Monthly Archives: August 2009

Ok, so not much to update, but this update is HUGE…I’ll get to it in a second.

As far as training goes, I’ve been working out because of the Chief’s Induction every day and have dropped 12 pounds. I know it’s not walking, but that will for sure help me.

On the fundraising side…ok, so this is the huge part. My friend Jenna and her family donated enough to put me over $2300 for my San Diego walk–$930 to be exact. HOLY COW! They were also my big donor last year ($650) and when I thanked her and asked her why, she simply said it was because I was walking for a good cause.

Ok…so, what does that mean? That means I still have nearly $2000 to go for the Arizona Walk! That’s less daunting than having almost $3000 left for both walks, so I’ll take it! So, please, donate to my Arizona Walk so that I can actually be insane and do 120 miles in a 10-day span!

Hope all is well, only 3 1/2 more weeks till I become a Chief, and I promise at that point the training will kick up and the blog posts will as well…!

Wow, what a busy week this has been! I had two Training Walks this week, both of which I had to regrettably cancel due to the fact that I was selected for Chief in the Navy and have to go through “Induction”. My time is no longer my own…not until September 16th, at which point I’ll return to leading Training Walks. In the meantime, I’m going to jump in on a few walks when I can that someone else is leading.

The fund raising has hit a wall as well…however, I do have a Lia Sophia party scheduled for August 22nd at my house in San Diego, and I am trying to get a night at Corvette Diner (I have yet to hear back from them.)

The Arizona Walk is 96 days away and I’m still $1914 shy of my fundraising goal. That’s nearly $20 per day I still have to raise between now and then. It’s an incredibly difficult task to overcome, however, I will do so. Less difficult and daunting is that the San Diego Walk is 103 days away and I’m $929.75, for a required $9.03 per day that I need to raise for that one.

I have no doubts that I will get to my goals. Please help me do so by clicking on the links on the left to donate to me.

As far as training goes, I’m doing a lot of running and things like that, I’m hoping that will carry over into helping me with the Walks-I do hope to lose some weight and just get my stamina up all around, so both of those should carry over to the Walks and help me. After September 16th, I will get back on a training schedule for the last 7 weeks or so, to make sure that the walking itself won’t be a problem.

I think it’s obvious why I’m walking San Diego-I have lived here for the past 10 years. There’s no travel expense, it’s an easy choice.

The Walk I wanted to do this year was Michigan, for obvious reasons. It was the state in which I grew up, and where the bulk of my family is and I thought it would be great if my sister could actually be there rooting me on for the Walk. But, unfortunately, the timing was wrong (in the middle of August, which is smack-dab in the middle of my Navy Chief Induction period). So, that was kinda out of it.

My step-mom, Diane, lives in Phoenix, and that just happens to be the closest one to where I live, and at first I thought that maybe we could do the Walk together, but she realized very early she would not be able to raise that amount of money. So, instead, I just decided that I’d walk it, and bring my kids over there to visit Grandma Di instead.

Ideally, I want to do them all. I really do think I’ll be able to pull off the Michigan Walk next year, because the way it stands right now, I should be transferring (which means I’ll be on leave, or vacation) at the time, which I’ll make sure I utilize that time to do the Walk.

Maybe some of my Michigan friends will join me next year….?

You would think that, considering I did a Breast Cancer Walk last year and signed up for two this year, that I had a wonderful time, wouldn’t you? That was far from the case.

I’ve already written about my lack of preparation. Well, that was only part of what made the walk fairly miserable for me last year…my lack of preparation helped make sure I had blisters, which made it difficult for sure. And, it played into the extreme soreness I had during Day 2. I’m not going to lie-Day 2 is bad. On Day 1, you have all the excitement and adrenaline from doing the Walk, you’re pumped up, ready to go. Day 3 you have the same adrenaline for the opposite reason-well, you’re still pumped to do the Walk, but you’re ready to stop. For Day 2, you don’t have that adrenaline, and your body absolutely hates you for forcing it to walk 20 miles the day before. I was incredibly sore from my knees on down starting out Day 2. My body absolutely despised me. LOL.

Beyond that, there were personal reasons I did not have a good time. One was the lack of a team (my one teammate walked considerably faster than I did, so I only walked with him for a few miles and that was on Day 3 towards the end).

The other reasons were that I was lonely. Not “lonely because you don’t have teammates to walk with”-lonely, but “nobody seems to be supporting you”-lonely. I had a girlfriend at the time, and she was going to drive me to Del Mar Fairgrounds (where the walk started) on Day 1 and pick me up. Well, the day before she decided she didn’t want to because her daughter wasn’t feeling well, so she didn’t want to get up at 5am. So, I drove myself…when I got there, no one bothered telling me there was a long-term parking area, so I just parked and hoped my car would still be there when I got back. During the walk, they had Cheering Stations for people to cheer you on (strangers, family, whatever) and, again, she didn’t come to any of them. (Nor did my ex-wife bring my daughters, but that was legitimately because Justyce had a high temperature).

So, here I was doing this incredible thing, and it felt like I was completely alone in my journey, no support from those that I loved.

The worst part came at the end-she was supposed to pick me up downtown and take me back to my car. So, I finish the walk and call her, and she says she’s too busy cooking dinner to come get me. At that point, I was fairly sure I’d missed the bus back to the fairgrounds, so I just told her to call my ex-wife, tell her I’d pay her to come get me and take me to my car (which I hoped was still there). Shortly after giving a vague description to my ex-wife where I’d be, my phone died (there’s no plugs on the walk, there’s no recharging your phone). So, here I am stuck downtown, waiting on a ride, and have no phone. Eventually someone walked by with a phone, and thanks to my memory for numbers (remember, my phone was dead-I couldn’t get into the phone book) I remembered Angelica’s number and gave her a call and we found each other. I am more grateful to Angelica for that one simple act than anything else in my life short of her bearing my beautiful daughters.

Don’t get me wrong-I understand how trivial it is that this really hurt my experience last year. I mean, she was making my dinner and everything, and it was good (and I had a bath run when I got home, etc.). But, you just don’t understand how lousy it was to be downtown without a phone or any options on getting home. All I wanted after walking 60 miles over 3 days was a ride home, I didn’t think that was too much to ask. I would’ve foregone the meal for it, easily, because at that point I was just so beat and sore and emotionally exhausted that I barely had an appetite anyway. I did this amazing thing, and it felt like I did it in a complete vacuum, that it was just something I did, that the person who was supposed to be closest to me didn’t care.

During the event itself, I was just so physically (the first night) and emotionally exhausted that I didn’t really partake in the fun things to do around camp. I got back to camp, showered, ate, and went to bed.

So, instead of writing it off as a miserable experience to not do again, I decided to make up for it this year and actually have a good time, not let outside influences like that put a damper on my experience. I’m going full-force this year, I’ll experience camp (other than the inside of my own tent) and everything. I have to do it at least once. After that, maybe I’ll decide to actually stay at home or in a hotel and bypass the whole camp experience. But not until I’ve made the most of it at least once.