Mission Accomplished!

It has been about 4 days now since finishing our final piece to the fundraiser, all of my swelling is gone and I am walking pretty much normal again. It will be a while before I run, but the itch is still there! Over the last few days I have been writing a "run report" but when I got 5 or 6 pages in and wasn't even half done I called it quits. I am sorry to say but there is just no way I can do all of you who helped me justice with words. Over the course of last weekend I seen first hand what this great nation is about and that's honoring those who have sacrificed for it. I have gotten many "atta boys" and "good jobs" from people but to tell you the truth I feel as if I am not worthy to stand in the presence of a military man or woman who has been shot, taken an IED blast or came home with limbs missing. And to be honest with you, I feel I never will.

This fundraiser to me was something very special, it was larger than anyone person. I was just informed today that we have another $500 plus coming in which is going to bring us very close to $32,000 and I use the word "us" because all of you who donated were just as much a part of this as me or any of the crew. I am going to give you a couple of key things that happened and if you followed Angel's updates on facebook you should beable to fill in the rest.

-At 10:00pm Thursday Sept. 9th we left Nebraska and headed south, I was sent off by some of the American legion Riders, local fire dept, police and a group of hardcore Americans. it was drizzling and they waited in that for us! - Some time around 2 or 3am on Friday morning the American Legion Riders escorted me through Concordia, still drizzling and they showed anyway.

-Around lunch time or a bit after on Friday we entered the town of Salina. Huge American Legion Rider escort and tons of support from local citizens. It was getting very hot, my wife rode next to me on a bike and helped me through. When I told her I was getting hot she looked me square in the eye's and said "were Clark's, we got this"! I never complained to her again about the heat.

-Just before Linsborgh I started to overheat pretty bad, my crew made the call to put me in the RV and cool down for a bit, best move they could have made, thank you guys! -Cooled down my body and went through Linsborgh, another ALR's escort and tons of citizen support, nothing better than small town Kansas. Some of the most Patriotic people you will ever meet!

-Getting to be evening time and we made it through McPherson, now we are half way but the afternoon heat took it's toll on my body. Took a good 20 to 30min nap and was greeted by a lot of people trying to get me through the night. The next few hours were brutal, could not get my legs to work and my stomach went south. Had to vomit multiple times, this was the slowest part of the entire run. Brandon, Fernando, Debbie, Coleen, Matt, Randy, Winston and probably others I forgot somehow pushed me through and we got past Hesston.

- Just before the sun came up another short 10min nap and my stomach final started coming around. One of the ALR's drove all the way to town to get me some Cream of Wheat that my crew requested? Where this idea came about I still do not know, but it saved me literally. I ate that and I was brand new, we made great time to Newton. - I picked up Stuart in Newton and he stayed with me all the way to the border, thank you Stuart. It seemed like we flew through Newton and I was eating solid food and feeling great. Just before Park City it started getting hot again and I had to sit for about 15mins and let my core cool down. Once I did that and got to running it is all a blur. I do remember coming up on some road construction that detoured us about one mile, so actually we did 225 miles. It was a bridge out just before Wichita and the Wichita FD volunteered to get the safety stuff out and lift me across!!!!!!! The powers that be shut that down though, that one mile I walked the whole thing I was pretty upset. Then at the end of the detour tons of friends were waiting for me and I went from 0 to 100 super quick. A couple of hugs later and Wichita here we come.

- Wichita was like a big party, tons of running friends were there, the ALR's showed in a HUGE force and support was out of this world. The Wichita PD was the only law enforcement agency in the entire state that decided our event was not worthy of an escort for some reason??? So the ALR'S took it upon themselves to play traffic patrol, I am so in debt to those ALR's it's unreal.

- 47th and Broadway did me in pretty good emotionally, lucky I had my sun glasses on. The ALR's lined both sides of the streets holding flags and it gave me chills down my spine. Then I looked to my left and seen my Grandma Clark holding a big flag yelling "go Tony", I think Stuart knew that got to me. Like I said, luckily I was wearing sunglasses still.

-The AlR's got us all the way through Haysville and i was moving pretty well until about 15 miles till Wellington. The sun went back down and this was night #3 and my body was telling me. It was slow going but we made it to Wellington about 2 or 3am and was greeted by people to my disbelief and the Mayor!!! Like I said, nothing better than a Kansas small town, they bleed Patriotism.

- After Wellington my legs could not muster much running for the last 20 miles to the border. Every once in a while I could a very sad trot or jog, but it was pretty weak. I was still powerwalking at a good clip so I stayed with that the best I could. It seemed to get very cold and my body could not maintain heat anymore. I was layered up pretty good and just tried to put one foot in front of the other.

- About 10 to 12 miles to go and I saw my 3rd sunrise and also got another good burst of energy. I could jog a little more but my powerwalk increased and helped knockout the miles. With about 5 to go the entire crew minus drivers got out there with me, again I had my sunglasses on and none of them have heard this till now but I fought back a lot of tears. These people had been with me for over 2 days waiting on my every need and I had no way to show how much that meant to me. It was tearing me apart.

- The last 1 1/2 to 2 miles I did with just Angel. We talked and laughed and it seemed kinda unreal we were finishing. We ran quite a bit of this, how I have no idea? About 3/4 mile from the finish was a Sumner County Sheriff with a flag standing by the side of the road at attention. This was the final burst of motivation I needed, Angel and I started to jog and didn't stop till the finish. Nothing better than sharing one of the most memorable times of my life with the woman I cherish the most!

For those of you that know me, you know that I put 100% faith in GOD to get me through this run. Angel and I prayed to Father Kapaun often and I spent a lot of those hot miles asking GOD to give me mental strentgh and some how find a way to glorify him in what I was doing, hopefully I did that. To my core crew and all who ran with me, I believe we have all spoke since and I want to thank you again. To those of you who donated and helped in anyway thank you. This was a great event and re energized a lot of people, me especially. I was beginning to think America was completely gone, but this past weekend all of you reassured me she is far from gone and still loves the veterans of this country.

This will most likely be the last post to this blog, I would like to take one final opportunity to thank all of you and thank you for humbling me with the things I do and the support you showed this fundraiser and the Wounded Warrior Project. May GOD richly bless all of you, in all you do. Semper Fi, Tony.

Final Post - Thank you

Well only 48 hours or so and we begin. This will be my final blog post till after the run, I am basically going to sleep the next two days away, so this “posting” will be a bit lengthy.

This whole thing started with a phone conversation between Dan Elsener and I, the next thing I know he is talking to Pam Reed, probably one of the greatest runners to ever walk the earth, who by the way makes my 224 miles look weak – she has gone 300 plus. She gave him great tips and pointers, we then got the permission from Angel (my wife) and then added Kyle Amos who is a very experienced ultra runner and knows the rigors of a multi-day event. The next thing we know a goal of $25,000 is set and it’s been a blur since then.

TRAINING
So this summer I decided that I had to learn how to “run smart” finally. I am by no means a “great” or “elite” runner but I do have my days that I liked to try and run fast and be competitive, I had to completely shut myself down to that type of running and learn to run slower and easier, this was much harder than I ever thought. Throughout the summer I averaged around 130 miles a week usually doing at least 20 plus miles a day during the week and 30 or so each day on the weekends. We had a VERY hot summer in Kansas this year, basically 2 months that we hovered in the mid-90’s or triple digits. It was a real gut check, but I listened to my body and trained smart. I was humbled many times at the park or on training runs when people would pass me and I would think to myself “that guy or gal should not be passing me”. I had to listen to people run their mouths at races and question why I wasn’t racing, not like it was any of their business, but Angel, Kyle and I decided that racing was not going to happen. Why chance an injury when there is a greater goal to be accomplished. So I ran 3 or 4 – 50mile races, a 40 mile race a handful of 50k and marathons and then paced my good friend Rick Mayo back the last 50 miles of the Leadville 100. This entire time I stuck to the plan and took it easy, GOD kept me healthy and injury free.

FUNDRAISING
This past weekend we reached our $25,000 goal. I have made it a point to never use “I” or “me” throughout this process; it was all of YOU who made this happen. There are a lot of happy Wounded Warriors and families out there right now who are getting care and necessities they need because of YOU. I am merely a “tool” that is being used to earn that money. There are times I watch the news and listen to the media and think what happened? Are the wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan going to go through the same garbage the Vietnam Veterans had to endure? Then I think about this fundraiser and all YOU great people and then I say to myself “not on my watch they won’t”!!!! I am renewed as I hope you are too, that there are still GREAT Americans out there who care about their wounded veterans and want to make sure they are taken care of. We have over 10 pages right now of people who donated on the computer, I would love to type out all your names but I have to start running Thursday and if you know me I would be well into the weekend before I pecked away 10 pages. So with that being said, thank you to all who donated! You will never know how much it means to me and the men and women you are helping, I pray that GOD richly blesses ALL of you for your donations and support. It’s not often people go out of their way for others anymore in our society, each of you who donated did just that and should feel GREAT about it!!! When people ask me who my hero is, I will just show them the 10 pages of donations and say take your pick. Thank you.

THE RUN/TROT
OK, the $25,000 question. “Will you run all 224 miles”, answer= NO!!!! Sorry if I disappointed you, but I am not that tough. As many of you know I have ran multiple 100mile races, so we are going to treat the first 100miles like we would any other race, just at a much slower pace. After 100miles I am in new territory, the furthest I have ever gone on my legs is right around 32 hours at the HURT 100 with Kyle. I would like to still be “trotting” at the end but that is very wishful thinking. I will run as long as I can and then some, but I will have to walk at some point, then I will try to run again. We are setting a time limit of 60 hours, so that way I don’t get weak and walk the whole thing. Would I like to be done sooner, you bet I would! Am I going to try and finish sooner, you bet I am!! Dan named this fundraiser “Tony’s 224mile Trot – Honoring their Sacrifice”. How would I be honoring anything if I do not give 110% and when that 110% runs out, suck it up and find more! I have prepped myself mentally for pain and fatigue that I have never even come close to in my life, but I will heal, my swelling will go away. The traumatic brain injuries, the PTSD, the missing limbs of our veterans, those are permanent. For those of you coming out to run with me or those of you that are going to be there I am telling you right now, PUSH ME! Make me work through the pain, when I cannot run I will walk and if my legs quit working completely I will get elbow and knee pads and crawl. Unless something major happens to me medically, I will finish, it’s not optional at this point and if it takes me 80 hours to finish, I will finish!

Final Thoughts
This has been a great experience for me both physically, mentally and spiritually. I know that GOD has a plan for all and the way this thing is shaping up, I truly feel that this is part of GOD’s plan for me. If you want to stay up to date on our progress throughout Angel and the crew will be updating the facebook fanpage, her facebook page and also you can call or text anytime. My phone number is 316-253-6915. Angel will be doing what she does best, using the iPhone!!! Take into consideration that we will be in pretty desolate areas in parts of it, so reception could be hit and miss. If you would like to link up with us along the route just get a hold of Angel and she will give you an estimated time of when we may be there. Thank you again, all of you. I hope to be writing you Sunday night September 12th with great news of our finish!!! SEMPER FI, Tony

GOAL REACHED!!!!!! $25,000!!!!!!!!

This will be short, I will post again later today. This morning I spoke with Darin Schneidewind who took pledges for his outstanding performance at the Leadville 100, he has collected $1,500 and sending it to us fed-ex tomorrow! That puts us at $25,159.00!!!! Two minutes later Steve Breeding sends me an e-mail stating he has collected nearly $1000.00 for his mini fundraiser called "lighting the way". He collected $5 per glow stick and is going to lay one every mile for me!
I am so overwhelmed right now with emotion I will stop and gather myself and write more later. From the bottom of my heart I thank all of you, I am truly convinced that America has not forgotten about its Wounded Warriors, may God Richly Bless ALL of you for your giving! More later, Semper Fi - Tony

A great day!

Well, next week at this time I hope to be about 80 or so miles into our fundraiser. The temps seem to be cooling a bit so that is relief, mid 80's will have to do it looks like. Today I started my 2 week vacation, I work for a gentleman by the name of Mike Steven. Mike owns numerous businesses, I am his corporate electrician and we also have an Electrical Company we are partners in called Steven Energy. Anyhow, as I leave today Mike says " good luck and be safe, oh by the way here is a check for $5,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project". I didn't know whether to hug him or slap myself to make sure it wasn't a dream. That not only broke the $20,000 mark, but we are currently at $22,790.00 that means only $2,210 to go and we crush $25,000!!!!

I must admit that in the last couple of weeks I have had my doubts about whether or not the $25,000 was achievable. Then last night GoRun Wichita a new running store here in town does a 3 mile fun and raffle and we make nearly $1000 there. I knew after last night that we still had a chance, the generosity of those who showed up was tremendous. With Mike giving us that $5000 today it basically just gave me that final push I needed. Mentally, I feel the run will go alot smoother if our goal is met prior to me starting, that way I am not stressing the entire time. For those of you reading this, most likely you have contributed and I must take a second to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. When Angel, Dan, Kyle and I decided this was a feasible task we knew it would take a ton of people to pull it off. We currently have 9 full pages of names who have donated, many of you multiple times! Many of you have worked hard through e-mail, facebook, mini-fundraisers etc etc to help us get this far and I thank you. I am truly in all of your debt and if you ever need help with anything please call on me and if it is within my power or means I will go out of my to assist you, I promise.

All I am asking is 6 more days of fundraising or $2,210. Once we reach that goal and we will, I would obviously like to keep going, but $25,000 is what we need. I feel I am ready to do my part, I know it will not be easy and the pain will most likely be the worst I have ever felt, the fatigue will horrendous and my mind will get weak at times. To combat all those negatives, i have probably the best crew ever assembled and more runners than I can name coming out to help. We have had people volunteer to drive from everywhere and people coming up from as far as Texas just to run a few miles with me. I have been racking my brain the last couple of weeks trying to figure out ways to motivate myself and the other night it hit me. I was watching a documentary on the Iraq war and a Marine who had both legs blown off by an IED was asked by a reporter if he had any regrets, his answer was "my only regret is I could not take the full force of the explosion and my buddy next to me died, that is regret I live with daily". The freaking Marine had NO LEGS and was 21 years old and all he thought of was the Lance Corporal- his brother- next to him. So when my pain gets so intense i begin to whine, I will think of that Marine who lived and has no legs, because I should feel guilty for complaining about the pain, he would likely pay $25,000 to feel that pain in his legs again. Thats all for now. Semper Fi

2 weeks

Well, 2 weeks from today we start out journey. I am basically in cruise mode now, the training is done, just running minimal 30 to 40 miles a week to keep the cobwebs knocked off. Ran 50 miles last weekend in Leadville, Co. with my buddy Rick Mayo, he finished the Leadville 100 and I just paced back the last 50. I feel like I am ready, the temps are low 90's high 80's right now which is doable, low 80's high 70's would be a lot better though.
As for the fundraising, we are just a hair above $16,000, still about $9000 short but I have faith in people, we will pull out that $25,000, I know it! The drivers are set and tons of people are asking to run a few miles here and there with me. Tony Brown our route coordinator made final arrangements with law enforcement this week and other than a couple of construction areas we have to be careful in, we are good to go. Thank you everyone and Semper Fi

Winding Down fast!

As I write this blog entry we are closing in on 21 days exactly till the start of my portion of this fundraiser. Tonight we sit at $15,203 raised so far. The goal we set was $25,000, is this still attainable, absolutely!!! Regardless of the final amount I know without a doubt there are thousands of people in the last couple of months that we have reached who never knew what the Wounded Warrior Project was. Now they do. From our fundraiser I have been contacted by 3 other individuals, two on the east coast and one in the Washington State area, all inquiring about how we went about our fundraiser. The first thing I tell them is that you have to have a group who believes in what they are doing, my wife has spent countless hours on this fundraiser. Dan Elsener was the reason we even got this ball rolling, without those two and there hard work this summer, I say without hesitation, this fundraiser would be no where near what it is today.

The territory manager for Mizuno USA, Sophia Wharton and her fiance Ben Holmes have literally clothed me to do this run. Sophia and her company provided me with ample amounts of new Mizuno Precisions and to top that her and Ben paid for extra pairs out of there pockets to ensure I had enough brand new pairs to change every 50 miles, thats 5 pairs of brand new shoes. Mizuno donated so much apparel for this, It would take me an hour to type it all! Thank you both, I am truly in your debt.

Brent Welch with Resort Promo Wear is still selling event shirts and donating a portion of the sales to us. Eric Steele the RD of FlatRock 25/50k is donating a portion of race entries to us, up till Aug 25th and Phil and Stacy Sheridan are doing the same with the Horse Thief Canyon 10k. Darin S. whom is running the Leadville100 this weekend is taking per mile donations and giving that to the fundraiser. People have been so giving it is unreal.

The American Legion Riders will be escorting me through most major towns along the route. Tony Brown our route coordinator has put his fair share of hours into this and will be with us as well for the duration. The post event party is at HOOTERS Wichita, they will be giving away visors, hats and shirts, plus other specials. That will be from 2-5pm Sunday Sept 12th, at the completion of the fundraiser.

As for me, this weekend will be my last long training run before the fundraiser. I will pace Rick Mayo back the last 50 miles of the Leadville 100. After that I am basically shutting it down for two weeks, with minimal running, just enough to stay loose. I am confident I have prepared myself the best I can, many 130 - 140 mile weeks this summer.The only concern I have at this point is the weather, if we get into the 90's it will definitely affect my body on day two. Other than that things are great and I am ready to get started and get this over with, so I can take at least a month off from running!!! Thanks everyone, Semper Fi, Tony

Post event party!!!!

You cannot do a fundraiser of this size and not have a post event party. So, Hooters of America, who by the way is a huge supporter of Wounded Warrior Project and the US Military in general has offered to do the following. Start September 1st, we will have a Wounded Warrior advertisement on the marquee here in Wichita. There will be a post event party from 2pm to 5pm on Sunday September 12th, following our fundraiser run. This should give me time to get cleaned up, go to MASS, sleep an hour or two and then go party! They are donating the following.

- First 50 men and women in the door get visors and t-shirts.

- 15% discount on food

- Whatever amount you donate to the fundraiser they will match with a gift card for your next visit.

- Kids under 10 eat for free

- Finally, Hooters of America will donate $1000.00 on top of all this to our fundraiser!!!

Needless to say we are very happy about this event. Please come by and eat, have a beer or 10 and hang out with me and the others.
Please remember if you are a runner that Eric Steele RD of FlatRock25/50k is donating $5 per entry and $10 if we get 100 entries by Aug 25th. I will be there running as well and would love to chat with any of you who show up. Getting close, only about a month out, lets get this done for the Wounded Warriors!!!! Semper Fi

Heating up!!!

Well today was pretty darn hot in Wichita, hit about 106 I think with a 115 or so heat index. So what did I do, yep, went for a run. No telling what the temps will be like a month from now, so I am pushing hard in this heat and the great thing is I truly feel like I am climatized about the best I can to it. Lots of water, endurolyte caps and a gel every now and then and it's all good. Now to touch on some more topics.

- Mizuno USA!!!! Sophia Wharton the mid-west rep for Mizuno has far exceeded what I would call stepping up and helping. Basically Mizuno has me set for the entire run and I mean everything. So I should be a running/walking Mizuno poster boy during the fundraiser. She has not only offered assistance but went out of her way to do it, so for all you runners or just people that wear shoes, shorts, shirts any type of athletic apparel, please look into buying Mizuno and supporting them. They have stepped up in a HUGE way. Just to be fair I will let all of you know that I contacted every major shoe brand out there a couple months ago, explained what we are doing for the Wounded Warriors and asked if they would kindly kick in a pair or two of shoes. All of them told me NO, except Mizuno.

- A Topeka, Kansas area runner named Darin Schneidewind will be running the Leadville 100 in a couple of weeks. The Leadville 100 starts in Leadville, Colorado and twist and turns through the mountains until you make it to Winfield, which is the 50 mile turn around. Then you get to do it in reverse! During this little jaunt, you go over the infamous HOPES PASS, not once but twice, basically climbing 5 miles straight up switchbacks getting up above 12,000 feet. The entire 100miles you are above 10,000 feet for the most part, piece of cake for a Kansan who lives at about 800 feet!! Well Darin is using this race to help raise money for our fundraiser, he is taking per mile donations. So far he has 4 or 5 people I think kicking in .50cents per mile. So, if you have any interest in motivating Darin to get through the pain, either email me and I will get you in contact with him or contact him through facebook. Oh by the way, Darin won the Kettle Moraine 100 mile this year in June, so if your gonna pledge, plan on paying, the dude is an AWESOME RUNNER!

- Runners here is one for you. The founder and race director of the FlatRock 25/50k races in September has given you an opportunity to not only run one of the toughest races in the midwest but help us by doing so. If you sign up for his race he is kicking us $5 per entry until August 25th, but wait there's more!!! If we get 100 people to sign up by the 25th he will give us $10 per entry, that is $1000!!! So, if you want to help and run a great race please check out http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1802433
Sign up ASAP!!!

Well that will be it for tonight, I will get a little more info on here in a day or two. If you have any intentions of coming out and running any of this, please give me a heads up here pretty quick. Tony Brown our route guru and point of contact with all law enforcement needs to give them a heads up to what kind of numbers to expect. Thanks and Semper Fi, Tony

40 days to go!

Sorry I have slacked on posting here! I will cover some now and some later, alot has happened here recently. First of all, we broke the halfway mark on donations and are just shy of $13,000 right now. For all of you that do not use "facebook" you can still access our fanpage on the right side of this blog without being a member, just click on the link and you will go to the page. You cannot post anything unless you are a facebook member, but atleast you can read all the comments, we have over 1100 fans and new stuff pops up everyday.
-We had a bit of an RV situation a few weeks and really freaked me out for a day or two. Our original RV plan, excuse my language "went to hell" and I had no idea what we were gonna do. I called around and it was no less than $1000 to rent one for the weekend plus a $500 deposit. I called every RV place in Wichita and surrounding areas but no one was willing to assist us or donate one. So using the awesome tool that Facebook is, I sent out a plea for help basically. The next day I received a message from Julie Toft a friend of Angel and I's and an ultrarunner in the KC area. Julie spoke with a friend of her's named Mike Peek of the KC area. This next part is truly amazing, Mike e-mails me and has never even spoken to me before and said we have 100% commitment from him to use his RV the entire weekend. Need I say more about how awesome this guy is, I finally spoke with him over the phone the other night and he really is a great guy, saying things like "he is truly blessed and looks for ways to help others". He is now a friend for life!

-We are still going to need a few people who would like to help with driving duties on the RV, Mike and I would both prefer someone who has driven one before or isnt scared to drive it. I believe he said its a 32'foot RV. We basically have the first day covered with no problem at all, but going into friday night Sept 10th and Saturday Sept 11th, we may need some relief drivers. By that time we will be well south of Salina, Kansas and on our way to Wichita. Please contact me if you would like to help, I will get you in contact with Kyle Amos who is our "route" navigator.

-I have had many people ask about running with me. I will ofcourse never turn down a running partner but after speaking with my crew, they asked me to make a few things clear. We will not logistically be able to aid all the runners that come out, please bring your own food and water. Make sure you have a vehicle to drop you off and pick you up and the thing Kyle wanted me to stress the most is do not try to alter whatever pace I am at. I could go 10 to 15 min stretches where I have to walk or jog very slow. As much as I appreciate all the help we have to take those kind of precautions to make sure we make it to the end of the 224 miles. No matter how hard I have trained over the summer this will not be easy, I will hurt and by the end it I will mostly likely be the saddest excuse for a runner you have ever seen! I keep telling myself that my pain is temporary and I have planned and asked for it, the men and women we are fundraising for did not ask for the daily pain they endure. So I tell you ALL right now, if you catch me whining or feeling sorry for myself, tell me to shut up and move! I do not understand what words like quit or defeat mean, so I can assure you, that will not be heard.

Like I said before, I have about a month worth of stuff to tell you so I will stop here and tell you more in the next post. We have a shoe and apparel sponsor, among other things I would like you to know. Thank you for your continued support, I will either update this blog daily or every other day for the next 40 days until our event. There is not much time left but I know we can reach our goal! Semper Fi, Tony

Another Great Training Run

As many of you already know, we did a track fundraiser last weekend in the heat that proved to be successful for a couple of reasons. The first being we raised nearly $1000 and the second being I found out I could push my body at pretty extreme temps and still be OK. Well Friday night I went a different route. During the course of my "cross Kansas" run, I will be moving for multiple days, meaning a lot of fatigue. So this weekend I got in some fatigue training!
It started Thursday night. I stayed up till midnight and then made sure I was out of bed by 5am and moving. Went into work early, kept moving all day. Once I got off work I packed for the race and then got in my truck and drove to Tulsa, Oklahoma. About a two and a half hour drive. Arrived about 11pm and the 50mile run started at 12:01am. After checking in and getting my gear ready the pre-race brief started and WHAM!!! I started yawning uncontrollably. Usually this would freak me out right before a race, but its what I wanted. The first 20 miles I was moving way to quick as usual, although I was practicing my run/walking, run 20mins walk 1 min. By the end of the 2nd 10 mile loop the people told me I was in like 4th place. This is not what I wanted believe it or not. Running hard and racing is not going to get me to my goal of running across Kansas, I need steady forward motion and not breath taking speed. So I did what most runners at races would NEVER do. I sat down for 5 minutes. The people at the aide station were freaking out at first, telling me how great I was doing and keep pushing. I finally explained my situation to them and what I was training for and they all changed their tune. Most of them being ultrarunning vets understood exactly why I was doing what I was doing and why resting was of the utmost importance.
The final 30 miles I would go all the way down to 5min running and 1min walking. I decided to go to that extreme because I was testing new nutritional items and if i was going to have any adverse effects I could manage 5 mins of running on a bad stomach. To my surprise I had no issues with the new stuff and had a very enjoyable run to say the least. It was actually about a 52 mile race due to not being able to make it an exact 10mile loop. I think my 50 mile time was like 8:35 and my overall time was 8:53.
Throughout this fundraiser and the massive amount of miles I am putting in, my goal is not to get hurt or workout to the point it takes multiple days to recover. This run was perfect, no pain afterwards, no swelling and built a ton of mental toughness. Will possibly run the Summer Psycho 50k this weekend coming up and then ease back into my regular training for a few weeks.My final long training run will be pacing Rick Mayo back 50 miles at Leadville this year. Closing in on two months till the fundraiser run I feel my fitness is where it needs to be and it seems weekly I steadily progress, most of that due to my wife Angel talking sense into me about my speed I am running or when I am pushing myself to hard. Thanks sweetie!
On a money note, we broke $10,000 this week and hopefully as the event gets closer in the next two months the donations flow in!!! Semper Fi

Got what I asked for!

While sitting around the dinner table last night after the run I finally told all my friends something that probably would have gotten me beat down earlier in the day. Since we were in the AC with cold drinks and all showered up I let them know for the last week "I have prayed that it be HOT on Saturday". After some laughs and dirty looks I didn't bring that up again.
Rick Mayo and I arrived at the track around 5:30, with Angel, Kristi and Adrian Mayo following close behind. When 6am snuck up on us there were already a couple of runners there. Peter Euler and a guy who read about us in the paper Friday probably ran the first 5 or 6 miles with me and then we eased into our own paces. By around 10am we must have had around 150 people on the track and somewhere close 200 all together just hanging out and supporting. The Air Force were the first of the military to arrive, some where between 20 and 30 men and women from McConnell Air Force Base. Next we had the US Army show up with about the same amount of "future soldier" and I think 6 or 7 actual Soldiers out there leading them through about 30 to 45 mins of exercises on the football field and then they did a formation run around the track. Nothing more motivating that hearing the sound of cadence being yelled by 30 kids about ready to go to bootcamp. Shortly there after the Navy showed with probably pretty close to 30 as well. They did a full physical fitness test and by this time we were well in the mid 90's for temps. Hooters of Wichita also sent out a couple "Hooters Girls" to assist and motivate. Well that leaves one branch of service, my boys the Marines! I say this with my head hung low, they no showed! That is all I will say about that for fear I will cuss on this blog and tell you I really feel!!!
Nonetheless, even though the Marines no showed we had alot of tough men and women who were not in the military show up as well. My Aunt Mary and her friends from Curves Health Club came out and knocked out 5 miles I think, they were getting pledges from people at Curves. Tunie a great women from Wellington, Kansas and her husband came out, Tunie walked well into the heat of the day. After running 16 miles in the hills of Kingman, Randy, Winston and Zach drove back and knocked out 4 more with me in the heat, then Winston went home and did yard work and came back at 2pm when it was REALLY hot and helped me trudge through the last hour. Fernando Martinez came out for the last two hot hours of the day and ran with Rick and I. Karla Gregg and her daughter joined us for a few miles, there were so many others please forgive me for not mentioning all the names, these are just the ones my fried brain can remember.
We made just under $1000 at the track and still have people collecting pledges for a days. Peter Euler donated another $300 when he got home, he has already donated $500!!
The showing of support was awesome, it is great to know that so many people really care about our nations Wounded Warriors! I really needed the heat training yesterday but I got alot more, I was starting to fall into a rut and lose motivation. All of you who showed relit my fire for this great fundraiser and I will be full throttle once again. For me, I hit my 50 mile goal for the day in under 9 hours, the last couple of hours when the temps were around 100 and the heat index and heat off the track just seemed to cook you got a little tough, but hey, I asked for it literally. I would like to give a special thanks to Lee Crane who due to injury could not run Western States 100 yesterday but came down and did just about everything including knocking out miles with me. Rick and Kristi Mayo for the hundreds of pics they took and a video to come. Most of all my wife Angel, who always knows what I need when I need it and made sure my nutrition did not slack at all.
All in all a very productive day, great heat, hit my goal, feel great today and motivated to train. Again thank you for the support and Semper Fi!!!!

This Saturdays Track Run

Well, looking at the extended forecast this week it looks like we may be close to 100 degrees on Saturday. Obviously I would love a huge turnout to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project, but not at the expense of someones health and safety. If you plan on coming out, come out prepared! We will have water there about 7:30 or so, On the Border is going to let us fill jugs with ice and water but they do not open until 7am on Saturday. So the first hour you will need to be self sufficient. I have had many questions about the direction we will be going on the track. For those of you running any long distance I strongly advise you to change up directions at some point. I will be running one mile clockwise and then one mile counter clockwise. Running in circles for multiple hours the same direction is a receipt for an over use injury.
We will have a couple of white pop up shelters, the restrooms will be open and we will try to utilize what shade there is out there. Take into consideration that this is a track and will be wide open! If you are not an experienced runner or have not trained for multiple hours in the heat, please come out early for your own safety. I will be starting at 6am sharp and ending at exactly 3pm. As I have said before this is going to be a heat training run for me, so please forgive me if I do not have a long conversation with any of you during the 9 hours, before and after I will chat all you want. After the first 3 hours or so I will be focusing on what a lot of ultrarunners call runwalking. I will run for 20mins or so and then powerwalk for a minute or two. It is not going to be possible for me to run the entire 224 miles across Kansas, there will be quite a bit of power walking towards the end I am sure. It may sound funny to some of you but practicing your powerwalking is actually very beneficial. For people who do not powerwalk regularly it can be just as challenging as running, you walk at such a pace you do not allow your body to completely cool down or relax. This is usually utilized in the later stages of most ultramarathons by those of us humans who cannot physically run the entire 100miles. I used this strategy at the Rocky Raccoon 100 mile run this past February and it turned out to be the best thing I ever did!!!
Please if you have any questions call me or e-mail me. Thanks

June 26th Track Run Fundraiser

Next Saturday June 26th from 6am to 3pm we will doing a 9 hour track run at the Maize South Track, which is located at the corner of 37th and Tyler for those of you that do not know. You do not have to run all 9 hours!!!! I will be using this as a 9 hour training run and i am trying to get people out there not only to keep me company but also to raise some more money for the Wounded Warrior Project. If you can afford to make a donation of any size it would be appreciated greatly or we had the idea of a dollar for every lap you complete, totally up to you. This is a public track for all to use so we cannot make anyone pay, if you cannot donate come out and participate anyway, its gonna be a blast. The principal of Maize South Middle School, Jess Herbig is kind enough to allow us to use the bathrooms this day also. So yes for those of you that have e-mailed and asked me, we will have bathrooms!
Some members of Curves health club are getting sponsored per lap they do, employees from On the Border will be there. We will also have a few HOOTERS girls out there to pass out water. It saddens me to say but the only branch of service that has given me a solid commitment on being there and at what time is the US ARMY. They will be there at 10am with some of there future soldiers. So if you want to meet some kick ass warriors and future warriors please come on out around 10am.
We have runners coming from as far south as Texas and a handful from Topeka and the Kansas City area. You DO NOT have to run, this is a walk, jog, run or whatever you choose to do. There will also be a flag present at the track that was presented to me by the American Legion Riders and I ask that you do not leave without signing the flag. We will have water there after 7am, "On the Border" in New market Square is going to supply us with ice and water for our jugs but they will not be there till 7am, so wait till about 7:30 if your not bringing water.
Rick and Kristi Mayo with "Mile 90" productions will be there as well, making the trip all the way from Kearney, Missouri taking pictures and doing a video of the run which we will post on facebook, the blog and YouTube. I truly hope we have a large turnout and raise an enormous amount of money for the Wounded Warriors! Semper Fi, Tony

GREAT NIGHT! Thank you "On the Border"

Tonight was a great reminder to me that there are a TON of people out there who support our nations Wounded Warriors! At one point people were waiting to be seated, I met people tonight I had never met before that just came up there to eat and say hi, and tell us that they love our fundraiser. Angel made contact with a local radio station today and I am pretty sure they got the word out as well.

We will not know till tomorrow what we made tonight, but I am sure it will be great. To my family, friends and people I had never met, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Not only was this a great night for us but also the reassurance people still care for our troops was displayed tonight. Captain Peter Euler, US ARMY stopped by in uniform to eat and say hello, we had never met until tonight and Peter donated a substainal amount of money to us last month. While waiting two different people offered to pay for his meal, AS IT SHOULD BE! So what does Peter do, he gives our fundraiser $40 more dollars!!! What a great guy and I am a better person for finally being able to meet him tonight. A ton of the local Wichita Runners and Kansas Ultrarunners Society members showed up to support us, as well as people from Newton, Belle Plain, Derby and Mulvane made the trip.

The American Legion Riders planned on having 40 or so riders there tonight but mother nature decided to screw that up and bring in a bunch of thunderstorms. Little did she know that a handful of them are more hardcore than she is and showed up anyway on the BIKES with American Flags for all to see. One of them being Cregg Hansen (Bronco 6), who is the Dept ALR Chairman and has been a complete blessing to know, he and the ALR's have helped us spread the word about our event like crazy. They will also be escorting me through many towns the day of the event. I had the opportunity to sit down and eat supper with the Riders that did show up and needless to say, they are probably one of the greatest groups of Americans I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Not to mention two of the founding members of the Patriot Guard were there tonight, Cregg and Steve, They told me the story of how the Patriot Guard was founded, I would tell you but then I would have to kill you, super top secret scoop there!

Once again to all that unselfishly came out and spent money to support the Wounded Warriors, thank you. Our next fundraiser will be Saturday June 26th at the Maize South Track, more info to come in the next couple of weeks, if you didn't participate tonight, please consider coming by the track June 26th. Thank you and Semper Fi, Tony

Still Rollin!!!

Sorry I have been slacking on the updates, things have been busy! I will start off first by thanking Mark Berry. Mark is a Omaha, Nebraska resident who will also be doing a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project this summer, by running his first 100mile race at the Heartland 100 in Cassodey, Kansas. Mark has sent out information about our fundraiser to just about everyone in Nebraska I think and all his hard work resulted in a live interview this morning on KFAB radio. I think the interview went well and hopefully we got the word out to some more folks also.

We are just a bit shy of $7000.00 on the money end of things, we have a long way to go to $25,000, but next Tuesday June 8th is our "On the Border" night, we will get 10% of ALL sales for the night, so please come out to the New Market Square "On the Border" if you can, for those of you in Wichita and the surrounding areas. We also have our track run at the end of June at the Maize South Track, also we have a stellar group of people in Wellington, Kansas organizing fundraisers and possibly a track run there as well, keep you posted. Dan Elsener is also in the process of organizing a track run/fundraiser in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sounds like I should have no problem getting in my miles!!! I am going to work on raffle tickets this week, I promise!!! No new raffle donors last week.

I previously posted that Lisa Smith Batchen would be here this week in Wichita for her fundraiser, well they had a logistical error and will now be in Dodge City, sorry if you planned on coming out and running.

Training
I have previously stated that I will do two heavy mile weeks and then one light week to allow my muscles to recover. This week coming up is my light week, no more than 30 to 35 miles of running, I will cross train and try and knock out a few weights. Last weeks mileage is as follows

MONDAY
AM-10.32
PM-10.50
20.82 Total

Tuesday
AM-10.43
PM-10.15
20.58 Total

Weds
PM- 15.90

Thurs
AM- 10.45
PM- 13.65
24.10 Total

Friday
OFF day

Saturday
27.25

Sunday
26.85

136 miles total for the week.
Pretty productive week of training, no injuries and no soreness, so i am quite happy with the results. After this rest week I would like to knock out back to back 130mile weeks and see how I feel? Thank you everyone for all the support, we are 101 days away from the event!!!! Gonna be here before we know it. Semper Fi !!!!

Lisa Smith Batchen fundraiser

Lisa Smith Batchen is a very accomplished ultrarunner that is running a 50miler in all 50 states in somewhere around 60days. She will be in Wichita, Kansas on June the 3rd to do her 50 at Sedgewick County Park. Please check out her webpage http://www.runhope.com/ If you have any other questions please contact me!!!!

Getting there!!!!

Sorry about the late end of week post. Last week we received confirmation from Joe Prusatis of the donation of 4 free entries to his races for the raffle. For those of you that do not know Joe, he is a race director in Texas of just about every ultramarathon that goes on down there. He has given us a free entry to Rocky Raccoon, Bandera, Cactus Rose and Nueces. Adding all of these up I am sure we are around $500 or more of free entries.
As for the raffle, I wanted to have the tickets done this weekend but I was tied up doing other things, I will work on it this weekend and try to get them out to you guys. We have broken the $6000 mark on donations, so that puts us right at about 25%!!! We also have a group in Wellington, Kansas that is starting a fundraising campaign for us down there.
My training is going well, did not quite get in the miles I wanted to last week but life kind of got in the way, I will make up for it the next two weeks!!! Thank you all of you for the support and please keep it up, I promise to do a better job updating this blog!!!! Semper Fi

End of week report

I am doing my end of week report a few days early, since we will be visiting friends this weekend. I will start off with my training for the week. Not much going on really, it was my "easy" week, I ran Tues, Weds and Thurs. Two of those days I did speed work and one day I did incline work on the treadmill, I only ran 5 miles each day. Tomorrow I will do 15 miles and call it good for the week, a nice easy 30 mile week running, did a lot of weights and other strenghning exercises. Next week since I am good and rested up, I will be aiming for somewhere around 115 to 130 miles, kinda depending on the weather. Karla Gregg wrote a great article on our fundraiser this week in the Wichita Running Examiner, a newspaper in Missouri is doing a spread on our fundraiser next week and we were contacted by two more radio stations. Not to mention the 20 or so e-mails I received this week from various people stating the have passed our press release on to paper and media outlets all over the country. We have over 800 fans on the Facebook fan page, every state is represented as well as 7 different countries!! Word of mouth is the best way to spread the word.

I received a new pair of shoes from Sophia at Mizuno today. Since my 15 miles tomorrow will be on trail, I will wait till Monday to properly break in those Mizuno's, probably somewhere in the ball park of 22 to 25 miles??? Very excited about those shoes, I have been a 100% Asics guy for years, but something tells me that I may be changing it up. I have tested out all the other gear Mizuno sent me and it is all top notch! I highly recommend all of you to give any Mizuno product a go, the shorts especially, they are called the "Mustang". I liked the pair they gave me so much I ordered 3 more pairs the next day!

The RAFFLE!!!! We will be doing one raffle only, which is not a bad thing really. I contacted 5 race directors, various health and fitness clubs and other groups pleading with them to let me hold a raffle or help me advertise it. One group, the American legion Riders offered to help us promote it and other than that no response from anyone else??? So, July 10Th at the Summer Psycho 25k/50k at Wyandotte County Park we will hold one raffle. We will start selling tickets next weekend and have an online option for those of you not in the Kansas area if you would like to participate. The tickets will basically consist of your name and phone number, if you win and are not present, I will contact you and get your mailing address and mail the gift to you. Since we anticipate people from other states buying tickets we have mainly tried to stick with national chain businesses, so that way they can be used anywhere. We do however have some very generous local businesses owners who have pitched in more than there share, so if an issue comes up where you get a local Wichita prize we will address that issue then.

HOOTERS!!! Spoke with one of the regional reps for Hooters today, Amanda. She confirmed that Hooters will host our post event party Sunday Sept 12Th at there Wichita location. She is working with US Foodservice trying to get a substantial food donation from them so we can have a FREE food buffet possibly, as well as drink specials/door prizes. For our June 26Th track fundraiser a few of the "Hooters Girls" from here in Wichita will be coming out to the track to help out as well. Amanda and I will be having a face to face meeting sometime in the next month or so to work out the post event party and a time line, I will keep you posted.

Raffle donors as of 5/14/2010
-On the Border
-Nu Way
-Denny's
-Red Beans Bayou Grill
-Sonic
-Applebees
-Buffalo Wild Wings
-Famous Daves BBQ
-Olive Garden
-Pei Wei Asian Diner
-Texas Roadhouse
-PF Changs
-Outback Steakhouse
-Best Buy
These are the places that I actually have gift cards in hand, I still have a lot of people and businesses that have given me verbal commitments, but like I have said before, I will only promote those who have come through for us. Also, 90% of those businesses I mentioned donated multiple cards, one for example is Outback Steakhouse, they gave us 4 - $50 gift cards for the raffle. So I strongly encourage all of you going out to eat this weekend or anytime for that matter to support these businesses, because they are supporting the Wounded Warriors 100%!!!! Every Friday I will update new gift cards and donations received by businesses.

Thank you for all the support and thank you for helping our nations Wounded Warriors. Semper Fi!!!!

Check out the PODCAST!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, pretty darn good week if you ask me. We still haven't broke that $5000 mark, but we will, seem to be stuck around $4700? We received about 4 more gift cards for the raffle this week and I sent out a handful more requests. The way it's looking right now we probably won't have two raffles, can't find any takers here in Wichita so I am at wits end begging people to let me hold a raffle. Next weekend we will start selling raffle tickets for $1 a piece and we will have an online sign up as well. You do not have to be present to win, I am going to make a raffle ticket with name and phone number on it, you can buy as many tickets as you want. The raffle will be held sometime during or after the Kansas City Trail Nerds Summer Psycho 25/50K on July 10Th at Wyandotte County Park here in Kansas. If any of you out of staters choose to help and buy a raffle ticket, if you win I will call you and get an address and mail you the prize! I will keep you posted.

There is a link at the top of the page if you have not heard the podcast yet, it's about 20 mins long. I would like to thank Ben Holmes who had lunch with Kevin from Endurance Planet earlier in the week and put the bug in his ear!

Speaking of raffle this brings me to my next point. Over the last two weeks I have received multiple e-mails asking me who the restaurants/businesses are that are donating. I was going to wait a while before I stated the donors but one lady made a great point. She wants to support businesses that support the Wounded Warriors, so next Friday I will post a list of all restaurants/businesses that have graciously donated and I will do this every friday from here on out until the raffle. On the flip side of that, she wanted to know who has turned us down. I told her I would rather not name the people who said no, although a few of them I would like to. Let me just tell you this and for those of you from the Wichita area it will clear a lot up. I drove down Rock Road and Maize Road one month ago, I wrote down every restaurant/fast food/other businesses I felt might donate. For those of you not from Wichita, just picture that main street in your town where you have the choice of about any restaurant or store you can think of. So, without naming the names of those who said no, that should clear it up for most of you. I do not expect every business to donate to our fundraiser, but like most other veterans and families of veterans, I will support the places that support those that serve in uniform; its that simple.

I received one of two pairs of shoes that Vasque donated to me for training purposes, the Mindbender, great shoes as usual! This shoe is super lightweight, I ran about 32 miles in them on Saturday morning, it says a lot about a shoe when you can pull it out of the box, throw it on, go run 30 plus miles and not have an issue. Thanks Vasque! I also received a VERY UNEXPECTED package from Mizuno USA this week, specifically from there Midwest Rep, Sophia Wharton. She sent me shorts, shirts, sleeves, jacket, long sleeve and shoes on the way! Needless to say I was a running Mizuno poster boy today, I kinda felt guilty and dirty running in my Asics. Sorry Sophia! I have not made it up to Topeka yet, but Willie Lambert with Great Plains Running Company has gear there waiting on me, keep you posted on that.

Other than that, things went great this week, put a little over a 110 miles in pain free. This next week will be an easy for me, no more than 30 miles. I have spoke with 4 newspapers, 3 radio stations and one nationally syndicated talk show; should be a busy summer! Don't forget to check out the shirts at the top of the page as well, there are t-shirts, running shirts, hoodies, kids clothes etc etc etc. We get 50% of all sales of the clothing, that is Brent Welch owner of Resort Promo Wears donation. Thank you everyone!!!

Closing in on $5000

Hey everyone. We are about $400 shy of $5000!!! We are getting there slowly but surely,hopefully after some of out June and July fundraisers wrap up the money will start flowing in! Other than that, not much new is going on. Putting a ton of miles on my legs and still trying to get as many gift cards as possible for the raffles. Still no definite spot for the Wichita raffle but we are working on it. Kinda baffles me how much trouble we are having in Wichita???
As for the KC raffle, Ben Holmes and Trail Nerd nation have that under control! I am looking forward to that raffle and the great group of runners that come out to those events. Check back in a few days. Semper Fi !!!

End of Week training

Well, another week of training in the books. In my opinion it was very productive, got in a lot of miles and was injury and pain free. As I have stated before, throughout the summer I will do two really high mileage weeks in a row, somewhere around a 100plus miles each week and then an easier week, somewhere around 30 to 35 miles of running. On the easy weeks I will also get miles on the bike and hopefully once the weather warms up a little more, start getting a lot of pool time in!!! So here's how the week went for me.

Monday
AM= 7.25
PM= 11.20

Tues
AM= 9.25
PM= 11.20

WEDS
AM= 10.40
PM= 10.25

Thurs
AM= 8.40
PM= 10.15

Sat
23.90

Sun
15.25

Week Total = 117 miles

I will only run 5 days this week, I am taking tomorrow off to heal from this weekend and i will take Friday off to get ready for the weekend. Semper Fi!!!!!!

First Month Results

As of today we have one full month of fundraising in the books and have $3,800 in donations to this point. We are quite a ways from $25,000 but we have quite a bit going on in June and July, so hopefully the numbers will start raising quickly. On the business donations like I said before, I have found that the few businesses that are looking at helping us have anywhere from a 30 to 90 day period before they actually pay out the donation. I have four businesses that have gave me a verbal "YES" for a donation, but I am not counting any money till we have it.

Great Plains Running Company in Topeka, Kansas has graciously donated Hammer Gel, HEED Sports drink, socks, compression sleeves and speaking with some of there vendors about shoes. Willie and Karen Lambert the owners are going above and beyond to help our fundraiser, so please, if you are in Topeka, Kansas please look these fine people up. It's a family owned local running store!
Vasque Shoes has generously donated 2 pairs of shoes for me to train in, they would have loved to do more but budget restrictions have a lot of companies in a bind right now. Thank you Vasque, I will never complain about free running shoes. I do not have the exact number yet but Brent Welch at Resort Promo Wear in Wichita, Kansas is doing our shirts (link is above if you have not bought one!!!) and he said Monday when he gets the month end numbers, in his words "we will be very pleased". Many of you have contacted me that you bought shirts and hoodies and I would like to thank all of you!!! I have more gift cards than I can even begin to name, once I get them all in, I will let you know which businesses are stepping up to help the Wounded Warrior raffle. For the most part about 95% of the businesses I have went to or e-mailed have had open arms or at least had the courtesy to contact me back and let me know why they cannot. For those businesses who have not, just start doing push-ups!

Below is the list of April financial donors, these are in order by first name, no order as to who donated what.
Allie Lawerence
Alvin Wynia
Chris Fryer
Debbie Webster
Eric Steele
Phil Contreras
Gary Clark
Jacquelyn Fryer
Jamie Stewart
Jessica Caizza
Joe and Joyce Prusaitis
Julie Toft
Kevin Delong
Laurie Euler
Lee Crane
Luke and Jennifer Campbell
Mike Adams
Randy Albrecht
Robert "Bob" Murphy
Roger Laughary
Sara Morales
Seth Weil x2
Sheryl Kustra
SSGT Ethan & Mrs.Melody
Stuart Ray
Tony and Angel Clark x2

Those names above are responsible for the first $3,800. Some of the other groups that have stepped up are the American Legion Riders, they will be escorting me through a few towns along the route. Tony Brown has the logistics and mapping all done for the route and the US Marines, US Navy and US Army recruiters here in Wichita and OKC are helping in a big way with our "mini"fundraiser/track run in June. I will be posting a schedule of events at the top of the blog page in the next week for the months of June and July. Kristi Mayo has finished our press release and has compiled a HUGE list we are gonna get it out to. Sorry if I forgot anyone, email me and I will get you in the end of May report. Thank you for all your support everyone, I know we will reach our financial goal! I will put a end of week report tomorrow of my training for the week, so check back tomorrow night. In closing I will give you a quote from my buddy Kevin Delong. Earlier this week I thanked him for all his help and hard work, he then told me "no thanks needed, people need to quit just saying they support the troops and start doing!" Well said Kevin.

Still going!

Sorry I haven't updated for a few days, but a lot has been going on. Today Kristi Mayo put together a press release for our event that is in my opinion FREAKING AWESOME!!! We should start getting it out to people later this week or early next week, hopefully it will get us a little exposure. Yesterday the fundraiser was a topic of discussion on a radio program in the Bay Area, the DJ is a Iraq War vet that said he will continue to promote our fundraiser the best he can.

I have had a lot of people ask who has donated for the raffle, so on Sunday I will compile a list of all businesses that I have received gift cards or donations from, as well as people who have donated. I will do this at the end of every month, those who donate need a little recognition in my opinion! I have a lot of verbal "yes I will donate" from many businesses, but only the ones who have completed the task will be recognized. That's all for now.

End of week news and T-shirt info

One more week and we will have completed our first full month of fundraising and up to this point it has been nothing short of amazing! The personal donations are closing in on $3500 and we have many businesses that have committed to a financial donation as well. I am finding out that with many of the larger corporations and businesses it can take up to 90days for these things to get approved through the proper channels, glad we started when we did!!! Below I will just briefly hit on some key things that have happened over the week. This was a "light" week for my training, but I will ramp up the miles considerably next week again. Depending on what my body is telling me, my training will most likely stay at 2 or 3 high mileage weeks and 1 lighter week with low miles and a lot of cross training. GOTTA STAY INJURY FREE!

- I made a mistake with the T-shirts. I told everyone they were sweat wicking, well the shirts for $10 are actually cotton T-shirts. Brent at Resort Promo Wear has put the sweat wicking shirts on there now, they are $5 more, SORRY!!! That was totally my fault.www.allthesetees.com

-Tuesday June 8th, 2010 at "On The Border" New Market Square is Wounded Warrior night. We will get 10% of sales from that evening between 4pm to 10pm. I spoke with Leah one of the managers this week, she is making flyers and I will have them out next week. The Army is talking about bringing a HUMVEE for the kids to check out and I am hoping we can fill the lot with bikes from the American Legion Riders!!!

- Still have no definite place for a Wichita Raffle??? I had no idea that it would be this difficult to find an event in Wichita, oh well, I am still trying. I have a HUGE stack of gift cards from restaurants and other businesses stacking up next to me here, it would be a shame to have to hold two raffles in the KC area.

- Saturday June 26th at the Maize South School track we will have our 9 hour walk/jog/run. We are asking everyone to come out and if possible donate $1 per lap you do. Its an "on your honor" event, I will run the entire 9 hours for a training run. Looks like we will possibly have MILE 90 productions there making a video and taking pictures. So far we have the Marines, Army, Navy and Wichita FD all committed, not to mention 3 local businesses challenging employees. One businesses owner said for every lap his employees do whether it be walk or run, he will match it! Sounds like a GREAT idea to me! I have already spoken to people from the KC area that are coming down for the track event and doing fundraising for me in that area, WOW, the support is tremendous!

As I have said before, I am open to any suggestions and comments. Please call me any time 316-253-6915. Thank you all and Semper Fi, Tony

Basic questions for Tony

For those of you whom I have never met,this is a short video of me. Kyle Amos is just asking some basic questions about the fundraiser and Wounded Warrior project. If I look a little out of it, its because we just finished a marathon about 45Min's before!

T-shirts are done!

As I stated yesterday, Brent Welch of Resort Promo Wear is just about as awesome of a guy as there is. Not only did he get the shirts up for sale today and make the price an unbelievable $10, he went one step further. This is a quote from the e-mail I received from Brent today "I figured we would give $5 for every shirt sold back to you". WOW! So you can get a shirt for $10, he will ship it to you and $5 dollars of that is going to the Wounded Warriors. www.allthesetees.com
Brent is also offering hoodies, tank tops and long sleeve tees, these obviously are a different price but he is still giving on heck of a deal. There are 4 color options- grey, pink, sandstone and white. I cannot tell you how excited we are about this, we will also be selling shirts at some of the "mini" fundraisers throughout the summer. Please check these out and if your business or maybe some other event needs some type of apparel please consider giving Brent a call or check his company out on line. www.ResortPromoWear.com

T-Shirts! And we broke $2500 today!!!

A childhood friend of Dan Elsener, Brent Welch owns Resort Promo Wear here in Wichita, Kansas. www.ResortPromoWear.com Brent has come up with a pretty cool shirt for us and the first batch should be ready Friday. At that time he will give me a price of what the shirt cost for him to make, we will add $5 to the shirt cost and that $5 will go towards our goal. Brent has agreed to make the shirt's at straight cost, this is his donation to our event! Quite a gift, usually people mark up the shirt, charge a printing and screening fee, this is going to be a great deal for all of us. These will be sweat wicking "running style" shirts.

I just returned home from speaking with the Marines, Army and Navy recruiters about there participation in our June 26th track run fundraiser. All 3 of these military branches are truly going out of there way to help. Some are providing humvees for the kids to look at and handing out water bottles and shirts. We are working with the FireDept about getting a ladder truck out there as well. If you can walk a lap around a track, please show up June 26th. If 1000 people walk one lap and pay $1, that is a lot of money and so easy!!!
Angel went and picked up more gift cards for the raffle today and we have to present a proposal to the YMCA for setting up our "Wichita" raffle at there 8k event here in June,(Rock and Run) more details when this is finalized. We have also broke $2500 in personal donations in less that one month, this is donations from just people! We should have the number on corporate donations so far in the next week or so. All of you are great, thank you and keep up the good work! Semper Fi

Inaugural Kansas Marathon/ great training day

Well, all in all a really great day. This was an inaugural race so I figured it would be a bit unorganized and chaotic, I was wrong. Very well organized with a lot of experienced runners as volunteers, I highly recommend this marathon!I talked to Kyle a little over a week ago and asked him if he was up for a paved training run, he hesitantly said "what do you have in mind". (Kyle will be one of the key members to my 224mile run) I told him about the marathon and to my surprise he immediately said YES! Kyle lives in Olathe, Kansas and runners in northeastern Kansas have the luxury of having some really great trail systems and you have groups such as the Lawrence Trail Hawks and Kansas City Trail Nerds who utilize those trails daily. We do not have that luxury in the Wichita area, when I want off road, I go to the "big ditch". So most runners in that area prefer the trails over road running. Kyle, myself and Greg Burger another ultrarunner we knew, was out for a training run as well, so we stuck together and chatted the entire race.

Planned on a 4 hour finish today, wanted to work on slowing my pace and eating regularly,(hammer gels) but we got hung up in the marathon atmosphere and finished about 20mins sooner than planned. Oh well, I have a few more months to get it right. Usually I finish in the high 2:40's or low 2:50's, so today was really fun for us. We talked and encouraged others the entire time. The whole point of today was a good paved training run and to be pain free at the completion, we accomplished that today.
I look forward to another great week of training and fundraising ahead. Lower miles for the week ahead, but a lot of speed work. Seems to be working for me, doing 2 weeks of decent long miles and then a lighter week of hard speed work and tempo runs. I will keep you posted on any new news or sponsors! Semper Fi, Tony

More great people offering help!

I am making every attempt to keep this blog updated with all new info, so I do not forget anyone or anything. We received more gift cards yesterday from local businesses for our raffles. As many cards as we are getting it seems that two raffles will most likely be the logical thing.

We do have one raffle location locked down for sure, it will happen Saturday July 10th at Wyondaotte Country park at the Kansas City Trail Nerds; Mizuno Cabrakan PsychoPsummer 15mile and 50k race. Most likely sometime in the afternoon once the majority of the racers have finished. Race directors BadBen Holmes and Sophia Wharton have graciously offered to let us set up a table at which time we will sell raffle tickets for $1 each. At this point we are looking at somewhere around 20 to 25 items to be raffled, mostly restaurant gift cards but we have been in contact with some local electronics businesses who are showing interest? Please check out the race website at www.psychowyco.com If you want to run arguably one of the toughest trails in Kansas or are a marathoner kicking around the idea of venturing into the world of Ultrarunning I highly suggest this race, I ran this event in 2007 and 2008 and never left disappointed! I am trying to lock down a raffle spot in Wichita, but at this point I have no call backs? If any of you Race Directors reading this in the Wichita area want a raffle at your event this summer, drop me a line ASAP!

The next items are both also highly motivating as well, the first being a woman by the name of Beth Walz. My friend Kelly introduced me to her facebook page, so I looked Beth up and wrote her a letter explaining our event. She immediately wrote back with interest and apparently has a radio show as well she is trying to squeeze us into. You can check her out on facebook or go to www.AdventureWoman.com She is quite a motivating lady and I look forward to speaking with her in the future.
All of you who follow the facebook page know that as soon as I get a donation I plaster it on the fanpage and people are coming up with new ideas to raise money daily, the one you are about to hear is the best so far! Danny Jackson an Assistant Baseball Coach for the Saint Louis University Billikens and former Wichita State Shocker slugger, contacted me last night and said that the Billikens have a "STUPID JAR" that is collecting money. Every time a player does or says something stupid one dollar goes into the jar. At the end of Day 1 we have $7 he said. He hopes to not only raise money for the Wounded Warriors he said, but hopefully at the same time his team gets a little smarter! All I can say is thanks DAN-O, we are all Billiken fans now.

Answer a few questions

The picture is from Leadville 100, what a bunch of rif-raf!
First of all I would like to again thank everyone for there support. I received a handful of emails each day from people I have never met before wishing us luck on the fundraiser and the run. A few people to this point have asked "how in the heck are you gonna run 224 miles" or "how many days is it gonna take"??? The answer to question number one is, I will not actually RUN all 224 miles, if all goes as planned and my body holds up I will run the majority of it, but in ultrarunning you learn how to run/walk, I will explain.

First of all, an ultrarunner is anyone who runs beyond the 26.2 mile range (marathon). The next step up is usually a 50k and then 50 milers and 100 milers are pretty common ultramarathon distances. The key is to find a good balance of running and walking to save your legs for multi day races. Unless you are a super stud elite athlete, which I am not, you cannot physically run for 100 miles or more. The approach that Kyle Amos and I have discussed for day one of the event is probably 20mins running 2 mins powerwalking and powerwalk all big hills. Hills suck up so much energy and calories, why burn them when you can save them for later. It takes a lot of trial and error to find your balance, for me eating a Hammer Gel every 20 mins and drinking water and HEED(sports drink) allows my body enough calories to sustain through a 100 mile event. Seeing that we will be going twice that far, solid foods will be implemented in our plan as well. Ultrarunners have to find out what there own personal bodies like after a full day of moving, you may love bananas any other day, but at mile 90 of a race they may make you sick? The body is very funny that way. We should have no problem getting through the first day and a half I think, it is night number two that is going to be a GUT check for me. If my body completely starts to shut down I will lay down on the side of the road and take 15min nap, then get back up and move. We are allowing ourselves 60hours to complete this, I feel that with Kyle and Stacey Amos who are very experienced in ultra events, Dan and Rebecca Elsener who will have medical duties over me and my wife Angel who has seen me suffer and whine at races and tells me to "suck it up and get going", I should be fine.

The hardest thing for me so far in this training is sloooooowing down. I have to re-train myself to just stay steady and not try and beat my previous times training. I will be doing multiple long training runs throughout this process and they key is to not injure myself in the process. As a competitor it has been hard going to the park and having people pass me that usually would not, but my stupid pride will get me hurt if I can't keep it in check. I just tell myself when someone blows by me, "you have to train smart, you have to train smart". I hope this cleared up somethings for a few of you new to long distance running. By the way, I am not the only crazy out there, we have over 50 one hundred mile races in the U.S. now. There is not a lot of glamour, crowds and prize money in ultramarathons, but they usually take place in some of the most beautiful areas of the country. Not to mention the lifelong inner pride you will carry forever the first time you hobble across the finish line at an ultra event. Please ask any questions you have, Semper Fi. Tony

Getting better everyday!

We have officially secured two "mini" fundraisers and two or three more are in the works! People are just amazing and continue to amaze me everyday with there generosity. The first of the two will be Tuesday June 8Th from 4pm to 10pm at "On the Border" in New Market Square Wichita, Kansas. They are going to donate 10% of sales that evening to our fundraiser, so the amount of money to be made is up to everyone showing up and eating. I will be there the entire time, On the Border is creating an event flyer that must be shown. I will post the flyer's on our fan page and here, but if you forget it don't worry, we will have a stack there for you!

The second event is for everyone to take part in and get a little exercise as well. On Saturday June 26Th from 6am to 3pm I will be doing a 9 hour training run at Maize South Middle School's track. We are asking everyone to come out and walk, jog or run sometime in that 9 hours, all we ask is you donate $1 a lap, all money going to the Wounded Warriors and toward our $25,000 goal. Since this is a non-profit event, please bring your own water and whatever else you may need, it will be HOT! As of now the US Marines, US Navy and US Army will be there joining us and bringing the future recruits of those respective services for a little workout. I can guarantee you this, nothing is more motivating than hearing a little cadence being yelled out while running. When this event gets closer we will post more details, we are working on the Wichita Fire Dept and Wichita Police Dept as well.

Training is going very well for me and the logistics of this event are just falling into place. My wife Angel, Dan Elsener, Kyle Amos and Tony Brown have already put in a ton of hours working on this and its months away. We are going to be holding two or three raffles throughout the summer at races here in Wichita and other towns. So far I have asked 12 national restaurant chains and 1 coffee chain for donations and gift cards, everyone of them with no hesitation at all said YES!!! Once we have a complete list we will post it. Thank you everyone and check back daily for updates. Semper Fi, Tony

Getting you up to speed

For some of you who do not know, we began this fundraiser officially just shy of 3 weeks ago. In that time we have received a sponsorship from Hooters of America, nearly $2000 in personal donations and have exceeded 350 people from nearly every state in the US on our face book fan page. Some of the organizations who have steeped up to assist in other ways are the American Legion Riders, 1st Marine Division Association and last but not least, we have received the personal endorsement of General Tommy Franks,US Army retired.

It has been quite an eventful 3 weeks so far and daily we receive inquiries from businesses. In the next few weeks I will explain how we plan to accomplish this mission and most of all the 224 mile run. Yes, it will be very difficult, but not impossible. The last thing we want to do as a team is put the focus on the run until the day of, our intentions are to raise awareness for the Wounded Warriors who need us and need us now. I will post stories, some will be very disturbing as to how these men and women have just been shoved back into society with little or no resources to help them get on with life as a Wounded Warrior. This is why Wounded Warrior Project is special to me and why our team is going to do all we can to reach our $25,000 goal. Many "mini" fundraising events are in the works and as soon as they are finalized we will spread the word. If any of you reading this has a suggestion or comment, please let us know. Thank you and Semper Fi, Tony

Intro: Welcome to our blog

I seem to have been given a talent to be able to endure running long distances. Up to this point I have never used that talent to help or better someone else, so I see this as the perfect opportunity to do so. Starting early summer I will do some all night training runs on the weekend and just try and increase what I do for 100 mile race preparation. My biggest fear is over training and hurting myself. So I will need to find that limit my body can endure in training and not exceed it. As for the event itself, unless both of my legs break in half; I will finish! Just running a marathon or even 100miles would not be truly sacrificing on my part, seeing that I have already done those things. Running this type of distance not only gets the attention of others, but will be the hardest thing I have ever done. There is absolutely no words to describe how awesome a Wounded Warrior is to me. Everyone who serves in the military sacrifices, but to come back home wounded or permanently injured in whatever way, has to be the ultimate sacrifice of the living. I feel that it is this country's job to honor these men and women. We have become so side tracked in this nation with everything else going on, you never hear about the Warriors anymore. We talk about the war and whether its right or wrong or the economy,healthcare, etc. The Wounded Warriors coming home get little to no attention. The harsh reality is we have men and women sitting at home right now that need us and need to know that we have not forgotten, nor will we ever forget the sacrifice they have made. My motivation is simply knowing that the money raised will go to help men and women from all branches of the military. Knowing the Wounded Warrior Project goes to the hospitals and see's these Warriors and offers assistance where they can. There is nothing worse than an individual sitting in a hospital room all alone after being injured in combat, we need to be there for them through the entire process and thats what Wounded Warrior Project does. Hopefully those who do not understand the hardships Wounded Warriors go through after they get home will be able to have a better understanding. These men and women are our responsibility. My biggest fear is that they will be forgotten and I am going to do my part to make sure this does not happen.
To date,over 34,000 members of our nation’s armed forces have been physically wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Studies estimate that more than 300,000 will suffer from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. These injuries are often devastating, leaving a formerly active young man or woman unable to care for themselves. While grateful for their return, the round-the-clock care required to treat these wounded warriors often falls on their families, giving caregivers no choice but to leave their jobs and forego healthcare of their own.
Tens of thousands of troops have been wounded in recent conflicts, many of them suffering traumatic brain injuries, amputations, and severe burns. The mission of Wounded Warrior Project is to honor and empower wounded warriors. WWP provides unique and direct programs and services that ease the burdens of the wounded and their families, aid in the recovery process, and aid in the transition back to civilian life.
Honoring the sacrifice of the those that have given so much. Please help me reach my goal of $25,000 for the Wounded Warriors of America.
At 2200 hours on Thursday September 9th, 2010, starting at the Nebraska Border and ending at the Kansas-Oklahoma border; Tony Clark will run across Kansas, along US Route 81 in 60 hours. Tony will be assisted with a rolling aid station and by local law enforcement. We will update training and progress of our mission regularly. Please show your support. Thank you!