Getting my walk on...

Since the temperatures have risen to a nice warm 115 degrees here in Phoenix (and possibly 120 on Saturday - whoa!), I have taken to "getting my walk on" at the gym. This would be all fine & dandy however I am not a big fan of treadmills. Walking & Running on one is just so boring… thank goodness for the great songs in my ipod or I’d be off in 20 minutes. I have to train so I don’t have many options at this point . My ideal situation is to walk around my neighborhood in the evenings and look in all the cars that are parked on the street to see if they are dirtier on the inside than mine (they usually are though I bet that’s hard for some of you to believe!) and to look in the windows of the houses that forgot to shut their blinds once the sun started setting but I’m not willing to die of heatstroke right now so I head to the gym and force myself to smile as I step onto the treadmill.

I also cheated and looked ahead at my training schedule and discovered that 5 weeks before the event I will spend a weekend walking 18 miles on a Saturday and 15 miles on Sunday. Looks like the treadmill and I are about to become very good friends whether I like it or not over the next 4 months :-)

22 more weeks...

22 more weeks. This week I am supposed to step it up a notch and walk more miles. That should be interesting since I have discovered that no matter what route I walk or how long I'm gone, it always seems to equal 3.1 miles. I am loving my walks though!! Of course finding the time to walk is so much easier said than done. I have two young kiddos and my house is absolutely chaotic in the mornings before work and in the evenings after work. I was told originally before I signed up for the walk that with kids, you learn to do whatever you can during the week and bust your butt on the weekend so that will be my game plan. However busting your butt on the weekend can mean waking up at 4 am to get to the training walks in time and I am in no way, shape or form, a morning person! However as I started to complain about how early it was... my husband reminded me of why I am doing this walk and guess what? Now I am no longer complaining about waking up so early :-) It's the least I can do.

And so it begins...

24 weeks until the event. I received my first virtual trainer email today and my schedule for next week is as follows:

Monday - Rest (Thank goodness because it's a holiday and that means BBQ & Beer!)
Tuesday - 3 miles easy walking (that means once around the block with Kita, then once around the block with Addison and then once by myself)
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - 3 miles easy walking
Friday - Cross Training
Saturday - 3 miles easy walking
Sunday - 3 miles easy walking

How come the rest days can't be on Friday and Saturday?? :-)

The Before Pictures

I am always wearing my T-shirts from all the Race for the Cure's I have done (and my hat... let's not forget my favorite hat!!) and after always being asked if I have just come from running the race, I decided I needed to start promoting my 3 Day for the Cure so they will ask me about it instead! So I ordered some gear. I decided it would be fun to take a "before" picture of myself dressed in it and then an "after" when I'm done walking to see if I actually lost any weight during the training. However, when the box was opened, I never did get to put any of it on but obviously others did...



They look much cuter than I would have anyways!

FIRST GOAL - COMPLETED!

HOLY MACANOLY! We did it! We (because if it wasn't for you guys, this would have never happened) raised $2,300 in less than 3 months. Love you all!!


PS... you can still donate if you haven't already because the more donations, the merrier!

A HAT

A hat.

Such a simple thing normally but this one is special.

This hat is Gloria Myer’s and her daughter brought it to me today to wear during the walk.

I am honored to get to wear her hat.

87%! Time to get moving!

Up until now, this walk has been all about the donations and not so much about the training. I cannot believe I am already at 87%! I have $290.00 to raise to get to $2300 so that I can officially walk this. When I signed up for this walk, I never ever thought I would have the money raised at this point. Derek & I were talking about fundraising events & other options we could do this summer to get me to my goal and thanks to the generosity of everyone who has donated, the stress of fundraising is no more! I love all of you and appreciate your donations SO much! I always want to send out a special thanks to my friend and old neighbor, Kim, who asked her friends/family to donate for me (since she is unable to walk it with me) and they were just so generous and they don’t even know me! So now that the money is almost raised, I have no excuse to not be training. My intense training regimen is about to begin (If I don’t lose my baby weight after this, there is no hope for me!). Thank goodness there are training walks where I get to meet other people who are walking because I am starting to freak out about doing this by myself now. No cell phones are allowed on the walk (I might die!) and no headphones so I need to make some walking buddies ASAP!! I also will have to find a “roommate” for my tent since it sleeps two people. It would be nice to know the person beforehand rather than meeting them as we crawl into our tent to sleep… what if they snore? Oh my… what if I snore?!?

Pamm and her story...

Another friend of mine, Pamm, was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple weeks ago (see my previous post below). She asked that her story be shared in hopes that it might help save another life...
Pamm started noticing a pain in her breast around the end of January and just thought she was working out too hard and had possibly pulled a muscle. On February 7th, she discovered the lump and by February 15th, she was at the doctors office getting checked. She said the only reason she went to the doctor to have it looked out was because of Gloria and her battle with breast cancer (see "Why I'm Walking"). Pamm was diagnosed with Stage 2 Breast Cancer. She will be having a double mastectomy on April 5th. I can't imagine what kind of decision that must be but Pamm is a fighter and she said she is going to do whatever it takes to save her life and with that attitude, I am sure she is going to win this battle! She has a lot to live for including an adorable grandson, Aiden, that is the same age as Addison.
This is just another reminder to make your annual visits to the doctor, if you are over 40 to get an mammogram and give yourself breast exams on a regular basis. You just never know what you might find.
The day Gloria Myers passed away, my first thought was that another angel got her wings. She was a wonderful person and we knew that God would use her as one of his angels to watch over us. Turns out we were right!

Another reminder of why I am doing this walk...

It’s not as if I need to be reminded of why I am doing this walk because Breast Cancer is everywhere. I hear about it in some way every day. I am proud to be walking the 60 miles and excited to do it. However, last night I came home to an email from a friend letting me know that she was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Really?! Someone else I know was diagnosed?! What in the heck is going on!? I had so many questions for her but I know she does to and right now it’s too soon for answers. A few minutes before I got her email I had started watching ‘Supernanny’ which was episode about a father of 3 little boys who lost his wife & their mother to breast cancer and his family was falling apart without her… bring on the tears. I can’t imagine what that woman went through knowing she was dying and having to leave her young children and I was so upset that I couldn’t stop crying. Just when I had pulled myself together, I got the email from my friend and though I know she is a very strong person, it still made me very upset thinking about her having to hear the words “Breast Cancer” come out of the doctors mouth. I am sending up prayers for her and asking you to do the same.

So this is why I’m walking. For my friends. For the ones I love. The more research they do, the more chances of finding a cure.

47%

Donation update: I have hit the 47% mark tonight... I am almost half way there! I cannot believe the emotions that pour out of me every time I see a donation was made. Asking for people to donate was without a doubt the hardest part of this and to see people responding positively has been fantastic.

I have officially started my training! My mentor (as I call her since she has done this many times before and knows the ropes!) told me to focus on getting into shape right now and not really worry about the long walks yet. I have started running again (which I forgot how much I love to do!) and plan on knocking out some 5k's in the next few months!! Woo Hoo!