It's been a couple weeks since I've done a proper Week in Review post and we have a lot to catch up on. As I mentioned in this short post, my life has gotten very busy over the last few weeks as I cruise towards the finish line of my graduate school career. In addition to all of my school work, 3 Day preparations have been in overdrive, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, that hasn't left me with very much time for blogging lately. However, with the Boston 3 Day for the Cure less than two weeks away, I wanted to make sure that everyone was up to date!
Fundraising
In my last Week in Review post, I mentioned that I was hoping to break the $3000 mark in my fundraising that week. Through the generosity of my friends and family, I am thrilled to say that I blew right past $3000 just a few short days later! Since then, I have received a number of donations both as checks and online donations, bringing my fundraising total online to $3581.97, plus $135 in checks that I just sent in today.
In addition to the amazing number of direct donations I have received over the previous three weeks, we also wrapped up our final team fundraiser, our Mary Kay sale. The reports are that we didn't do very well with this particular sale, although I'm not sure what the final numbers were. Regardless of the final totals, every little bit counts towards the final goal of finding a cure for breast cancer, so I will take it. Oh, and speaking of every little bit counts, we also received our first payment from our partnership with Amazon Associates. That donation, which covered the money we made for the month of April, was for a total of $33, which meant each of us walkers received $8, which is $8 more than I had before!
I still have quite a ways to go if I want to reach my personal goal of raising $5000 and our team goal of $20,000, both of which I intend to pursue right up until the final deadline (which is four weeks post-event). Because I have pushed over $700 to my teammates, I am actually only $578.03 away from my personal goal. That is a goal that I feel is very much within reach. As for our team goal, we're going to have to work really hard to reach that goal. We set our goal of $20,000 when we thought we were going to have six walkers, so that might be a little lofty. However, I think that raising $15,000 as a team is very doable, so that is what I am focused on at this point.
Finally, I of course need to thank everyone that has donated to me over the past week: Kristen Kleehamer, Lesley Couch, Dom Gambardella, Brandi Hanback, Marsha and Dean Griswold, Cornelia Steinert Magee, Clay Perry, Rex Sager, Lloyd and Debbie Shelley, Glen and Marsha Petaja (who noted that their donation was made in memory of Kathy McBride) and my grandmother Reba Sager. I also wanted to recognize my friend Andrea Cecconi and her fiance'e Dave who graciously offered to raise money on behalf of our team during the Cecconi family Fourth of July party. Andrea and Dave were able to raise over $200 for us and we are extremely grateful to them for their efforts!
Training
Wow, training has been on OVERDRIVE over the last three weeks!
First, let's talk about my training walks. Two of the last three weeks have featured my two most intense training weekends. Three weeks ago, I completed "The Big One", the recommended 18 mile/15 mile back to back walks. Of course, I miscalculated my miles on the second day and I ended up actually walking 18 miles on both days! I took my new camera along with me all weekend and took tons of pictures as I roamed all around Atlanta. You can read all about those training walks and check out my pictures here. The next weekend was a much needed recovery walking weekend (which I, of course, spent running instead, as you'll read below). This past weekend, though, it was right back to walking! The training schedule called for 18 miles on Saturday and just 8 miles on Sunday. However, because I wanted to catch up on some miles that I missed earlier in the week and because I can't seem to add up my miles properly on Map My Run, I actually ended up walking 21 miles on Saturday and 12 miles on Sunday. I documented those training walks through Atlanta and at Stone Mountain in this post, also complete with pictures.
Ultimately, my walking over the past three weeks breaks down like this:
- Week 1: 41.5 miles
- Week 2: 16.3 miles
- Week 3: 41.4 miles
With those miles in "the bank", I have now walked 570.63 miles since the start of training! 600 miles is so close, I can taste it!
In addition to all of that crazy walking, I also finished up my great running experiment last week when my husband Mike and I ran in the Peachtree Road Race on the Fourth of July. This was our first 10K and I'm thrilled with our final time of 1 hour 7 minutes and 29 seconds. You read all about our race adventure in this post. Leading up to the race, I did my best to beat the heat and got in a few early morning training runs. The training mileage for the two weeks before the race breaks down like this:
- Week 1: 10.9 miles
- Week 2: 11.9 miles, including the race!
All told, I ran 142.3 miles since I started training for the Race for the Cure back in early March. This is by far the most I've ever run and I'm really proud of myself that I was able to stick to it all the way to the end. I'm going to take a little bit of a break from running over these last couple weeks before the 3 Day, but then I suspect I will be back out running again. Mike has a 5K he wants us to run in August, so that might be the race on the calendar. Who knew we would become such running nuts?
Throughout this training, the most difficult thing to deal with has been the heat. It took a wonderfully well-timed over 4th of July weekend, but for the most part, I've been out walking in 95 to 100 degree temps most days. As I've mentioned before, I'm fairly heat tolerant. My biggest issue was the road rash that I developed during my 18/15 training walks. Apparently, it's a fairly common reaction to the asphalt fumes and it went away in a few days, but man, it was annoying. Hopefully that doesn't come back during the event. Otherwise, my only ailments are a couple small blisters on my toes and some large heel callouses that can get pretty sore on those longer walks. All in all though, provided my heel callous doesn't rip in the next two weeks, I think I'm ready!
Extra Stuff
Obviously, as a reader of my blog, you have probably noticed that I haven't done much blogging over the past few weeks. I've managed to post a couple small things (like this post about a familiar looking mannequin at the gear store and this post about my training partner's injury), but otherwise, the blog has been pretty quiet.
What I have been doing is finalizing plans both for myself and on behalf of my team and our families and friends that will be traveling with us to Boston. As of right now, though, our hotels are booked and our plane tickets have been bought. We have ordered our team shirts (that were generously paid for by Diana Moreland and her business Diana's Costume Closet) and I can't wait for them to be delivered. We also decided to order a banner for our team as our way of giving all of our donors and sponsors the public recognition that they deserve (check it out here!). Finally, all of our teammates have completed online check in, the last big step before we get to Boston. I think I can finally say that WE ARE READY!
Coming Up Next Week...
As of right now, there are 10 days until the Boston 3 Day kicks off and just 8 days before Mike and I fly up to Boston! That doesn't leave a lot of time to get much else done. I do have a few things that I am hoping to accomplish in that small window. First, I am hoping to send out another round of fundraising letters before I leave. I think it is a common misconception that donations can only be made prior to the event and I want to remind my friends and family that haven't donated yet that there is still time. So that will be one project this week. I am also planning a number of training walks, the longest of which will be a relatively short 10 miles. I am about 16 miles behind on the recommended training schedule, and being the obsessive that I am, I would love get caught up before I leave. However, my work load may make that a little difficult, so I am just going to have to do what I can when I can. Even if I don't get in all the miles, I've been training hard for six months, so I feel pretty prepared. And other than that, I am just going to be handling things as they come up and finalizing a couple last details about cheering stations and our team dinner.
Oh! I can't forget to mention that our hometown paper up in Cortland, New York is going to be running an article about our team later this week that I cannot wait for! So exciting!
So that's all from my end. I can't believe the 3 Day is so soon! I'm really starting to get excited about everything!!
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