft courtesy of Bruno Racine, the genius behind Ottawa Fashion Week. Then come home and curl up on the couch with a stylish quilt hand-made by Ottawa artist Cheryl Dollard. Also available are two framed photos by photographer Terry SanCartier, whose latest show Beach shirt by Dirty Runner “What we leave behind” was a smashing success. You can also score a painting by Geoffrey McGuire, a Stubbe Chocolates gift card, a $150 gift certificate from Bushtukah, passes to performances at the National Arts Centre and the Great Canadian Theatre Company, a Starbucks gift basket, cool running tops from Dirty Runner Productions, massage therapy from Balance and Motion, and much more! There’s something for every taste and budget, so please come on out and join the bidding! A huge thank you to all our generous supporters who have donated the items! Tickets are $20 and include two drinks and hors d’oeuvres. You can pick up a ticket by contacting me at andrea.moritz@rogers.com or by dropping by Sports 4 on Bank Street.

Love4Gambia Presentation at Sports 4

And speaking of Sports 4, check out their newly renovated store at 149 Bank Street, between Slater and Laurier! Drop by on Wednesday, April 4th at 7:00 p.m. when I’ll be there to talk about my upcoming run across the Gambia, what motivates me to run 424 km in extreme conditions during my summer vacation and about my preparation. Great door prizes will be available! Hope to see you there!

Bushtukah’s S.W.E.E.T. Night

Ladies, please also drop by Bushtukah on Sunday, April 1 at 6:30 p.m. for the annual S.W.E.E.T women’s event. Listen to motivating guest speakers, such as triathlete Jenny Hopkins, and mingle with experts. I’ll have a table at the event and look forward to meeting many members of our Team Love4Gambia there!

Orleans Running Room Presentation

On Thursday, March 29, I’ll be speaking to members of the Orleans Running Room Marathon Clinic about Love4Gambia and will join the group for a run. Look forward to meeting this gang of first time marathoners and to sharing running stories with them!

Your donations are appreciated!

Donation Banks

Thanks to Marc, we have also been distributing donation banks to a number of retailers in Ottawa/Gatineau! If you spot one of these, please drop in a few dollars!

Recruiting for Team Love4Gambia

In addition, I am still recruiting runners to participate in Ottawa Race Weekend and the Chocolate Race to run as members of Team Love4Gambia. With the exception of the marathon, Ottawa Race Weekend has now sold out and anyone who has not snagged a spot can check out the event’s web site to read about the transfer policy (transfers are permitted, i.e. you can buy a bib from a runner who is no longer able to participate – see terms and conditions at Run Ottawa’s web site).

Mizuno Sponsorship

Thanks to the support of Luke MacDonald at Aerobics First, I have received a sponsorship from Mizuno Canada, as announced on the Love4Gambia Facebook page last week. Mizuno is generously providing me with apparel and my favourite running shoe, the Minzuno Ronin, so I can run across the Gambia in comfort and style!

That’s just some of what I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. And of course, there’s the training! Even though the runs are getting longer each weekend, running is getting so much easier now that spring is here! Stay tuned for an update on training soon!

As always, thanks so much for your support!

Love4Gambia 2012 – The Sequel

Posted on November 17, 2011 by andreamoritz

On an early November morning, I was having breakfast and browsing Facebook – a part of my typical morning routine before heading to work at my Ottawa government office. Little did I know that this was not to be a typical morning.

After only two sips from my latté, a message from Luke McDonald of A1 Aerobics First, my favourite running store in Halifax, popped up on my screen.

Luke: Wanna go on a running adventure of a life time?

Andrea: Absolutely! When and where?

Luke: Across The Gambia.

This summer… In the heat of July.

FB Messenger: Luke is typing… (a bit slowly for Andrea’s liking, as she is now fully awake in spite of the relatively low caffeine level.)

Luke: For the Nova Scotia Gambia Association. You should see the stuff we have going on….

Andrea: Is there a web site I can check out for more info?

And so it began: Love 4 Gambia 2012 – The Sequel was born!

After browsing this blog, I contacted Erin Poirier, the strong and fearless woman who ran the 424 kilometers from The Gambia’s Eastern border to the Atlantic Ocean on its West coast this summer, to see if she could answer a few questions for me. By all accounts, this was indeed going to be a running adventure of a life time! And better yet, it would allow me to give back to the beautiful and spirited people of Africa I had met during my travels. I was in!

Suzanne Ferrier, triathlete extraordinaire of Halifax, is suspected of having had something to do with putting me on Luke’s radar as a potential recruit for the Love4 Gambia project. During a visit to Ottawa this summer, we had dinner together and chatted about my recent trips through Southern Africa as well as about ultra running. Thanks, Luke and Suzanne, for getting me involved!

I will officially launch Love4Gambia 2012 in the coming days. I am excited about the project and a little nervous as well, since Erin set the bar high by raising an amazing $35,000 to help keep kids alive in The Gambia. I hope I’ll be able to match her contribution to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria in this West African nation.

To learn more about the Nova Scotia Gambia Association and its programs, the Love4Gambia project, as well as about my background, check out the About tab at the top of the page. And then don’t forget to move your mouse over to the right to click on the Donate Now button!

Thanks for reading and for your support for Love4Gambia!

Day 8: Unremarkable is Remarkable

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Erin Poirier

July 16, 2011.

Day #8. 206km run!

Soma, TransGambia Lodge, 4:30pm. Too hot to nap. No electricity = no fan.

Celebrated the 200km mark today, whoo-hoo!

Today was remarkable because it was unremarkable. All parts of the runner’s body and the team were smooth. We got our kms in.

I didn’t run any kms alone today. Pa joined me for the first 5km. Ashley for 5-10. Kebba 10-20km and then both Pa and Ashley for the last 5km. That’s right, people, Ashley ran 10km today for the first time ever!

At rest today, we were under a tree on a farm as usual. A grandmother farming brought over her 2 year old granddaughter to the see toubabs and poor baby shrieked and cried. She could even look at us. Grandmother was delighted.

A few notes on how I’m feeling. Aka the injury report. I’m not injured. Ashley has an overuse injury on her abs from laughing.

Of course my legs hurt and of course it’s hot but I can manage both. The heat in non-negotiable so I continue to just put it out of my realm of conscious thought. I hurt in an acceptable way- my legs are fatigued from hard work in the general leg vicinity. I don’t have any “oh shit” injured parts. My gut is behaving and is accepting 4 litres of drink over my 2.5 hours running. I did anger my gut a bit by eating 4 bananas yesterday but they were so impossibly delicious that it was worth the risk.

Much of our run was through forest today so less community love for team Love4Gambia. We did stop to drink in the centre of Pakali Ba today and the truck was quickly surrounded by curious kids. When finished drinking, I asked them if they wanted to run with me and they all said “YES!” So off Kebba and I went with about 10 kids trailing us. I love the way the kids run. A few will “run” with good form, a few will “run” with a mix of skipping, hopping and arm waving while giggling crazily. Kebba led the kids in “Thank you Erin, thank you Love4Gambia” and all traces of fatigue vanished from my tired legs. If I could put the feeling that I get from running with these kids into a pharmaceutical bottle and sell it at Aerobics First, I would be a millionaire.

Happy report from the support truck. As we’ve written about before, my main man Pa Modou loves Akon more than life and Akon has accompanied us for many of the 206km we’ve run. But Akon mysteriously disappeared 2 days ago. The Akon cassette reappeared last night… Pa is much happier.

Asics Sponsorship & Eating Pink Words

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Erin Poirier

My “campaign CEO” Luke MacDonald came up with another Love4Gambia campaign win for me this week. He pitched my campaign to run across The Gambia to Asics and together they are sponsoring my footwear. This sponsorship begins now, in my Boston Marathon buildup, which is totally sweet! Luke For The Win!

I met Luke at Aerobics First today. I’d shared with him that I needed a new pair of lightweight racers asap. My racers usually last me 400-500km and my last pair’s life expired 2 weeks ago. I’m lucky to be a light runner and am pretty biomechanically efficient so I can take advantage of lightweight performance trainers for speed training and racing. My left foot does pronate (rolls inward) a little bit so I need to use Arch Molds (click here for more info) in my racers to maintain biomechanical efficiency.

Some of you may know my pink-running-thing. Thing being don’t wear pink. I can’t really explain where this came from, it’s just always been my thing.

So I meet Luke at the store and he’s really excited to show me the performance trainers that he’s ordered from Asics for me. “There gonna be really fast!” he announces.

“Are you ready?” he asks. And he opens the box:

Asics Speed Stars

“Oh. My. Gawd.” I say. I look at him with a mix of disbelief and laughter in my eyes. “Those sure are pink!”

“Asics Gel Speed Star! Couldn’t find a more perfect shoe for a sponsor to put you in” he says happily, very satisfied with himself.

Gotta agree with him here. Probably these racers will start a few conversations.

The Speed Stars fit like a dream. They feel like light and bouncy cocoons on my feet. They sit close to the ground which I like for speed and response but, at the same time, I can feel the gel cushioning that I so love Asics for. They also have asymmetrical lacing- a feature I also like a lot for smooth fit. And “Speed Stars”- totally cool name.

Luke, Erin and PINK

I can’t wait to try these out tonight. My workout is long marathon-pace intervals, a perfect beginning for Speed Stars. I have the PEI Road Runner’s Freeze Your Gizzard Half Marathon next weekend so I’ll look forward to sharing a review of my Speed Stars’ racing debut with you on my blog.

Now here is what I think (while I eat every single anti-pink word ever spoken). Pink is the new fast. Just call me Pink Panther.

Asics Speed Stars

Asics Speed-Stars made Runners World’s 2010 honour roll, see the review here

Aerobics First Joins Team!

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Erin Poirier

http://www.aerobicsfirst.com

Aerobics First is our premiere community running store. It is locally-owned, community driven, and is dedicated to both promoting active lifestyles and supporting active individuals through their own athletic challenges. I have a special affinity for the store because I ran with Matt Sheffield’s A1-based running club in 2010 and set personal bests at distances from 5k to 42.2k. It seems only natural that they be the road-running gear sponsors for my community driven running expedition, even though the community I am talking about is across the world in Africa.

Part-owner Luke MacDonald agreed to meet with me to talk about my campaign and I was pleased. He agreed to meet with me at Harbour View Elementary School where he helps run an after-school Running & Reading program through KidsFest. Actually, he agreed to meet with me while the program was running… i.e. while I helped out with the program. What can I say, the man is wise! And it was fun! When is the last time you watched 10 year old kids run in circles, giggling wildly, waving their arms and stopping occasionally to jump up and down because it’s fun? It’s impossible to watch kids do this without feeling joy.

My running expedition fit with Aerobics First’s community philosophy and I’m happy to welcome them as an in-kind sponsor. Although, little did I know that I could easily welcome Luke as my fundraising CEO. He knows everyone, he’s well connected, he’s energetic and he’s generous in spirit and is generous with his time. After meeting with him, my inbox began to fill and my phone began to ring.

If you join my Love4Gambia Bluenose Marathon Charity Team, you’ll also have a chance to benefit from Aerobics First’s generosity. You’ll be eligible to win 1 of 5 pairs of Asics running shoes if you are one of the first 5 team members to raise $500 (team fundraising minimum = $100).

A few members of Aerobics First's Matt Sheffield group at Bluenose 10k, 2010

Love4Gambia

A Nova Scotia-Gambia Association run across The Gambia to keep kids and communities alive through health education

Tag Archives: Aerobics First