The Baltimore Running Festival celebrated its sixth year Saturday and TEAM BLUE was on hand to run the half-marathon. Pippin Gilman, John Petro, Jeff Scheyer, Mike Yeager and I (Samuel Dearth) met before the race at the Johnny Unitas statue just outside of the Baltimore Raven's football stadium. Each of us spoke about our training (or lack of) and our personal strategy for the 13.1 mile race. One common strategy emerged ...'just survive'!

The starting gun for the half-marathon went off promptly at 9:45AM and the weather for the race included lots of sun and cool temperatures. That combination resulted in fast times from our top two finishers and the remaining three...well...we survived. Here are the times.

Michael Yeager - 1:55:43
John Petro - 1:56:11
Samuel Dearth - 2:30:58
Jeff Scheyer - 2:45:13
Pippin Gilman - 2:50:22

The half-marathon was the finishing touch to a very successful fundraising effort by the runners. The group raised more than $4,000 for our BLUE Reach children's hospital program. Money will be used to purchase Build-A-Bear Workshop® stuffed animals for pediatric patients with cancer or blood disorders as well as children who are recovering from major surgery.

Runners used a BLUE for Kids web-based fundraising page to collect donations online. The web page made it easy to ask, easy to donate, and easy to collect funds. The $4,000 was collected from among 45 donors both online and offline. Visit the group's fundraising page for an idea of how we used it and see the names of donors. http://www.firstgiving.com/bluerunbaltimore06

Pippin, John, Jeff, Mike and I are committed to running next fall for BLUE for Kids. If you would like to join the team, send an e-mail to Samuel at samuel@BLUEforKids.com.

Interested in getting your own group together to raise money that will benefit kids coping with injury or illness? Contact us and we will help you set your group fundraising page up online so you can collect both online and check donations. It's free! E-mail Samuel at samuel@BLUEforKids.com for complete details.