Join Us For a GO! St. Louis “garage sale”

Technically it’s not a garage sale, because its not in a garage, but we liked the idea of telling everyone we were having a garage sale, because many people equate that with great deals. Everything is under $5.00! Actually, we will be selling past GO! apparel such as Brooks shirts, gloves, hats, along with quite a variety of technical running gear on November 19 at 8:00 am in Forest Park (near the visitor’s center). Also, we will be holding a free group training run. The group run is open to everyone and we will have post-race refreshments, along with reps from Big River Running to answer your training questions. Hope you can make it.

can you believe it? finally, a new blog post!

Well, readers, I’m finally here to update the GO! St. Louis blog.  I can’t believe it’s been this long (neither can my colleagues, who hassle me daily about how bored our poor blog readers must be with me neglecting them!).   But, here I am, and BOY do I have some updates for you!

We’re in full swing for our Halloween 10K planning, and this year is going to be the best ever, I can tell you for sure.  I, personally, am working on medal and t-shirt designs, and will have some concepts to show you in the next few weeks.  They are going to be great.  We are also once again working with Cardinals Care to do race management for their Cardinals Care 6k this coming September.  It was a great first event last year, and we look forward to a really fun weekend with them!

 Some of our other projects for the summer include doing an intensive look at our registration needs – for participants, volunteers, and our youth programs.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly technology advances. I thought I was relatively up-to-date on how registration systems worked for event planning.  I’m relatively young (although, don’t get me wrong, I know already that most grade school kids know more than I do about computers) and I’ve been working with runner registration for many years now.  So I thought I had a pretty good grasp on how registration systems work.  Oh wow, was I wrong!  There are some amazing new things going on in the running industry – and I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the results of my research.   Stay tuned for updates on how we proceed with our findings! 

And finally, my own household, the Langenberg crew, has big news.  There’s another little Langenberg on the way!   Due January 8, 2012!  With that said, although I’ll retain all of my job duties at GO! St. Louis, we’ve decided to change the blog into a collective staff writing endeavour.  That way, while I’m out (and then while I’m chasing two kiddos around!)  you all won’t miss out on the happenings and exciting activites at GO! St. Louis.  I’ll still write from time to time, but you will get to hear updates from Brian, Jeff, Nancy, and some new folks, too!

Happy summer running to all!

keeping afloat!

It’s getting pretty crazy this week, and we’re in that stage of operations where we’re all not quite sure we’ll make it through till race day.  Now don’t worry, we WILL make it (the race will go on!), but you know that feeling, where you’re just barely keeping afloat….yeah, we’re there :0)

I wanted to share with you a photo of what’s currently going on outside my office door!  A group of seniors, from Garden Villas South, is working to stuff packets for the Mature Mile event (which I think both of the ladies pictured here will be doing!)

We have such great fun seeing all of the people who come through the office these last couple of weeks.   So while I say we’re barely keeping our heads above water, don’t for a second think we don’t love every minute, and will miss it when it’s over!   Hope everyone’s getting excited for next weekend!

Don’t forget: registration closes tomorrow (Friday) at 11:59pm and if you’re registered, then look for your final confirmation email and bib number on Tuesday!

 

 

drumroll, please…

Remember our visualization from last week?  You – arms raised in victory – crossing under our beautiful new inflatable finish line!  Now, add this to it:

Well, that’s pretty much all I have to say today.  Except one last thing: TWO WEEKS!!!!

imagine yourself here…in less than four weeks!

Pretty cool, huh?  And soon….there it will be, looming in the distance on Market Street (new finish line street, btw!)…waiting for you runners to cross under it, christening it’s first year as the official GO! St. Louis Finish Line!  And all in less than FOUR WEEKS!  Wow!  Today, we were doing a dry run of the inflating/holding/setting up of it.  Pretty easy to do overall, but always good to do a dry run of these things before event weekend!  And of course, we all wanted to see what it looked like in person!

In other news…we hope you all are enjoying our NEW website!  I think it’s got a great look, and it seems so much easier to find important information.  Let us know what you think of it!  Nice work to Jeff for his many, many hours of work on that!

One more thing for today: after I lured you in with that awesome photo – I have to make a plea for VOLUNTEER GROUPS!  We are in need of groups — 20 or more people – to work at the remaining water stations on the course.  It’s probably one of the most fun volunteer jobs we have – and doing it with your team, co-workers, club…it’s a great experience!   If you have a group that would be interested – contact me for details.   mlangenberg@gostlouis.org

 It’s getting kind of crazy-frenetic around the office these days…long days, many evenings, lots of weekend work — and it all means one thing – we’re getting closer every day!  That’s all for now friends.  Hope I’m leaving you with visions of yourself crossing the finish line under that beautiful inflatable arch :0)

GO! bananas, indeed

Tomorrow, the staff of GO! St. Louis will hit the streets for the inaugural GO! Bananas campaign.  Our goal is to encourage people to eat a healthy diet – of which fruit (bananas!) is an important part.  Staff and volunteers of GO! will distributing over 4,500 bananas starting at 7:00am in intersections in downtown St. Louis,  Clayton, and Creve Coeur.  

Today is prep day….
8:00am 4500 bananas arrive at office
8:15am  we determine that the bananas can remain on palattes and will not need to be carried case by case into our office.  phew.  (have I mentioned before that working at GO! involves a lot of manual labor in the last weeks before the race?  when deliveries trucks arrive, and they ask:  where’s the dock? who unloads?  — ha.  that would be us.)
9:00am  Each box of bananas needs to be unpacked, stuck with a super fun sticker we made especially for this event, and then re-packaged.  Begin now!

10:00am   Karen, the ‘efficiency police,’  devises a new system for sticking the stickers on without unpacking each box.  Continue sticking stickers.
11:15am   Jeff says, “Mona, you should blog about this.” 
11:30am  Here I am, blogging to you about the bananas!  And humming to myself “Yes, we have no bananas.  We have no bananas today.”

Come find me tomorrow – I’ll be at 4th St. and Market St. downtown, and wearing my bright yellow GO! bananas shirt!!  If you’re not downtown, check out the full details of the event on our website  (our BRAND new website, btw!), and see where else you might be able to snag yourself a banana.

and the countdown begins…

Well, folks, this is it: my weeks/then days/then hours until the marathon countdown begins!  FIVE WEEKS TO GO. 

I wil try to update as frequently as I can, so that you can get a taste for what it’s like behind-the-scenes at GO! St. Louis in operations mode — but face it, I’m not that good at updating even when it wasn’t five weeks before the marathon.  Hehe..I’ll do my best.   Today, I’ll give you the highlight of everyone’s day.  Well, at least what *I* think their highlight was, since it’s my blog, I guess I get that perogative.

Nancy:  She finished calculating ALL of the totals for food orders at the finish line.  It’s a science, for sure.  20,000 of this, 16,000 of that…careful ordering is the name of the game. She’s glad to be done!

Brian:  His inflatable start line arch arrived today! Thankfully, he did not try to inflate it inside our building.  Can’t wait to see that on Market Street Sunday morning!!

Kaitlin: She is happy to have fixed our copy machine. Such a bad time of year for a lemon of a copy machine.  She’s hoping that this means the big problems are behind us!

Mike: He is glad that his THREE Mile-By-Mile Marathon programs are all up and running.  (The MBMM is a corporate wellness program that Mike oversees, and we have some great new clients!)

Mona: I was happy to have ordered 25,000 bags (for food), 400 hats (for key leaders), 64 baby onesies and toddler t-shirts (to sell at expo), and 30 singlets (for our pace team) – ALL today – and all in the nick of time.  Phew.

Jeff: Well, I can’t tell you what Jeff’s crowning achievement was, but I can tell you that you’ll notice it very soon! (if you haven’t already)

I realy will try to be better about posting during my ‘countdown’ — so much to do, so much to blog about, and so little time….
Until the next time, runners!

all through the town…

If you’ve ever run our event, you know that the course winds through some of the most historic (Soulard), hippest (CWE, the Loop), beautiful (Clayton, U. City), and friendly (ALL of the above!) neighborhoods in town!  This year, we intend to showcase those neighborhoods with none other than the fine folks who live there.  Here’s how:

GO! St. Louis will select five neighborhoods along our route to partner with in 2011. Each of the five neighborhoods will be awarded $1,000 to be used towards neighborhood improvements or projects.  In return, we ask that these neighborhoods will join us in supporting the runners by putting together a special neighborhood cheering station on race morning – Sunday, April 10. 

 And then – here’s the fun part: after the race, runners will be invited to vote on their favorite neighborhood cheering station, and the winning group will receive an additional $1,000 for their project or improvement! 

So, blog readers – please help me get the word out!  You can email me at mlangenberg at gostlouis dot org if you want a copy of the RFP for your own neighborhood – the only requirement is that you are actually on or directly next to the course, and that your neighborhood has a governing body (neighborhood association, board of directors, etc).  

That’s it for now – can you believe we’re just TEN weeks away from marathon weekend?!?  I can’t!   Oh – and one more thing – watch for the email announcement about our new line of GO! St. Louis merchandise — on sale at Big River Running stores VERY soon!!  We are very excited about it, and are pretty sure you will be, too!

why winter running is okay by me

I don’t claim to love running in the winter like some people do – too many clothes you have to put on, dark mornings, ice on the roads…I could probably think of lots of other reasons – but that would be a different blog entry.  This one is supposed to be the *good* thing about running in the winter!  So in order to remind myself of what that might be, I had to remember back to the days when I didn’t live in St. Louis. And where I lived for several years, there were no distinguishable seasons.  Drew and I spent a few years in Palm Springs, CA and sure, they had variable temps – but it was really just “warm” then “warmer” then “hot” and then finally “hotter than you-know-what.”  I don’t call that having seasons!

So, what I see as the good thing about winter running is that it reminds me of how good we have it in St. Louis.  Running on crisp fall days – the best!  Those first few spring runs when you put the shorts back on – wonderful! (okay, ignore the pasty legs)  And for the GO! St. Louis staff, there’s nothing better than  a great forecast for the second weekend in April (gee, can you guess why?!?).   I most definitely wouldn’t appreciate those fantastic runs if I didn’t have something not so great to compare it to.   So for now, my reason for running is really all about the hot cup of coffee at the end, but Groundhog’s Day is next week – there’s light at the end of the tunnel!!  

Special shout out today to our own Race Director, Brian Lyons, who is running in the Houston Marathon this weekend (and his wife Margaret doing the half)!!  They’ve put some serious work into this training, and I hope for a fantastic race for both!

moving week is here!

Well, it’s official!  We’re moving this week, and our office is in boxes!  I actually like moving, because it means you can go through old papers and reminisce, and you also get to throw stuff away, which I LOVE!

Here’s a photo journal of the GO! St. Louis moving in-process.  More to follow as we go to our new space!

Early on in the day, it was all smiles from the GO! crew.   However after several hours of “Hey Jeff? Hey Brian? Could you move this box for me?” – I’m not sure the photo would have looked so good :0)

Jeff & Brian packing!

As mentioned, the muscle behind the operations requires good hydration.  Brian models proper technique.

Brian hydrating.

Kaitlin, our office manager, has been working to get us all set up at the new office.  I’m sure she could tell you that she never wants to be on hold with a service contractor again – telephone, internet, all of our bills….yikes!  She’s smiling because it’s almost over!

Kaitlin almost finished!

As for me, I love to pack.  It’s the best excuse ever to throw away all of the stuff you’ve been hanging onto — that we all know you’ll never use again!  Can I tell you how many trips we made to the recycling center?!?

Me, perched on boxes.

And Nancy…well, there’s a long background on Nancy doing headstands at various points during the marathon’s 11 year history.  And this week, it’s another day for the books!  We’re moving on – to a bigger space and the next chapter in the GO! St. Louis story.

Nancy, on her head.

Watch for photos later this week in our new space! 300 Hunter Road, Suite 107,  HERE WE COME!