Washington D.C. 


Two Arbittier Accomplishments of Bravery & Endurance 

When I discovered that Jenny & Craig were doing their first ever marathon the day before (and in the same city as) a conference I was attending, I couldn't have been more excited. The super-early Sunday flight was a small price to pay to get to see them cross the finish line with big smiles on their faces, not even looking too worse for wear! Craig had done lots of races before, including a half-ironman, but the marathon was a new challenge for him that he committed to as a cool activity to do with his wife. Jenny had definitely NOT been into races -- I remember when I asked her to join me in last year's 5K Thanksgiving "Gobble Wobble" she was NOT enthused. Amazingly, she started from scratch with an insane schedule of work and kids, and even though she could only fit in about a third of the recommended training, she easily surpassed her goal of completing the race in under 6 hours! In fact, Jenny & Craig managed to beat about half of the 30,000-ish participants in the Marine Corp Marathon -- especially impressive since, well, those Marine Corp types tend to be pretty darn fit!



After cheering them on to the finish, I took the athletes to a very fancy grilled cheese lunch before we unfortunately had to part ways. As we made our way to lunch, they went from invigorated to relieved to tired to completely cramped, hobbling their way around with fake smiles hiding the underlying grimaces of lost toenails and the like.

I spent Sunday evening practicing for my own scary task -- an hour long speech in front of over a hundred experts in the field of "serious games" (video games that serve some other purpose, such as education, training, exercise, health, etc.). I'm sure this wouldn't be all that intimidating to most, but public speaking is DEFINITELY not my forte, and I'd never had to speak in front of so large a crowd for such an extended period. Luckily my many practice runs on Sunday and some great advice from more seasoned public speaker friends worked, and I made it through. I haven't received my official "marks" yet, but got some very nice emails afterwards and had about a dozen people stay almost an hour after the talk (missing lunch!) to chat about my Liemandt Foundation work. Mostly, I was just relieved to be done and happy about some great contacts I was able to make as a result of the talk.  

Posted: Mon - October 31, 2005 at 06:41 PM          

©