New IndieGoGo Campain-Help us reach the finish line in Boston!

Memories from Boston 2010

Well, we got a little taste of spring in Pennsylvania yesterday and it reminded me that it is one month away from the Boston Marathon and almost time for Catherine to arrive back here to prepare for it! Time has flown by and it was almost a year ago that Catherine unexpectedly suffered an injury that prevented her from running Boston. This year she is back in good form and every excited to go back to the race where she is the only woman to have won there four times!

Parents and students equally excited to meet the Kenyans at The Elmwood School 2010

I'm really looking forward to filming with Catherine in Boston again because last year it was amazing to see how she affected everyone there, even when she wasn't able to run. It was awesome to see her with the other Kenyans interacting with the students at the Elmwood School in Hopkinton for Adopt-A-Marathoner day. This year some of the elite athletes will be visiting a high school and this presents an opportunity that we can't miss; this is where Catherine is in her glory, interacting with young people, encouraging them, motivating them and sharing her experiences with them.

I have created a new, short term IndieGoGo campaign to raise the funds needed to film in Boston. The money will go towards paying the crew, hotel, meals, logging the footage and equipment. Whether or not you have donated before, please consider a donation to help us capture this special event. You can donate through the IndieGoGo website by clicking here .  Your contributions are tax deductible (to the extent of the law) due to WinCatherine being a fiscally sponsored project by Fractured Atlas.

If you prefer, you can also donate directly through the WinCatherine website.  It doesn't matter where you donate, but it does matter that you DO donate. Even as little as $10 or $20 will help us reach this short term goal! If you cannot make a contribution at this time, please pass the links on to your friends, family, Facebook friends, Twitter "tweeps", running clubs, bowling leagues, classmates, co-workers...you get the picture; anyone and everyone! The whole idea behind crowdfunding is a little from a lot of people works!

Stay tuned for progress and for reports from Boston. I'm looking forward to seeing Catherine at the end of the month when she is back in Philly; it seems like it has been so long!

Please help us reach the finish line of this short race; the longer race is still underway as we work towards completing WinCatherine: The Story of Wincatherine Nyambura Ndereba in time for the summer Olympics 2012!

Post Crim and Some Blogs to Check Out

Catherine returned to Flint, MI this past weekend to run the 2010 Crim Festival of Races 10 mile. When asked how many time she had won the race, she said "like three or four times" but someone corrected her that it was actually SIX times! She really had no idea just how successful she has been at the Crim!  She won every year from 1996-2002 except for 1997 when she was pregnant and did not run.  She had not been back since 2002 because each year since, she has been training for either the World Championships or the Olympics, and it did not fit into her training schedule. She was genuinely glad to be back and had told me while we were cooking the weekend before, that she was looking forward to it. She placed 5th and was very happy with that. She has now run three races since coming off her injury and she's feeling healthy. Her speed work is also progressing so things are good!

As for the documentary, we are still looking for donations and sponsors for the film and hopefully this week we will see a new surge in people who want to see this film happen and are able to donate.  Several bloggers have written posts and I'd like to thank them here.

I want to send a huge shout out to Leah at her Chasing Atlanta blog. She wrote a post about WinCatherine and asked her readers to check out our websites and help out if they can! Chasing Atlanta is a great running blog so please check it out and look through her previous posts as well. 

I also want to send a big thank you to Ryan at I Run Flint for the blog post letting his readers know about the WinCatherine documentary and asking them for help as well! Please check out his blog that is also full of inspiring stories. Ryan also sent in photos taken of Catherine at the Crim race last weekend. 

Thanks also to everyone who has already helped out and supports this inspirational film. Keep passing on our IndieGoGo campaign to your friends and family and together we will make it happen!

photo courtesy of Ryan Litwiller

photo courtesy of Ryan Litwiller

photo courtesy of Ryan Litwiller

A Birthday Home Then Back in the USA

July 21, 2009 Catherine's birthday celebration

Well here it is mid-July and it has been a bit unusual not having Catherine here in the United States.  Except for the year she had Jane, this will be the first year in 15 that she will celebrate her birthday on July 21st IN Kenya with her husband! She has been in the United States training and competing every other year. The photo here was taken at her birthday celebration in the U.S. last year and for fun I photoshopped Anthony in to the picture. I'm glad she'll actually be with him this year so they can celebrate his birthday a little early with her as well (his is July 25th). She will, however, spend part of the day traveling as she leaves that night and arrives back in Philadelphia on the 22nd. Fortunately though, she has been training in Kenya and nursing her torn muscle back to health and hopefully will be in top form again in no time!

As for the film, things are moving along but we are still feeling the effects of the economy and raising the budget is taking longer than expected. The good news is, we have extended our IndieGoGo campaign and you can still donate (even as little as $10) to help! Just think, if Catherine Ndereba's story can inspire one girl to pursue her dreams, one girl to make a better life for herself, you will be a part of that! Please check out the IndieGoGo campaign donate whatever you can to help.

We want to send out a very special thanks to Marathonguide.com for their generous donation to WinCatherine! Marathonguide.com is a great website for " Everything Marathoning - Information, Results & More" and you can check them out here: marathonguide.com

I'll be sure to post some new photos as soon as I see Catherine after her arrival!

Updates: May 2010

I spoke to Catherine last week before leaving for my son's graduation from Duke (yes, I'm a proud mama!) Catherine said she had a nice but quiet Mother's Day with her husband.  Jane was away at school so she didn't get to spend time with her but had just seen her while Jane had a short break. Catherine said she has been training and receiving a lot of massage therapy and that the muscle tear is healing. She hopes to be back in the U.S. soon for training as well.

In news about the film, donations have not been coming in as well as hoped so we still have not been able to move ahead with the next step of logging all the footage we've shot, transcribing it all and getting translation for Swahili and Kikuyu dialogue. The economy has not helped but we are still hoping people will come forward and make whatever contribution they can at our website:  www.wincatherine.com
We are also still looking for corporate sponsors so if you know of an organization that may be able to help, please let us know! Every little bit counts!