Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Three Days To Go

The power went out at our house on Monday. When the power goes out at our house, the battery backup for my 18 year-old alarm clock kicks in and actually speeds up the time. The severity of the time difference depends on how long the power is out. It must have been out for about an hour because when I thought it was 5:45am on Tuesday morning, it was actually 5:06am. Since I had already shut the alarm off and could no longer hit the snooze button, I few choices but to get up. Good time for an hour long elliptical session. I did 2.22 miles (11721.6 feet). Just about half. Pretty good. But I don't think there is any chance in hell I could keep that speed up for 2 hours. I am logging my time/distance on my IPod Touch to keep track and see if I'm getting better or not. Kinda left that to the last minute! I guess that means that I would have to continue doing an hour in the morning instead of just 30 minutes. Might not be such a bad idea. At least they put it back to reruns of the previous evening's George Strombolopalous instead of freakin' Steven And Chris. We'll see I guess. All I know is I'm exhausted and starving!

PS. This is my first post using the new post editor. Seems alright but I like the old Preview better. I am looking forward to the improved image handling.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Fundraising Update

Well, I have 5 days before the big run so I thought I had better give an update on how things are going.

The fundraising has gone way better then I expected. I had set a goal of $500 when I started, thinking that would be tough enough. To my surprise people were more then happy to support finding a cure, and to encourage my suffering. The total so far is an amazing $653.00 (127% of my goal)!! Incredible! That makes me the top fundraiser for the Virtual Run location! Thanks so much to everyone who donated. It means more to me then you will ever know.

So, now people are asking how far I'm going to go. Well, I'm definitely going to do the 5 miles promised if I made it to $500. After that, I don't know. I will try to make the 6.5 miles but we'll see how it goes. I figure it will take probably about 3 1/2 hours to go 5 miles on the elliptical. Why does it take so long you may ask. It's not because I'm a wussy. For one thing, I am totally out of shape. And secondly, each stride is only about 1 foot and there are 5280 feet in one mile. That means just to get 5 miles I need to do 26400 feet (strides on the elliptical). Holy crap! So far I've been doing about 1.17 miles (6178 feet) in about 30 minutes in the mornings. Going to try to get it up to 40 minutes this week but that means a 5:30am start, ugh! And I'm working lates this week at work, ugh! This could be a long week. Gotta try to not burn out by Saturday or it could really be tough.

I have never ran 5 miles in my entire life. I have never even thought about running 5 miles in my entire life. And now I'm going to do it in 1 foot intervals. This may be the dumbest thing I have ever done. Well, the most painful anyway! And all for a cure. I guess it's worth it. :o) Of course it's worth it! Plus, I'm getting in shape and losing weight and bringing my cholesterol down which will all make my doctor very happy. Everybody wins!

PS. If anyone has any tips for me, that would be great. It's about 200 cals for every 30 minutes so I don't know if I need to worry about taking in cals or if I'll be okay. Just water or do I need something like Powerade or what? What should I eat the night before and the morning of? Or am I blowing this way out of proportion?

Thursday, September 03, 2009

S & R Gardens

Side Note: A special thanks to Penny, Derek and Deanne, Jeff, and Kim for sponsoring my run! Your support means more to me then you will ever know. I'm up to $90! Yahoo! Tell your friends!

"S & R Gardens" is what I call my mom and dad's back yard. It is absolutely amazing. They put so much time and effort (and money) into their yard I just had to take some pictures and show it off! I hope I have even a smidgen of their talent for making a beautiful yard! Although they have put about 15 years into theirs and I'm only at 2. I guess I have some work to do!

The morning dove was very strange. I could have pet it if I wanted to (which I didn't). I was way more interested in eating then anything else.

S & R Gardens