My 3 Day Week in Review

I turned 30 this past week and celebrated by doing what I usually do: a lot of 3 Day stuff!

Fundraising

My fundraising total to date currently stands at $1435, not including a check that has yet to post.  The big news this week was the start of  our final two team fundraising contests, a March Madness tournament and a Fug Madness tournament.  We had less than a week to take entries for those contests and managed to get 34 entries for March Madness and 10 entries for Fug Madness.  All together, those contests will generate at least $220 for our team, although those deposits won't be made until the completion of both contests in early April.

By far my most productive fundraising venture this week was a simple request for donations in honor of my birthday that I made both in this post here on Kristen Walks and on Facebook.  I challenged my friends and family to make 30 donations of $30 to get me to within $100 of my fundraising minimum.  I didn't get any donations of exactly $30, but I did get four donations totaling $240.  Special thanks this week to Pam Cincotta, Emily Allen, Joel Herron and Leah Sarat for their generous donations.  You helped make my 30th birthday that much brighter!

Training

This week, Shenanigans and I covered 21.1 miles on our 3 Day training walks, bringing our total mileage to date up to 101.96 miles.  I hadn't realized that I broke the 100 mile mark until I added it up, to write this post but now that I know, I'm definitely going to celebrate!  In addition to our training walks, Shenanigans and I also continued training to run the Atlanta Race for the Cure in May.  We only got in two runs last week, adding an extra 4.2 miles to our weekly total.

The highlight of training this week was on Tuesday.  The weather finally gave us a break, so I was able to spend my birthday walk taking pictures of all the lovely daffodils that have sprung up around my neighborhood.  You can see the pictures from that walk in this post.  Beautiful 70 degree weather on Friday and Saturday gave me hope that those chilly training walks were a thing of the past, but alas, we're back to cold, gray and rainy today.  

Extra Stuff

I marked my birthday by sharing with everyone my 3 Day wish list on Tuesday, which included a new pair of sneakers for the 3 Day.  After a shopping trip this weekend, I am now the proud owner of new Asics 2T-2150s.  I shared pictures of my 3 Day sneaker legacy in this post and talked about the ins and outs of sneaker shopping in this post.

In addition to spoiling myself with 3 Day goodies, I also went out in the rain yesterday to cheer on all of my friends running in the ING Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon.  Watching the runners for almost four hours both motivated me to stick with my fledgling running career and got me even more excited for my own endurance event, the 3 Day.  To help me stay motivated with my running, I also officially registered both myself and my husband for the Peachtree Road Race on July 4th as part of the Emory University team.  I've never run a 10K before, so I'm a little nervous, but also excited.  Having something to work for makes running a lot easier.

Coming Up Next Week...

Fundraising is going to take a bit of a back seat this week.  I will be monitoring the progress of both the March Madness and Fug Madness tournaments over on our team fundraising blog, so I won't have much time for additional fundraising.  Likewise, because I have a lot on my plate work-wise this week, there won't be much action here on Kristen Walks.  If nothing else, I will get my first post up about why scientific research is so expensive.  I also have a special "You're Invited" post for an event coming up on Thursday, so watch for that if you live in the Atlanta area.

Training will be my main focus next week.  If I'm going to keep up with the Couch to 5K training plan, I will need to make up a run from last week plus complete three more.  Those runs are still pretty short (less than 30 minutes), so as long as the weather co-operates, that shouldn't be a problem.  In addition, the 24 week training schedule for the 3 Day calls for a 3 mile and a 5 mile walk during the week and 7 mile and 6 mile walks on the weekend.  Seven miles is starting to get a bit long for my neighborhood, so I might venture out to explore more of the greater Atlanta area this weekend.  Should be an intense but fun week!