Back at it for 2011!

The past couple weeks I’ve been to several information meetings for Team Challenge, as we recruit team members for the 2011 Napa to Sonoma race. Our team is now up to 84 members. EIGHTY FOUR! Team Vegas is officially the biggest Team Challenge team in the country right now.

Our local Honored Hero this season is a cute 8-year-old boy named Jay. He has spoke to many at our information meetings and I think he gets a little more comfortable with the large groups at each meeting. His mom did the Vegas race with us last fall. When he speaks he tells the group (in a shy little voice) about how he’s in 3rd grade and he has to have shots every other week for his Crohns and that he had 3 surgeries in 3 months in the exact same spot. He is going to be at several of our practices with his family throughout the season to hand out water to the team.

We had our kickoff party last night at Total Wine & More here in Vegas. There was a free wine tasting for participants there, that was a big draw for some people! We had food, prizes and games. Basically it was an opportunity for everyone to start getting to know one another and for us to address any last minute concerns before we start training. The participants had a short “quiz” that asked questions about running & wine country, as well as a ‘getting to know you’ game where you had to find people that met certain criteria and have them sign off on a worksheet. (Like, “Find someone who knows where our first practice is” and “Find someone born after 1980”, etc.)

One of the members of our team is a pro boxer. She’s got several different coaches in her life, between running with Team Challenge and her boxing training. I spoke with her and her husband for a while last night about her boxing as well as her entrepreneurial endeavors. I think it would be awesome to know how to box! (That just sounds so tough!) I borrowed this picture from her blog:

I’m excited to get this started, our first group training is this Saturday! I’ve got another 16+ weeks of the cheer, “Napa to Sonoma, Team Vegas gonna OWN YA!”