Headline: Average Mom With Marginal Athletic Ability Scores Sponsor!

26.2 and I are having a REMATCH.

That's right. I'm coming for you, 26.2! AGAIN! (Feel free to read about my last 26.2 experience at Disney.)

Quick Background
You may or may not have known me back then, but a little over a year ago when I was blogging at Baby Tea Leaves, I wrote this post about how come average athletes of the universe couldn't land sponsorships.

It was more of a question than an explanation. (Go ahead -- I'll give you a minute to go read it, I really do make a pretty good case there I think!)

Here's the gist of it:

Think about it, potential sponsors! Forget the Lance Armstrongs of the world! Here's an Average Mom right here, ready to target all your regular moms like me who are waiting till their husbands come home to train for something, who miss workouts they can't miss so they can wipe their children's noses and can't find a sitter, one who still has some cellulite despite all the working out she's doing and rides along in her mini-van that she tries to make cooler by putting a "triathlon" sticker on the back of it while rocking out to nursery rhymes.

I mean, what company wouldn't be wooed by that, right?

Ok so I didn't get any calls that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. I was mostly kidding anyway.

You see, I, average 30-something minivan mom, admit to having marginal athletic ability. But if it counts (and I think it does!) I have the heart of an elite athlete. I just don't have the sponsor money and all that time to train, and well, ability, (and perhaps body) of an elite athlete. Which is all sort of key to actually being an elite athlete.

Yes, I know, I know, just having the heart won't have me crossing finish lines after having run 5 minute miles, but still. Heart is a lot! Heart is what the midpack of America has and heart is what the readers who come here have and heart is what I see on Twitter and Facebook and in the race reports I read all year long from all my friends!

If there is anything, there is heart!

Well by golly gee, someone thinks that having heart is worth sponsoring after all! Because I have landed my very first sponsor!! And they are sponsoring my rematch with 26.2, the Miami ING Marathon in Miami next January!!

Woooohooooo!

Can you believe it? I'm busting, Jerry, I'm busting!

So I want to say, thank you, Girlz N Gear!

Thank you for sponsoring this rematch with 26.2. And thank you for believing that Midpack America is worth believing in!

We might not be elite athletes, in fact, we are just one sweaty face in a sea of thousands on race day (and perhaps wearing a tutu and in that case one in only a handful of runners wearing a tutu, if that counts, and I think it does). But us midpackers represent all the athletes out there who are pushing themselves outside their comfort zones for no reason whatsoever except for being healthy and the feeling of crossing a finish line however long after we started. The ones who come in 10th through 1,010th, who walk away with the knowledge that they can do something they didn't think they could for a period of time that is really just insane.

So mid-to-back-packers of America Unite!

I promise to represent.

And guess what else? Next week, Girlz N Gear is sponsoring a Twitter party!

With prizes and everything! So make sure you stop by, next Wednesday night on Twitter from 8p-9p Eastern, hashtag #girlzngear, mkay? We're gonna talk gear and running and they've got some pretty cool prizes lined up!

While you're here, have you taken the Girlz N Gear slogan poll for their new t-shirt and entered the giveaway going on here right now???