Saturday, September 26, 2009

Map of My Walk Route Today

It includes my walk to/from the 59th & 5th Subway station.

You Are NOT Allowed to Laugh!


That's me, stretching after a 5 mile training walk in Central Park this morning, in what I refer to as my "Karate Kid" pose. I try to do this one near some sort of bench, fence or other steady object, as I have a tendency to start doing my Leaning Tower of Pisa impersonation, and one of these days, I'm gonna land right smack on my ass!

I'm wearing my new "Crawl, Carol, CRAWL!!!" t-shirt. If you would like a supporter version of the shirt, or other items, you can find them in the "Crawl, Carol, CRAWL!!!" store:
http://www.cafepress.com/crawlcarolcrawl.407870037

Doing really well with both the training and fund raising so far. I even won a pair of socks!!!

Today's training consisted of:
  • 1 - 4-mile loop up to around 104th Street and back to 72nd
  • 1 - 1 mile lower loop of the park, down to 59th Street and back
In addition to the training walk, I walked up to 72nd Street and back to/from the subway station, making a total of 7.54 miles by the time I got on the 7 train at Queensboro Plaza. By noon, I was up to 8 miles.

On the fund raising front, I came home to find two envelopes waiting for me - one with a check for $50 and one with a check for $100! Tonight, I'll be providing music during my local VFW Post's "Night at the Races" and will have my donation jar ready, along with some handouts and business cards to place on the tables before the event starts. I'm hoping that it's well-attended, and that I bring home at least $50.

Stay tuned...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Today's Training Adventures

Tonight, we did two trips around the reservoir in Central Park for a total "official" training session mileage of 3.2 miles. By the time I got home tonight, my pedometer read 6.19 miles for the day. About 5 of those were from training, walking to/from training and the subway stairs,etc., because when I left my Weight Watchers meeting, my pedometer read somewhere around the 1.2 mile mark.

I also, apparently, have become popular with the insect world. I got chewed up by a mosquito who decided my lower leg was "the other white meat". Then a bit later, I walked through the same spider web twice! Across my face - ICK!

But, I averaged about a 16 minute mile, which is very encouraging!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Push-ups and Other Training Tortures

I just attempted 15 push-ups as part of my strength training routine. Good thing there wasn't a camera around, because that would've made some really funny YouTube video! I totally suck at push-ups! The last few were more like drag-my-butt-off-the-floor-ups. Really, it was that bad! Static lunges weren't too bad, and eventually I have to attempt some planks. Yippee!!!

But, on a very positive note, I received two checks in the mail today in response to the fund raising letters I mailed out last weekend. One was for a hundred dollars!!! WOOHOO!!! Go me!!! I also thought of a really cool company to approach for a corporate sponsorship, and have the letter all written and ready to go. If they go for it, it will be awesome!

So far, I have over $700.00 in combined pledges and donations, of which I've actually I collected just over $400.00!!! If this keeps up, I will be very happy and able to put the fundraising worry behind me, so I can focus more fully on actual training.

Monday, September 21, 2009

How Your Donations Help

In case you're wondering how the money you donate helps those facing blood cancers, here's an idea of where your donation money could go:
  • $25 could pay the taxi fare for a patient's ride home from the hospital after treatment
  • $50 could register one person to be a bone marrow donor
  • $75 could provide HLA (bone marrow) typing for a family member of a patient with leukemia
  • $100 could pay the cost of 4 patients' chemotherapy drug prescription co-pays
  • $300 could train 25 peer volunteers to provide emotional support to newly diagnosed patients
  • $1,000 could allow a patient to meet with health care specialists to design and discuss their disease and treatment plan
  • $3,000 could provide a patient with a one month supply of Gleevec (a life-saving drug, developed through LLS research funding, used to treat chronic myelogenous leukemia)
Every dollar helps! No donation is too small! Please visit my Team in Training web page at http://tinyurl.com/marathonwoman to donate or find other ways you can help.