North Pole Marathon Application. Vote for the Underdog!

A little while back I mentioned that Brad Feld and Yourrunning.com is giving away an entry to the North Pole Marathon. Actually Brad is sponsoring the entry and Yourrunning.com is taking care of the travel (if I read all the information correctly).

Well, Today I completed my application. According to the website there are 25 other runners that have put in their application to have a chance at running around the North Pole. Does this mean I have a 1 in 26 chance? If it was a "lottery" then I probably would have a 1 in 26 chance, but it is not. The application is just that - an application. The most qualified, based upon their qualifications gets the opportunity.

So what are my chances? Well, I looked at some of the other applicants and they are pretty strong applicants. That being said, I don't know to many athletes that toe the line that don't have a desire, belief or even a dream that they could win. (I admit that many of the races I race in I understand that coming in first isn't a strong reality, but who lets reality influence them.)

My request: I need some way to show the people at yourrunning.com that I am a good candidate to run this race, besides my application pleas. So can help me out by letting them know that you think I would be a good candidate? How? Well, one way would be to use their Feedback page and leave them a message saying that I (Gary Ditsch) would be a good candidate. Another possibility would be to wait until my application gets posted (it will be posted here) and then vote through their voting system or leave a comment in the comments section.

The biggest effort may come from you telling at least 1 or 2 other people (that I may or may not know) to help me out too. Any little step or help to set my application apart would be appreciated.

Here are two questions I answered in the application:

Why should we pick you to go to the North Pole?

I believe that there are times in most people’s lives that they look back and say, "What in the world is my life about?" There are people who come to this realization when they wake up one day and find out they haven't paid attention to their bodies in decades, so they decide to exercise or lose weight. There are people that look at their child walk across a stage to grab a college diploma only to wonder just who that child is, so they vow to spend more time with their family and less time at a job. I am no different than those people, yet I am only twenty-eight years old.

The one thing that I have found in those moments that I have questioned myself and who I was is that there was one constant - running. As a child growing up in Nebraska, I found myself running the gravel roads or by the bean fields to find peace. In college, I began running again in order to have an excuse to drink less on the "party" nights. I also found a major of study in college that allowed me to learn about exercise and still get a degree. It also propelled me to a place where I could get a graduate degree. After college I found myself stuck in an emotionally bankrupt job, contacts that I made with fellow runners and triathletes lead me to a more fulfilling job. The combination of all these choices and situations have lead me to a place where I hope to make running and helping others run (and swim, bike and exercise) a full-time, life-long mission.

Running is essentially who I am and the best way that I have to express myself. (Picture Robby Benson at the end of "Running Brave".) Why should you pick me? By choosing me you would be assisting me in this continuous search I have in finding out who I am, but yourrunning.com would also be able to use the passion I have to reach out to new runners that want to share their journey too. Yourrunning.com might just discover things about itself that it has not noticed before.

Offer some evidence that you can complete a marathon in harsh, sub-zero conditions at the North Pole.

Every runner has a story about how they completed a race in terrible conditions. These stories are often the only type of story a runner has to tell. I like to equate them to the fisherman's tale. "You should have seen the one I threw back!"

The best tale that I have happened in September of 2006. Prepared to complete my first Ironman distance triathlon, my wife and I headed to Lake Barkley, Kentucky. The weather was predicting a rainy day, but I was more worried about the race than the weather. The night before the race was to take place there was an athletes meeting where the discussion of weather came up, primarily because it was getting bad enough that flooding was becoming a possibility.

That night was full of thunder, lightening and heavy rains. Still I loaded my bike up in the morning and headed to the start line. The race was cancelled due to the many floods and constantly heavy rains. The race director held a meeting to decide what would happen. Many of the people went home and called it a weekend. But there were 6 of us full distance athletes that chose to stay and see what it would take to finish an iron-distance triathlon. The water was filled with debris, the bouys were washed out of place, the volunteers didn't come to give support along the course and once again I found myself in a place where I was all alone trying to find out what I was made of.

I finished! The lessons from that race keep revealing themselves to me still today. The biggest one that I have taken home to date is that I don't need to race others in order to feel accomplishment. Racing yourself is more of a challenge to win anyway.