My new role as a fellow 2013 Fit2Run Ambassador

Every day I have a thing called the "News of the Day". Think about it... there's always some kind of news of the day. A few weeks ago while shopping at the new Fit2Run store in Coconut Point, Estero things just happened to magically moved around for me that day and an opportunity to be an ambassador for the store presented itself. I went home and filled out the application immediately and sent it in. A few days later I was invited to come down to the store for the "fun run" and afterwards there would be a Q&A night for anyone interested in being an ambassador...of course, I went.
The running group thing  pretty new to me. I usually run by myself at the gym or with my friend Kim. I'm not a fast runner by any means but I'm not slow either. Everybody has their good and bad days and after working all day I tend to be sluggish at night.We met in the front of the store for a pic and off we went running on our "fun run" for 3 miles. 

It was kind of humid and the Florida summer was here. As everyone was passing me they gave high fives and yes were heading back to the store. I wasn't the caboose just yet. A girl named Jill stopped and we started to talk as if we knew each other already. I had my Princess shirt on so we automatically started talking about the Princess race which we both had just finished weeks ago.We both made it back to the store to meet up with the others and to here about this program we had come for.
There were all types of runners that I met that night... full of personality and spunk. Especially, after the food and beer came out :-) Kimmie, the store manager of Fit2Run  Coconut Point, Estero explained the program to us with a more than a smile and with such enthusiasm that whatever she was on I wanted some of it! Talking to some of the runners that night we heard of their past races and the ones that they were training for. It was awesome to hear that almost everyone there had run in some sort of race with runDisney so we exchanged stories and advice for the ones who hadn't done the ones we had already finished. We said goodbye to each other and hoped that we all got in because this looked like it would be fun. 
A week later, I came home to find mail for me on the kitchen counter from Fit2Run. I hurried to open it and WOW! Did this brighten my day! It was definitely the news of the day!

I had made it into the 2013 Fit2Run Ambassadors Program for the Coconut Point store in Estero, Florida. 

The next week we all headed back down to the store for the acceptance party/run. The store had just opened a few months ago and I was thrilled to be a part of it. There were only 20 people accepted into this program for each store. Like Kimmie had mentioned that night at the Q&A meeting, it ranged from marathon runners to walkers, but looking at this group ... these were definitely a group of fun people that were dedicated runners! Every one of them had a great personality and yes there are always a few party people in a group and we sure did have them in this group. Talking to a few of them at the Ambassadors acceptance party I found out that a few of them would be traveling to California in August to complete the Dumbo Double Dare along with me. The Dumbo Double Dare is a 10k on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday, how fun is that going to be! 

So to be in this what does the program require?
*There are a minimum number of races that you have to run in a year from your acceptance (races are chosen by the runner)
*It asked if you are part of any other organization or groups supporting healthy lifestyles
*A part of any social media markets (Facebook, Twitter, blogger, etc)
*If you had run any other races in the past year
*If you coached, were a trainer, or were any other leader of physical activities and again a healthy role model.
We had all of these requirements :-) 

What did we receive that night? well....to start off with::

~ I found and note in my bag (below)

~ a singlet ( mine was on back order so thank you Pablo for letting me share this picture of his)  :-)

~ a pair of Feetures running socks a sponsor...Thank you!

~ a one year Fit Club membership to the store for free.(I took advantage of that right away)

~ some NEW Friends :-)

A SPECIAL NOTE TO THIS NIGHT...

Unfortunately, this acceptance party also had another special meaning to us runners that night.
 It had only been a few days since the Boston Marathon bombing. So as runners, we united together for a special run to remember the victims, pray for the injured, and run together to support our running community. We donned our special bibs, our blue and gold ribbons, and we turned our normal "fun run" into a #BOSTONUNITED run...and run together we did.There were 50 in attendance. The local TV station was there and some of us expressed our views to them as we were interviewed

Here is the video link from WINK news covering our United run for Boston :

http://www.winknews.com/mobile/index.php/mobile/article/Lacing-up-for-the-Boston-Marathon-victims