Week 12 Review

Hard to believe there is now less than 12 weeks until the walk. Here is a summary of what I've been up to.

Training

I've been busy the last couple of weeks with training kicking into high gear. I've walked over 20 miles each of the last 3 weeks. This past weekend I completed a 7 mile walk on Saturday and 12 miles on Sunday. Wow it was tough. I got a few blisters, some sunburn on my shoulders, chafing under my arm where my shirt seam was rubbing and it was unbelievably hot. While training is important and necessary to prepare your body for the rigors of the walk, it also gives you an opportunity to work out your game plan for making the walk as enjoyable as possible -- that way you have a plan for preventing and caring for blisters, sun protection and chafing. While for me none of these issues would prevent me from walking, they can make it a little less enjoyable. And my goal is to not only raise the $2,300 and walk the 60 miles, but to also have fun and enjoy myself. I'm on schedule to do my 13 mile and 9 mile walks this weekend. I'm excited to try out my new Camelbak this weekend. I used a waist pack for the 2002 walk and have been training with it, but I can't carry as much water as I would like and need to for training in the intense summer heat plus it's just not as convenient to have to pull out the water bottle continually. My goal for this weekend is to start walking earlier. I slept in a little too long this past weekend and my 12 mile walk went into the lunch hour. Just too hot for walking in the middle of the day like that.

Fundraising

I've been slowly getting donations in the mail from the letters I mailed out a couple of weeks ago. So far 4 of the 20 request have come back with donations. Awesome and I'm still expecting more to trickle in. I also got a donation from an old high school friend online. Very exciting to get support from my hometown community. Coming up later this month is a dog wash scheduled for Saturday, July 24th and handmade jewelry donated by a co-worker which can be purchased for a donation. Contact me if you are interested in more information about either the dog wash or jewelry. I already have $1,283 posted to my account. When you add the $290 from memory stones and another $95 from my 4 mail donations which still need to be posted, my grand total is $1,668 so far.

Woohoo, I'm on my way.