Great Week!

Friday, July 03, 2015 · Mike Davis

Good morning! Hopefully you’re off today and able to enjoy a long weekend or better yet like me you might be off for a few days. After multiple visits to the airport over the past month I am settled into our Pinehurst home for a few days. Definitely a bit warmer here, but very nice as I sit on our screened porch listening to the birds chirp. Funny Kathy and I were sitting out here last night around 7:15 and she said it was almost time for the nightly visit from the kids. “The kids” are actually a male and female deer that apparently stop in each evening to graze in your backyard. Sure enough a few minutes later as we were leaving for dinner I saw a deer at the corner of our house followed by another. Kathy says they have little fear of her and enjoy her home cooking (flowers). I think that it is really cool but I’m not the one that works hard on the flowers. It is nice to have a home that is surrounded by wildlife for the most part!  Despite the crazy traveling it has been a great week at NFLR. Got off a plane Tuesday and met with a great young man, Wednesday afternoon we had a consultation with quite enlightening woman who is now an NFLR client and then Wednesday night we had great group run in Dover while over in York Maine Meg and Lew were running with the NFLR Stonewall Kitchen group and last night our “Pilates in the Park” once again enjoyed a beautiful evening to do Pilates. Wow, what an amazing week and exactly the kind of week that we envision as we continue to develop our NFLR business model. Being able to offer multiple resources to runners of all ages and levels is the goal and we are certainly getting there! I almost forgot to mention that both Mondays and Wednesday night strength & conditioning with Jasmin also is drawing in a large group and forcing Yaz to have figure out how to accommodate the increased size. If you have not gotten to either a Pilates class or Yaz’s class you really need to try them. These classes are amazing and offer the best value you will find anywhere. We are not about trying to take people’s money; our goal is to offer resources that make a difference to runners and endurance athletes. I am going to be careful with this thought but while this week for NFLR was great because of all the above it was even better because of the personal success of one of our runners. I won’t get deep into the details but a while back I chatted about how a couple of our NFLR family had some life issues that prevented them from being able to continue to invest in their training. However because our NFLR family is not driven by profit we were able to convince these runners to continue on with us. For us it is simple because we truly care about our runners but for them it took some convincing because of pride and feeling awkward about working with us at no fee. Well this week one of those clients was hired to the perfect job for him and we are so happy for him! Unemployment is something I haven’t had to ever experience and am thankful for so I couldn’t begin to imagine what this guy experienced. When he first became unemployed and told us that our coaching services were an expense that he could not afford, I truly didn’t focus on the fact that we would be losing some revenue but instead my heart went out to what he must have been going through. It took a considerable amount of convincing to get him to stay with us at no cost but he did. Wednesday this true gentlemen sent me a wonderful email telling me about his new job and also detailing how his partnership with NFLR and especially Lew really made a difference during his difficult time of unemployment. The email was really amazing and one that I will keep always. It truly captured what NFLR is all about and why we do what we do. Helping people become stronger runners is important but “just helping people” is what we are really about. A final note about this particular gentlemen. He also explained in the email that despite us telling him we would never accept back pay for our services he felt compelled to pay us for the previous months of service. We will accept this money but we will turn around and match it and donate it to the Jeanine Sylvester’s Pan Mass Challenge fund raiser. Pretty cool! Time to kick back some and enjoy this 4th of July weekend with my bride. I hope you are going to enjoy it with those you love as well. Thanks for having coffee with me and stay safe! God Bless! Mike