I'm going to take a step back in time to our days in Ann Arbor. I was still busy working at my internship site in Novi, MI where I met a great friend/coworker named Cristina Noble. Cristina is pretty much who I want to be when I "grow up" in the sense of athletic capability and dedication. She's married with two active twins, works part time at Botsford, takes a karate class with her kids and does a crazy amount of other activities all while training for triathlons throughout the year.

It would be an understatement to say she's good at triathlons. She recently won a triathlon in Tawas, MI for the 4th  year in a row and last week actually qualified for Team USA, where I believe she will represent (US) over in Australia next year.

Knowing my interest in running and triathlons, Cristina told me about a sponsorship contest that she had just won with the makers of Snickers candy bars. Snickers has recently released a product aimed towards endurance athletes called Snickers Marathon Bars; a high protein/carbohydrate bar with a variety of vitamins for athletes who participate in any type of endurance event. In order to promote their bars, Snickers formed a marketing wing called Team Marathon, made up of amateur athletes who are given a mini sponsorship to help promote the bars. Any amateur athlete who wanted to participate had to fill out a few forms and submit them on the sponsor website. 200 winners from all across the US were selected for the sponsorship based on these answers and awarded a sponsorship package consisting of, a triathlon racing top, running tech t-shirt, cycling jersey, jacket, hat, running shorts, triathlon shorts and 200 Marathon bars to use and give away at events. There is no obligation to do any promotion of their product, but to have priority for next years sponsorships they give a list of requirements including, submitting race pictures in their gear, passing out bars at events, etc.

I submitted my info on the site and was notified last week that I was one of the lucky 200. A picture of the free swag I won to the left. All this sportswear is definitely not cheap, an inexpensive pair of tri-shorts or cycling shorts can easily go for 50 bones. They sent me roughly $300 worth of stuff. Can never have too many cycling Jerseys, running shorts or bike shorts. I'm hoping to meet all of the requirements so that I can continue a sponsorship with them next year. I'm not really a big fan of candy bars but I do really like the Marathon Bars.

Linsey and I ran our first race of the fall season today. Linsey hasn't been running very much in the past month so she definitely had a good workout today. I had to use some of my trainer skills to stretch her out after the race. Not a bad opener for me; I took fifth place in a crowd of roughly 150 people with a 6:20 min/mile pace. Nowhere near my prime but I thought it was a great baseline to start working from. I've been conditioning myself over the past month to get back into competitive racing shape, which I have not been in since the Grand Rapids Marathon back at the end of (2008?) I'm planning to do a half marathon sometime in January and then a full marathon a few months later to qualify for Boston. Probably do quite a few smaller road-races and triathlons in between time. Here are a few pictures that Linsey took at the race.

Passing out Marathon bars at the Ace of Hearts 5k race.

2nd place in age group, 5th overall in my new Team Marathon shorts!

1 Comment

1. Unknown on October 12, 2010 at 9:23 PM

   Awesome job James! Good luck with the races and hope you qualify for Boston!