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Week of May 5 - 11, 2008
Weekly Features:





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Free Features:
  


    


Memberships, Sponsorships, and Business Advertising:






Like to hear Robert speak?
For info
and/or to schedule Robert to speak to a running club, at an upcoming pre- or
post-race event, a business, church,
school, youth or other group,
click here to email your information (include the date, time, and a brief description of the group
or event). |
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Are you interested in
advertising your business on Faithful Soles?
Faithful Soles now has
4,000-5,000 hits a day from athletes of all ages and
abilities from all over the
USA and more than 24 countries from around the world.
On April 25, 2007, we
experienced our highest single day traffic count
with 6,940 hits to the site!
Click here to
learn more about advertising on our site. |
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The mission of
Faithful Soles is to inspire, motivate
and encourage everyone from walkers to runners
to multi-sport athletes of all ages and
abilities. Our main outreach is to promote
walking and running for youth via our PR10K program.
Through our fund raising program, we help to support charities, schools, running clubs, race
events and
other groups. |
Please
read the true story that inspired Robert to found Faithful Soles,
The Greatest
Marathoner, which he has shared with thousands of runners and non-runners
in his writings and motivational speeches. |
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Story of the Week:
"Watch
Out for a Good Time!"
By Robert Key - Founder of Faithful Soles
Up
until mid-2006, had it been a crime to keep your time on every run, I
would have received the maximum sentence, no plea bargain, guilty as
charged....
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Watch Robert's speech on "Race
Motivation and Preparation" that he gave to Houston Fit in the fall
of 2007 during their training for the Houston Marathon and
Half-Marathon. Houston Fit is the largest USAFit training group in the
United States with more than 1,500 members enrolling for their training
programs annually. The video is approximately 20 minutes in length (be
sure around the 12:30 mark to keep watching because there is a question
and answer session after that point).
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Quote/Message of the Week:
Don't Quit!
Author: Anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're traveling seems all uphill;
When the funds are low and the debts are high--
When you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit:
Rest if you must, but don't you quit!
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won--had he stuck it out!
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow!
Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tints of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are--
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit:
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit!
Previous Quotes/Messages of the Week |
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Humor
Just for Runners:

Do you have a humorous story you
would like to share? Click here
to find out how your story can appear in our "Humor Just for
Runners" section.
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Runner of the Week:
This
week, Faithful Soles is proud to honor runner and children's book
author Brianna Grant as our "Runner of the Week".
Though Brianna "grew up" in dance
studios around the country, spending countless hours in ballet, tap
and jazz shoes, she never considered herself an athlete until she
laced up her first pair of running shoes at the age of 23. In school
she believed that the term athlete was reserved for those who play
team sports or who were fast runners, swimmers, or cyclists. "Now I
realize that I am able to enjoy running in my adult life BECAUSE of
my years as a dancer. When I hung up my dancing shoes, I fed my
creative self with writing, but there was still a void, which I now
recognize was my athletic side. I had to get outside of the dance
studio to notice how incredibly athletic dancers are - something my
mother had been trying to get through to me for years!" Realizing
that other girls and women in the world might also misinterpret
althleticism as she had, Brianna wrote We Are Girls Who Love to Run
to speak to the athlete in all of us.
"Running intimidated me, definitely. But when my husband would go
for a run and come home smiling, I knew there had to be SOMETHING
good about it. I decided to get myself off the couch and give it a
try, afterall, my body had one time endured hours upon hours of
aerobic exercise with my dance training." Starting off slowly,
Brianna ran only two blocks on her first try, and then spent most of
her "runs" walking with bursts of jogging. She slowly built up her
distance, crediting her enjoyment of the longer times to figuring
out how to breathe. "Once I fell into the right rhythm of breathing,
I was hooked! Running made me feel good about myself and for the
first time in a long time, I felt STRONG!"
A summer of 5K races in the Charlotte, NC region eventually led to
her first (and only, thus far) marathon in November of 2003. "I was
teaching third grade at the time and had a few students who were
participating in the program Girls on the Run. There were days when
I questioned my decision to train for a marathon (I was also
finishing my Master's Degree!), but these girls were so enthusiastic
about their own progress in running that THEY motivated ME to keep
on my path toward my goal of completing those 26.2 miles." In the
end, it really was her students that enabled her to cross the finish
line. "I hadn't eaten enough along the course (typical beginner
error) and was really struggling in the last few miles. My husband
ran beside me and had me focus on getting from one orange course
cone to the next - baby steps to reach the goal. As I passed each
cone I said the name of one of my students. It did the trick. I
could visualize them saying, 'Keep going, Mrs. Grant!' as our roles
as teacher and student reversed." She finised in 4:58:02, meeting
her goal of running the marathon in under 5 hours.
Now a full-time mother to three-year-old Ethan and baby Megan,
Brianna continues to feed her creative self with writing with
occasional articles for her community's newspaper, The River Current
News. Though training for distance races hasn't fit into her life
plan for a few years, the walks to the park with her children,
family hikes and short runs she can do along side her husband, or
with dog or kid in tow are treasured times in her week. "I'm not
fast, but I'm proud that I stay fit and take care of the active part
of my body and spirit. Days that I don't get to move just aren't as
vibrant for me, so I do my best to do SOMETHING, even if it is
putting in one of Ethan's CDs and dancing around the family room
with my little ones. It makes all the difference."
Nominate a Runner of the Week or
read about
Previous
Runners of the Week |
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