OE Runners is pleased to offer information for our media contacts. If you are a journalist and wish to discuss a story idea about Opportunity Enterprises or the OE Runners, please call between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CT, Monday thru Friday:

Allison Thomas, Events Manager, allison.thomas@oppent.org
Chris Schneidt, Development Specialist, christene.schneidt@oppent.org

Opportunity Enterprises
2801 Evans Avenue
Valparaiso, IN 46383
Phone: (219) 464-9621
Fax: (219) 464-9635
www.oppent.org
www.oerunners.org

Current and Archived Newsletters
News on the Run
Check back next training season for our 2010 editions of News on the Run.

Meet the OE Trainers
We are incredibly lucky at OE to have extremely experienced runners who serve as our trainers. Over the course of the training season, we want you to get to know them all a little bit better, and begin to understand why they are such an important part of our running programs.

George Nietert started running during the winter of his senior year at Manchester College in order to manage his weight. He spent the next 20 years running between one and five miles several days a week. At age 44, George started entering races and managed to earn an age group award.

With over 30 years of running, George joined OE’s Marathon Team when it was first formed in 1999 because it presented the opportunity to begin long distance running. He has not missed a year since its inception and began serving as the team’s Training Coordinator in 2008.

With running such a big part of his life, George continues to run and serve as the Lead Training
Coordinator for OE’s Marathon Team. Running allows him to support OE, meet new friends, relieve stress, and develop and use the talents he was given.

Ed and Diane Burns Ed has always been able to run long distances. “Not fast,” he says, “but long.” In high school, even thought he was an offensive guard and defensive tackle on the football team, he ran distance on the track team. “And more importantly,” he says, “I married a girl that is a running fanatic who came from a running family.” Ed’s wife Diane is in her second year helping Ed with team training; she and Ed have managed to log over 30,000 miles together.

In 2005, while convalescing from a stress fracture, he investigated marathon training programs, and found Jeff Galloway’s method. It’s a unique method that takes a completely different approach from the other commonly used programs, and utilizes a walk-run approach to training. Ed says that the Galloway program changed marathoning for him forever. Diane has joined him in support of the Galloway program, and since then they have done all of this running injury free.

Ed and Diane’s diehard belief in the Galloway program soon led them to become trainers, and to form a
partnership with OE Runners. As the Galloway trainer, they are able to offer an alternative training method to members of our team, and Ed and Diane thoroughly enjoy it.

While watching her sister complete the Walk Disney Marathon in 1997, Michele Hale decided she needed to be a part of the positive energy she felt. At just slightly over 5 feet tall and weighing188 pounds, Michele began running. She completed her first full marathon in Chicago in 1998.

This year is Michele’s 10th year running with OE, and she has served as the Lake County Training
Coordinator for several years. In her role as training coordinator, Michele has become an integral part of the OE Marathon Team. Using her true passion for running, her never-ending enthusiasm and energy, and her ability to inspire others to “Stride On!,” Michele has taught many others to run marathons successfully. Michele shares that she continues to run for many reasons, including weight control, stress relief, spending time with her sister and friends, her true love of the sport, and because running “makes my internal happy switches go on.” Because of her passion for running, Michele has become a certified running coach with Road Runner Club of America.

In addition to being an amazing runner and trainer, Michele has a wonderfully generous heart, and has consistently been one of the top fundraisers on the OE team every year. Together with her sister Christine, Michele has raised over $45,000 for OE. She plans to bring that amount to $50,000 in 2010. When asked why she enjoys working with the OE team, Michele says “I have a true passion for the sport, as well as for OE. Helping out others less fortunate than myself is truly an awesome feeing.”
.