My 3 Day Week in Review!

With the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure just over a month away, things are really start to pick up now!

Fundraising

Fundraising was a major focus this week, with two very important events taking place:

1.  All of our pending donations from our Flower Power fundraiser have now been deposited into our 3 Day accounts.  Because this fundraiser was such a huge success for our team, we wanted to wait until closer to the event so that we could make those deposits to our teammates who were the most in need of the donations.  Yesterday, I processed almost $800 worth of donations for myself and my teammates which served to put our team fundraising total at over $10,000! 

2.  Because of the Flower Power donations and some other outstanding large donations that haven't posted yet, we can officially say that all four of the walkers on our team have now passed their $2300 fundraising minimums!  

As a result of those two things, all of the donations that I personally receive going forward will be credited directly towards my personal $5000 goal and all of the money raised through our team fundraisers (like our ongoing Mary Kay fundraiser!) will be split evenly among the four of us. 

In pursuit of my $5000 goal, I spent some time this past week contacting one of my greatest group of past supporters - my mom's friends and colleagues.  As I mentioned in this post, Mom works as a self-employed consultant, which means she does business with a lot of different people.  And the people that she works with think the world of her.  They have seen her fight with breast cancer first hand and have often been more than generous in showing their support for her through donations to the 3 Day.  

Not surprisingly, those letters have already resulted in a number of donations this past week.  All together, I received four online donations totaling $201.25 and two additional checks worth another $50.  Together with my $121.25 share of the Flower Power money, that officially puts my fundraising total to date at $2773.50, once those two checks post.  

Of course, I have to recognize and thank my very generous donors this week:  Peggy Lynch (a childhood friend of my mom's), Karen Gibson and David Ostheimer (both work associates of my mom's), Ward and Joann Dukelow, Doug and Lydia Warfield and finally, Ron Barrows.  Ron is the father of the fifth member of the Mag 5 who is unable to walk with us in Boston but who is very much a part of our team in spirit.  Ron made his donation to our entire team and we are incredibly grateful to him and to all of our donors for their wonderful support!

Training

I was able to focus so much on fundraising this week because this week was a wonderful, much needed recovery week for training.  Unfortunately, while I had less miles to walk this week, the weather wasn't any more forgiving.  I mentioned last week that we were having to deal with some seriously intense heat down here in the South.  According to this article from the local news station, we have officially had temps in the 90s every day for the last 10 days, with at least seven more days of similar temperatures coming up this week.  While I can tolerate walking in the heat fairly well, I'm finding it almost impossible to complete some of these longer runs.  As a result, I've actually been getting up before dawn to get my runs in in the early morning hours before the heat really settles in.  That may not sound like much (especially given that my teammates with kids regularly get up at 4am to train!), but I am the least morning person ever.  There was a lot of swearing at the alarm clock, but hey, at least I got my runs in!

This past week, I walked 28.9 miles and I ran another 10.8 miles.  That brings my walking total to date to a robust 471.43 miles and my running total to 119.5 miles.  And trust me, all of that training has definitely been paying off!  I feel stronger every day!

Extra Stuff

If you were just watching my blog, you might think that I hadn't done much else this week, 3 Day - wise.  However, I have been hard at work finalizing all of our plans and making last minute preparations for the 3 Day instead!  We booked our hotel for Sunday night, we've started designing our team shirts and we're just beginning to talk about tent decorations - all fun stuff!  I also got myself down to Phidippides to pick up my second pair of sneakers for the 3 Day.  With just five weeks left before the 3 Day, I really need to get to work breaking them in!

Of course, the most important thing that I did this week was complete Online Check-In.  It's all officially happening now!

Coming Up Next Week...

In the 3 Day vernacular, this next week is what is commonly known as "The Big One".   That's because this week is the single greatest recommended weekly mileage on the 24 and 16 week training schedules! This week will see 5 and 6 mile walks during the week and will culminate with an 18 mile walk on Saturday and a 15 mile walk on Sunday for a total of 44 miles!  Because of the significance of those big back to back walks, I'm hoping to plan some extra fun ways to spice up my walks like I did with Kelly back in 2008 for our 17 mile/13 mile training weekend.  I can't wait to pass the 500 mile mark in my training this weekend!

In addition to all that walking in the heat, I'm also going to try to get in three runs of 2 miles, 3 miles and 5.5 miles.  I only have two weeks left before the Peachtree Road Race and I'm really getting excited about doing it!

Fundraising this week will be a bit less hands on, with most of my efforts focused on promoting our ongoing Mary Kay fundraiser and following up with other potential donors as well.  Since I'm all about the milestones this week, I would love to get my fundraising totals over $3000 by the end of this week!

Finally, I've got two long blog posts planned that I very much want to write this week and our team will be ordering our team shirts.  Very exciting all around!

Search Amazon.com for Pink Wicking Shirts