Six Impossible Things...or 500 of Them!

I don't like asking people for money.

Doesn't matter to me if those people are my parents, my friends, the cashier with the penny stash that will help me get to exact change, total strangers. I don't even like to ask my husband to pass over a $20 bill when I need some cash. It's not because he's stingy or controlling--and I do believe that most of the people I know are generous.

I figure most charity-minded folks already have the causes they support and that being hounded by me to support my causes would just make them feel guilty and resentful--the way I feel when the fresh-scrubbed, ubiquitous clip-board toting kids in Boulder approach me with a bright yet pushy, "Got a minute for cause X-Y-Z?" This is why in all my years of racing (more than a quarter century!), I've never run for a cause.

My attitude about asking for money, though, is somewhat irrational. I know this because when my friends ask for donations to further their athletic fund-raising goals, I almost always give--no resentment, no guilt. In fact, my friend and Top of Utah Marathon partner-in-crime Erin is raising money for a great cause--and she's doing a giveaway, too! Check it out here and help her meet her NYC Marathon fundraising goal.

When the fickle hand of fate favored me earlier this week, selecting my lottery number for the Houston Marathon, I decided it was time for me to join Erin and other generous friends and give back some of that good karma. So over the next six months, as I prepare for Houston and work towards a BQ at one of my upcoming marathons, I will also be raising money--$500, to be exact--for a cause I believe in: the Houston Food Bank.

This commitment scares me almost as much as committing to run 26.2 miles at an 8:30/mile pace. But assuaging the hunger of the needy is basic, something we can all get behind. We have a problem with the kind of neediness that sends people to food banks even here in wealthy Boulder. How must it be in a big diverse city like Houston?

So please go to my fundraising page and help me achieve this goal--which really when you think about it matters way more than whether or not I BQ.

Lewis Carroll wrote, "...Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." I don't have anything cool to give away to those of you who help out. But here I am asking.

Impossible thing number one: check.