Happy New Year! I hope that everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday. Now that we’re back from the winter festivities, I wanted to give everyone an update on “Run Patrick Run.”

Thanks to the hard work and wonderful donations of everyone, we won the Fundraising Tiger! The Fundraising Tiger is given to a TNT participant every two weeks for a fun/interesting/great fundraising idea. We got it for the “Forrest vs. Normal Challenge” and everyone’s donations! Thank you again to everyone for donating! You are the real tigers of fundraising!

The donations are in and Normal Patrick won by a landslide! Final tally: Normal Patrick $1,505 vs. Forrest Patrick at $1,083. Surprised? So was I! I think it had a lot to do with Erica rallying many people against Forrest Patrick…

Thank you to everyone that donated! Together we raised $2,588 dollars for LLS! There’s still time to donate more so please help if you can.

For those that were rooting for Forrest Patrick, there is a silver lining in your donations defeat. Thanks to a flurry of last minute donations, the “Half Patrick” $200 side challenge was successful. So I will be going to work on Monday with my beard half shaved. Below is the picture of what I look like now. Thanks donors for the hard work; you’ve earned this picture!

Well I never thought this would happen…It appears that as we hit the 12/17 deadline, Normal Patrick is going to win and I will be running the race like a clean-shaven person! As of today, “Normal Patrick” has pulled ahead with $1,005 in donations while “Forrest Patrick” still only has $658 in donations! Want to influence the vote? Donate to vote!

Side Challenge:

This one goes out to all my Zazzle peeps. Want to get even crazier?! If I get $200 in donations by 12/17 for “Half Patrick” I’ll shave half my beard (vertical) for work on Monday. This will make re-growing facial hair for “Forrest Patrick” very interesting if that wins as well…Donate now.

Yesterday, the Team and I did our longest run of the season (so far). Eight hard miles, the longest distance I’ve ever run! It felt good, but not as good as the $1,300 in donations to LLS we’ve raised together! Thank you to everyone for continuing to donate – we are so close to getting to the $2,000 goal.

Forrest vs. Normal Update

The Run Patrick Run Challenge started out strong for “Normal Patrick,” but “Forest Patrick” has picked up steam this week. The donation tally is now $680 for “Normal Patrick” and $658 for “Forrest Patrick.” It’s so close; I have no idea which style is going to win! Want to influence the decision? Donate to vote!

It may have been only a five-mile run, but I completed my first race! Last Thursday, I ran in the San Francisco Turkey Trot (Erica volunteered and cheered) and felt great. Getting closer to marathon shape one step at a time. You know what else I’m feeling good about? Thanks to your help, we’ve raised almost $500 to help LLS fight blood cancers! Woohoo! On top of that, everyone seems to be donating for “Normal Patrick” instead of “Forrest Gump Patrick” so I get to shave soon! See below for the updated donations tally.

Want to cast your vote for “Forrest Gump Patrick” or “Normal Patrick” for the Oakland Marathon? Vote by donating to fight cancer!

Here’s what you do:

• Click on the “donate now” button to your right.
• Enter your info and your donation amount ($40 is a good starting amount).
• Click the “Add Comments” section and add a message for which type of Patrick you would like to see. Enter “Forrest” for “Forrest Gump Patrick” or “Normal” for Normal Patrick.
• Submit your donation, you’re done!

Two weeks into TNT and things are going well. We completed a five-mile run yesterday at Ocean Beach (tip: Ocean Beach is really nice in the morning). While doing the run on Saturday, I had an idea to bring some FUN to my blood cancer research fundraising – something I’m calling, “Run Patrick Run!”

Remember the part in “Forrest Gump” when he runs for three years? During that time he grows an EPIC beard and really long hair. What I’m proposing is that you donate to my TNT fundraising effort and choose if I run as normal clean-shaven Patrick or if I run as “Forrest Patrick” with long hair, a beard, and a Bubba Gump hat. The category with the highest donation wins!

The proposition:

I have a slight beard right now and I was planning on shaving at the end of December, but now I have two options:

• I keep growing the beard and my hair until the race day (March). On race day, I wear the shortest running shorts I can find, a Bubba Gump hat, and my flowing beard and hair (artist rendition below).
• I shave my beard and hair back to normal and look like a nice, well-adjusted, happy person running a marathon.

Personally, I don’t really want to keep growing my beard and hair until March, but I’m willing to do it to help motivate you to donate to research towards a cure for blood cancers. LLS is fighting the good fight and really helping to treat and prevent blood cancers and I want to do anything I can to help them win.

Here’s what you do

• Click on the “donate now” button to your right.
• Enter your info and your donation amount ($40 is a good starting amount).
• Click the “Add Comments” section and add a message for which type of Patrick you would like to see. Enter “Forrest” for “Forrest Patrick” or “Normal” for Normal Patrick.
• Submit your donation, you’re done!

If you’d like to game the system by sending this to your friends and family and getting them to donate that’s cool with me. Also, there’s no limit on how much you can donate. If you REALLY want to see my run as “Forrest Patrick” I’d say a $2,000 donation would about do it. I will update the blog every Wednesday to let people know how much has been donated to “Forrest” Patrick and Normal Patrick. The Patrick style with the highest donations when I reach my fundraising total is the winner.

PS – Erica is imploring everyone to donate to “normal” Patrick. I’m not sure why….

To help end Leukemia and Lymphoma (and other cancers that LLS fights), I’ve signed up to run the Oakland Marathon and gather donations as a part of Team In Training. TNT is a fun lil’ group that helps train people sorely out-of-shape in two ways: First, they actually train people for the running of a race (who knew there’s a RIGHT way to run???). Second, they train people to fundraise to fight blood cancer. I can run the race myself, but I need your help to fight blood cancer. Donations are your training!

Every 4 minutes someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer. Thanks to the treatments that LLS has helped to fund, the survival rate for many has nearly quadrupled. The people of LLS are doing amazing work and I am proud to be serving them. If you haven’t donated to the cause yet, now is a great time to take 30 seconds and send in a donation to support the mission to find cures and treatments for blood cancers. Thank you for your support and help, I’ll be proud to run a little bit of that race for you in March.

This is my first marathon and my first attempt at fundraising, so be gentle. Throughout the season, I’ll post updates here to let everyone know how it’s going. Check back often and let me know what kind of stuff you want me to post about in the comments!