News & Information

• Heart Racers in the adidas Auckland Marathon - get your free sunnies…
• adidas Auckland Marathon
• Marathon Training Tips
• Are you following us on Facebook?
• Heart Foundation training plans for 21km, 10km and 5km runs
• Top Fundraising Tips to make your webpage work

Heart Racers in the adidas Auckland Marathon - get your free sunnies…

Become a adidas Auckland Marathon Heart Racer now »

Enter the adidas Auckland Marathon (any of the events), register as a Heart Racer and raise $500 or more by October 31, 2011 to receive a FREE pair of adidas sports glasses valued at $255. A little thank you from the Heart Foundation for your support.

Terms and conditions

To be eligible, entrants must:

• Register to take part in the adidas Auckland Marathon and must have a valid paid entry to the 2011 event
• Register as a Heart Racer
• Fundraise $500 by 9am Monday 31 October, 2011
• The Heart Foundation reserves the right to offer a similar pair of glasses at a similar value should current stocks run out or become unavailable

adidas Auckland Marathon

Become a adidas Auckland Marathon Heart Racer now »

Last year’s event saw a record number of Heart Racers™ - runners and walkers who helped raise funds online for the official charity partner of the adidas Auckland Marathon, the Heart Foundation. More than $100,000 was raised by Heart Racers™ who rallied behind the Heart Foundation to help save lives, fund research and promote heart healthy living to all New Zealanders.

Becoming a Heart Racer™ is easy

Click the 'become a Heart Racer™>' button on your e-ticket when you register for the adidas Auckland Marathon. You will be taken to the Heart Racer™ website where your personalised page will be filled in and ready to go. Once live, all you need to do is ask your friends, family and colleagues to help you help the Heart Foundation.

You can also register as a Heart Racer™ by visiting www.heartracer.org.nz and following the links to the adidas Auckland Marathon event.

Thanks to: adidas Auckland Marathon, Gold Coast Airport Marathon, Holiday Inn Surfers Paradise

Marathon Training Tips

Here are a few helpful tips from Chris Lynch from the Department of Sport at Unitec, to help you train for any distance running event.

Your training needs to be planned and structured

• Plan to work up to a specific event giving yourself enough weeks for your training to have an effect
• Set a goal and targets to achieve but make the plan flexible to cope with greater or lesser improvements
• A plan for training will get you there, plan for how you will perform in the event too
• If you feel you don’t have enough training time before the event, do not give up on training; just extend your plan to work to the next event
  
  

Your training needs to provide progressive overload of intensity, volume and frequency

• Improvements happen because of adaptation, adaptation occurs because of regular, repeated, progressively more challenging training
• Intensity can be measured through heart rate or simply your ability to talk to someone as you train. Ensure as your training progresses you continue to build the intensity. Listen to your body
• Volume needs to reflect your ultimate goal, as your training progresses the final weeks should be close in distance to that you intend to complete
• Your training should always be frequent enough to be regular but allow adequate recovery between training bouts. This regularity should increase though as you get closer to the event
  
  

Recovery is equally important to training

• It is in the times you are recovering when the adaptations to the work you will do happen, so ensure you are taking adequate recovery time
  
  

Training needs to be specific

• If you are intending to walk your training should be walking, equally if you are intending to run your training should be running. You should also be specific to where your targeted event occurs. Is the course hilly? To be specific your training will need to include hills.

Are you following us on Facebook?

Leading up to your event the Heart Foundation will be letting you in on some great nutrition, training and fundraising tips as well as some special offers, prizes and giveaways. So for this, and some great conversation and other news from The Heart Foundation,

You should join us on:

Heart Foundation training plans for 21km, 10km and 5km runs, and 5km walk

For walkers and first time runners, the Heart Foundation has produced week-by-week training programmes for three different distances - 21km, 10km and 5km. Click any of the following to download:

• Event Training Programme - 10 Km (Adobe PDF, 79KB)
• Event Training Programme - 21 Km (Adobe PDF, 79KB)
• Event Training Programme - 5 Km (Adobe PDF, 67KB)
• Event Training Programme - 5 Km Walk (Adobe PDF, 408KB)
   

Fundraising Tips

Click here to download this Fundraising Tips document as a PDF instead.

How do I raise funds as a Heart Racer™ for the Heart Foundation?

First of all, we'd like to say a huge thank you for supporting the Heart Foundation by signing up as a Heart Racer™ in your chosen event.

Despite great improvements in the treatment and prevention of heart disease, tragically it remains the single biggest killer of men and women in New Zealand. More research into the areas of heart health and heart disease prevention is urgently needed in order to steer the future decline of heart disease in New Zealand.

Trust us, after busting your gut training for and completing your event, you can rest assured that the money you raise will support an extremely worthwhile cause - the Heart Foundation's Heart Health Research Fund. Through supporting this fund, you are helping the Heart Foundation achieve its goal: to stop New Zealanders dying prematurely from heart disease.

You will be provided with a fundraising web page on www.heartracer.org.nz through which your friends, family and colleagues can sponsor you as you train for and complete your challenge.

Setting up your page

Simply visit www.heartracer.org.nz and select the event you wish to sign up as a Heart Racer™ for. If your event isn't listed up there, you can still be a Heart Racer™, just select the 'not listed' option.

After you have completed the registration page you will be sent an email with a login name, password and link through to your new page. Simply follow the link in the message to activate your page. You can then personalise it with your own story and images.

The more personal your appeal - whether it's a heartfelt story or a more humorous approach - the more likely your friends are to support you, so get creative!

Start with a bang

Once you've added all your personal details - don't forget to set your individual fundraising target. Be sure to aim higher than what you think you can realistically raise. You're much more likely to reach your goal if you aim above it.

Make sure the first person on your website gives you a large donation as this sets the level for everyone else. Maybe this first person could be YOU. Show a commitment to your cause.

Getting support

Now that you're all set up with a damn fine looking fundraising page, it's time to get the word out to your contacts. The easiest way to do this is to send an email to everyone you know saying something like "I've decided to sign up as a Heart Racer™ for and need your help to make a difference. Visit my online fundraising page to learn more. http://www.heartracer.org.nz/yourpage".

There are email templates available for you to use on Heart Racer™ to help make the process really easy.

Fire this out to everyone you know; friends, family, employers, colleagues, clients, suppliers, classmates, businesses, clubs, organisations, neighbours, churches and encourage them to get involved.

Here's a sample plan we cooked up earlier...

Ten Easy Steps to $1,000

1. Sponsor yourself for $50
2. Ask 2 family members to sponsor you for $50
3. Ask 10 friends to contribute $20
4. Ask 5 co-workers to contribute $20
5. Ask 5 neighbours to contribute $20
6. Ask 5 people from your sports club for $10
7. Ask 5 people you socialize with (yoga, book club, church, gym, dinner club) for $10
8. Ask your boss for a company donation of $50
9. Ask 5 businesses that your company works with to contribute $40
10. Ask 4 businesses that you frequent to donate $25

There are three key times in which you can email your friends, family, employers, and colleagues.

• In the lead up to your event
  - Let your contacts know what you're doing and why you're doing it
  - Use the blog on the Heart Racer™ website to keep your supporters up to date with the trials and tribulations of your training
• During your event (if it's ongoing)
  - Don't hesitate to tell them how hard it is and that your only comfort is in knowing that your fundraising target is being met!
• Directly after and the few weeks following your event
  - Don't forget to follow up. Many supporters will wait till after your event to donate as they want to be sure you finish!
  - Let your contacts know they can still donate after the event is over.

What about other fundraising ideas?

There are all sorts of things you could do to drum up support. Here are just a few ideas:

• You're going to be training hard, so why not get people to sponsor you for doing XX amount of press ups/sit ups at the end of your training?
• Organise a themed morning tea at work and collect donations. How about red food in support of the Heart Foundation!
• Be sure to take a camera/video camera on your training sessions and during your event. It's great to show your supporters how hard you're working out there!
• Think about your own Facebook book or Twitter profile - have you let everyone know about your commitment to your event? Social networks are a great place to encourage fundraising and keep your contacts up to date.
• Does someone have a birthday coming up? - consider making a donation to your page vs. giving a physical present. A gift to the Heart Foundation is a seriously special gift.
• Time to clean out that garage? - have a garage sale or use TradeMe to raise some funds for your page.
• Consider matching every donation you receive $1 for $1 or get a business on board to do so.

Got any other bright ideas? The Heart Foundation can help if it's something spectacular, and don't forget to share your ideas, stories and successes on the Heart Foundation Facebook page.

There are many more fantastic ideas which could help you achieve your goal, so go on, get creative and have fun!

If you have any questions around fundraising for the Heart Foundation please don't hesitate to contact Janna on 571 9195 or janna@heartfoundation.org.nz.

Good luck!

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