More Videos

I've loaded the remaining videos onto YouTube, so if you're at all inclined, you can visit my personal "channel" here and check them out. Most are self-explanatory, I think, and just consist of a lot of people cheering! The people who come out and support the walkers every day on the route are so incredible. They are always so encouraging and entertaining. This year, there were supporters who made us laugh and cry as well!

The one video that probably needs a little explanation is the one that I think might be the funniest. Let me first say that I knew I had the camera turned sideways--I'd actually learned not to make this mistake after messing up several videos with my old camera. However, this camera appeared to right itself when you recorded a video sideways--at least it did in playback mode. I was trying to test it out, to see if would reorient its videos, when we came upon this guy singing while he was walking. It was so hysterical I couldn't stop recording! In case you can't tell, he's doing Bon Jovi's Livin' On A Prayer. It was absolutely hilarious! Hopefully you can turn your laptop or yourself sideways to watch it! :)

Pictures!!

I've finally resized, uploaded, sorted, culled and captioned all of my pictures from last weekend! I deleted enough pictures from other Picasa folders to get the majority of the pictures loaded (there were actually about 360 total, if you can believe it), but I couldn't make room for all of the videos on the site, so those that didn't make it to Picasa will eventually make it to YouTube so that I can share them all! Only one has finished uploading to YouTube so far, but it's a pretty funny (and slightly startling) video, I think.



These girls wore outrageous outfits like this every day, most of which didn't cover much of their bodies! I love the family with all the boobs on their hats too--they were great! Hopefully by tomorrow morning there will be more than just this one!

So here is the full slideshow of all the pictures and a few other videos. If you'd like to view the slideshow a little bigger, you can visit my Picasa page directly by clicking here. I hope to write more about the walk very soon, but the pictures should give you a pretty good idea of what an amazing time we had!

Sneak Peek of Pictures

Tonight I was so excited to load all of my pictures from our trip and post a slideshow to the blog. Unfortunately, once I loaded the pictures onto the computer, I realized that my new camera was set to such a high picture quality that my folder of 3-Day pictures won't even come close to fitting on my Picasa page!! Argh! I'm so bummed--the trip was amazing and I can't wait to share! I guess maybe I'll look into making a Flickr page or something tomorrow to see if I can find another website on which to post the pictures. For now, here are just a couple of sneak peeks--us freezing before the opening ceremony started and a very happy us after closing ceremonies!

The other bummer about my pictures is that a bunch of them turned out kind of blurry. Granted, I was walking and taking pictures at the same time, which isn't exactly a recipe for steady shooting, but I think maybe there was some sort of setting that was making the autofocus area super small in certain cases--I just can't figure out what it was! Maybe I should have actually read the camera manual on the plane to California or something!

Regardless, the trip was great. My mom did awesome and walked the entire 60 miles without hitching a ride (like hundreds of other walkers do)! I am so proud of her and had so much fun with my brother. I hope to have pictures and to share more of the details very soon!

We're Here!!

We made it safely to San Diego today and are trying to get to bed early as we prepare to get up at 4 a.m. for the second morning in a row! Last night was a late one as I finished up our t-shirts and other last minute packing and preparations, but I think the t-shirts turned out pretty good--a definite improvement over last year!

So tomorrow our months and months of hard work and hours spent will finally pay off. Our team raised almost $8000 (if you haven't donated yet and want to give us about $25 we'll get there!) and walked hundreds and hundreds of miles in preparation. I hope this will be an amazing experience for my dear family that will be worth all the hard work!

Thanks to everyone for all of your wonderful support! We couldn't have done this without you!! :)

Our Route

I'm so excited because this year the 3-Day folks sent out something that we didn't have last year--a map of our walking route! Last year I just had to guess at where we had been for three days! This time we'll have a better idea of where we are going and where we went! If you're interested, you can click on the map below for a larger image!

Eighteen Miles: The Condensed Version

Once again it's late and I'm tired after a busy evening of making 3-Day related preparations. I should go to bed, but I'm afraid that I'll never get around to sharing the story of our 18 mile walk on Sunday if I don't do it now. I'm going to try to keep it short, although I'm generally terrible at condensing a story, as you might have noticed. Maybe some bullet points will help!

• We left at about 11:30 a.m. I wanted to leave about 10:30, but Mom was late getting to my house. We couldn't leave much earlier though because it was COLD in the morning.
  
• We walked about 4 miles to the Dillons at 6th and Wakarusa, where we borrowed the facilities. The highlight of this leg was the hill on Peterson up to Monterey Way. The lowlight was the cold wind we were walking into!
• We walked about another 2-3 miles to the Miller Mart at 23rd and Wakarusa, where we bought some water and sat for a few minutes while we refilled our bottles. The highlight of this leg was definitely the beautiful sunshine in our faces! We stretched a few minutes and headed down back out onto the trail.
• We literally hooked into the hike/bike trail as we reached the end of Wakarusa, and followed it 3-4 more miles out to the movie theaters, where we were able to cut across a couple of parking lots to make it to our destination--Target! The highlights of this leg were seeing a beautiful hawk sitting on someone's fence and walking along the scenic treeline and by various ponds. We did stop for just a few minutes in this leg to do a little more stretching!
• We stopped at Target for probably 40 minutes or so, splitting a terrific sandwich and following it up with a large cinammon pretzel. Yum! After buying some Gatorade we headed back out onto the trail.
  
• We walked back up to Lawrence Avenue and followed it all the way to 23rd, where we cut around the new parking area by the new research building on West Campus, and then wound up the hill to my office at KU Endowment. While Mom took another break and stretched, I logged onto Google maps and checked to see how far it would be for us to walk to Jack's, where Chad was watching the Steelers game. We determined that it would take us too long to get there and we should probably just head straight home. After changing socks and using the facilities, we headed back out to walk, but unfortunately by this time the sun was starting to go down and it was getting cold!!
  
• We walked across the street from my office and took a detour through Pioneer Cemetery, which sadly I'd never done in 10 years of working right next to it. Talk about fascinating! There are so many graves of people who died in Quantrill's Raid--I had no idea!
• We headed towards main campus as the sun went down, walking around the dorms and down 15th and up Naismith hill and down Jayhawk Boulevard. All very pretty, but very cold. We cut through the Union, stretched a few minutes, and then went out the back door to wind around the stadium up to Maine street.
  
• We walked all the way down Maine past 6th, which wasn't just cold--it was treacherous! There are a lot of uneven sidewalks in Old West Lawrence, and unfortunately not a lot of streetlights!
  
• After crossing 6th we made a quick facilities stop at the hospital, and then walked the last 1+ mile to our house, singing the Hallelujah chorus most of the way (literally--we were signing Handel's Messiah because it helped keep us going)!
• We arrived home at about 6:30, but after walking for most of the day, it felt like 10:00! We made it though, and Mom did great!
  

Okay, so the bullets didn't really help the length of my post, but at least I got it done in about 20 minutes! :)

Nine Days and Counting

The saga about our 18 mile walk on Sunday will have to wait at least one more night, since this evening has been consumed with all sorts of other 3-Day tasks. We leave in just nine days, and I have to admit I'm panicking a little just thinking about all that needs to be done between now and then!

Let me just fill you in a little on what's going on in the world of 3-Day preparation:

1. Our team is officially finished with fundraising! Hooray! I received a generous check from my wonderful friend Dan this weekend from Set'em Up Jack's. We brought in about $900 in sales the night of our fundraiser, 30% of which Dan donated to our team (even though he was only supposed to donate 25%!). I sent that check off in the mail to Eric's account, which will put him well over the $2200 mark once it's posted! Part of my evening was spent sending thank-yous to our most recent supporters and organizing my donor database!

2. T-shirts are still in the works. I talked to Mandi at Midwest Graphics today, and although she was super helpful, we ultimately realized they couldn't print our shirts because there's an unlicensed Jayhawk on them! Therefore, I've decided to print our shirts in house again this year (that means I'll be ironing them on), and tonight I put the finishing touches on our new logo.

First, the 2007 logo:


Compared to the new 2008 logo:


What do you think? Is it an improvement?

3. I'm working on updating our honorary/memorial list. Last year, Vikkie and I wore the names of all the people for whom we were walking on the back of our shirts for all 60 miles of our walk. I would like to do the same this year, so I'm preparing to email all of our donors to see if there is anyone we should add before printing our final list. Putting together my email list is taking some time since I've been blessed with so many supporters!

That's all for tonight's update! Thanks for your support and thanks for visiting my 3-Day blog!

A Cold Eight Miles

This weekend was an 18/8 mile weekend, and since there was a KU game I wanted to see on Saturday, we decided to do the 8 miles yesterday and the 18 miles today. My 8 mile walk yesterday can be summed up in two words: cold and quick!! Chad bundled up with me in the morning and we took the dogs our for a very brisk almost 4 mile walk. The wind was super strong and the temp was in the upper 30s, so it was darn cold!! After dropping the dogs and Chad off at home I headed back out to walk my 4+ additional miles with the ipod as my partner, which helped me keep up that super fast pace! I finished my 8 cold miles with an average pace of 14:31 miles, which was very fast considering Mom and I have been walking 17-18 minutes miles on average. Needless to say, my hips/back were very sore when I woke up this morning!

Mom walked her 8 miles yesterday a little later in the afternoon, so she didn't get nearly as cold as we did in the morning. She emailed me last night to say that she had walked about 7.6 outside until it was too dark to see, and then she walked up and down the stairs at her house until her pedometer finally read 8 miles. Now that's dedication!!

I'm exhausted and sore from today's 18 miles, so I'll have to write about that walk tomorrow!!

T-Shirts

A few weeks ago when Mom and I walked at the Maple Leaf Festival in Baldwin we found a t-shirt that we just had to buy for my brother. We almost bought an all pink version that just said "Real Men Wear Pink" but then we both decided that Eric probably wouldn't wear it under any circumstance. We settled on this version instead, modeled here by my wonderful and obviously reluctant husband.

Hopefully my brother will actually wear it!

Speaking of t-shirts, this year Eric has a friend who actually wants to purchase a Jayhawks for Jugs t-shirt! Since the t-shirts we wore to the event last year were actually homemade and not really worth purchasing, I'm kind of tossing around the idea of getting some real t-shirts printed, but I might try to make some logo modifications first. I kind of think the logo looks pretty homemade too!

Another Easy Week

This last weekend Mom and I were scheduled to walk just 10 and 8 miles on Saturday and Sunday respectively. We decided to do a flip-flop, and instead walk our shorter 8 mile walk on Saturday so that I could get to the KU/K-State game on time. Mom stayed the night on Friday, and we got up early on Saturday and took the dogs for a quick 4 mile walk. We dropped them off and got a quick snack, and then headed back out for another 4 miles. We were done with our 8 miles before 9 a.m.! Mom is always amazed when we walk that far and it seems like we're just getting started!

On Sunday, our plan was to start our 10 miles around Mom's house in Topeka, and then to head off to Chapman where would attend a special ceremony at Mom's old church before finishing our walk around the tiny town. Unfortunately, after feeling a little crappy all week, I woke up Sunday morning feeling really sick, so I sent Mom out on her own to walk the first five miles. I slept a little longer, and then stopped off for a sprite and saltines before heading on to Topeka later in the morning.

Thankfully Mom had already done 6 miles by the time I arrived to pick her up for our Chapman trip, so after the ceremony we were able to easily walk our last 4 miles while sightseeing around Mom's tiny hometown. There were only a few neighborhoods of the little town that we didn't walk through! Walking around the city park brought back some memories for me as well, since I spent many hours playing in that park with my cousins as a child. It was really a fun day and quite an adventure!

Unfortunately, by the time we got back to Topeka that evening I was feeling the stomach bug in full force, and I've been in bed for the last two days trying to kick it. I just want to make sure I'm over the illness completely before I go back to work, since we have another big 18 mile walk this weekend! It's our last big walk before we head to San Diego in just barely over 2 weeks!

Lazy Weekend of Walking

You might have noticed that I never blogged about last weekend's training walks. That's mostly because Mom and I didn't walk together last weekend, and partially because I slacked off quite a bit on the walking I did do! After our 18/15 walks the weekend before, we were only scheduled to do recovery walks of 10 and 6. Mom did pretty well on her own, walking about 7 and 6 on Saturday and Sunday respectively. I, however, only walked about 6 on Saturday before going to the KU game, and then only walked about 4 on Sunday while walking dogs at the shelter. I was pretty lazy--but it was only because I had so many other things going on!

This weekend is another easy weekend since we did back to back hard weekends when we changed up the schedule a couple of weeks ago. We're supposed to do walks of 10 and 8 on Saturday and Sunday, but will probably only do 8 tomorrow since there's another early football game to schedule around. On Sunday we're taking a special trip and doing our 10 miles in a special town, so hopefully I'll have a good story to tell after our walk!

Fundraising Progress

I've been slacking on the 3-Day updates lately, but that's only because there's been so much going on! Last Thursday, on the same day we had our Pack Jack's event at Set'em Up Jack's, the Wellness Committee at my office (headed by a very dedicated and motivated Pam) put on a fundraiser for my team over the lunch hour. They sold donated pizza and baked goods and raffled off a bunch of other goodies and raised almost $400!! It was amazing! At the event, another of my coworkers gave me a $500 donation for the team as well, which will put my mom over her $2200 minimum once it posts to her account! Since Eric is only about $800 away himself, we are getting very close to being finished with our fundraising!

The evening at Jack's went pretty well also, with 40 or so people coming specifically to support our team. I haven't heard from Dan about how much money we raised, but hopefully soon I'll be able to deposit another $100 or so into Eric's account. I'm glad we're getting close, because there are only 23 days until the event!

Thank you to everyone who came to the work fundraiser, to the Jack's fundraiser or just made a donation to my mom's or brother's account recently! I am so thankful that fundraising is almost over!

The 15 That Followed

As I mentioned yesterday, I was a bit worried about doing our 15 miles on Sunday after Saturday's 18, since Mom had been too tired for back-to-back long walks the previous weekend. When she got up Sunday morning, however, she didn't have too many aches and pains and was eager to get started. We decided to start with just a 5 mile loop, but about 4 miles in, Mom decided that she wanted to go for coffee. We went a couple of miles out of the way to McDonalds, where we enjoyed coffee and a fruit and yogurt cup! It was a very nice break!

McDonalds is only a couple of miles from home, so once we got home we had already knocked off about 7 miles of our day, which was great! After a short reload of fluids and snacks, we headed back out onto the walking trail, this time with a particular destination in mind! Chad was on his way to watch the Steelers game at Set'em Up Jack's, which is all the way across town--but in reality that's only about 6 miles! We decided that Jack's would be the perfect motivation, since as soon as we arrived we could finally eat lunch!

Since the restaurant was only 6 miles away and we needed to do 8 miles, we took our first detour up to campus, where we walked past the new football facility and up Campanile Hill. We stopped off at the Union to fill up on drinks, and the nice girl working at the gift shop there even inquired about our walk! It's really nice when people ask what we're doing instead of just staring/laughing at our fanny packs and water bottles!

We walked around campus a little and took in the fall beauty while I showed Mom all the new facilities that had been built since Eric and I had been in school. After our little tour we headed east towards Jack's, stopping once for a pit stop and more water at Kwik Shop. At that point we were only about 2 miles away, and we needed closer to 3 miles to be finished, so we took a slight detour to the Lawrence Humane Society, where I knew my friend JoAnna would be volunteering. I'd originally thought that I might be able to come join her after our lunch/walk was complete, but when I realized I wouldn't have time before they closed at 4, I thought it would be good to stop by and tell her hi anyway.

After chatting for a few minutes with JoAnna we headed off to Jack's, but since it was less than a mile away and we needed 2 miles, we sort of took the long way. We walked through some neighborhoods, past an elementary school where I volunteered in college, past a preschool where I subbed in college, and then back around to the restaurant. When we arrived we'd walked just over 15 miles on the day and Mom hadn't had any problems at all! I was so proud of her, and we enjoyed a huge, yummy meal at Jack's to celebrate!!

The Biggest Weekend

This past weekend was the biggest weekend in the entire 3-Day 24 week training program. This was the weekend of the 18 and 15 miles back-to-back training walks--a weekend so big that there's even a special milestone sticker to commemorate it! These big walks are actually scheduled for this coming weekend, but since I have the KU homecoming game and a wedding to go to on Saturday, I knew there'd be no time for walking 18 miles!

So Mom and I swapped last weekend with this weekend, and took on the big one right after our grueling 17 mile walk last weekend. I wasn't so worried about the 18 on Saturday--I knew Mom would handle that just fine--but I was definitely worried about the subsequent 15 on Sunday. Mom has struggled a bit on the long Sunday walks, so I encouraged her to stay the night so that I could help motivate her the next day.

For a new and different place to walk on Saturday, Mom and I drove to the little town of Baldwin City, which is just about 20 minutes south of Lawrence. It took a while to get there because of fog, but we arrived at about 8:15, just before the town came alive for the annual Maple Leaf Festival. It was still really chilly outside, so we layered up and started walking around the town, coming back to the car every few miles for drinks and snacks. For our first pit stop we went to Kwik Shop, where we had to wait for at least 20 minutes to use the restroom because the place was so crowded with tourists!

Instead of going downtown for the parade, we decided to go against the foot traffic to head out to the edge of town, where we saw the old train depot and the antique train to nowhere. As we headed back towards the festival we stopped for a quick stretch, and we'd already knocked off 6-7 miles. Our goal was to walk 14 in Baldwin before heading back to Lawrence.

After walking around some residential areas and seeing the train we moved into the downtown, where we milled about the hundreds of booths of crafts and art. We walked through the old-fashioned carnival area and actually stopped at the petting zoo and petted some farm and exotic animals for a while too. It was all very entertaining! We walked around the Baker University campus for the first time--it was really pretty! After taking in the sights and dodging the crowds for a while, we headed towards the north end of town and walked around some really nice neighborhoods there and walked around the high school.

After one last trip back to the car, we headed back down to the festival and bought a few items that we'd seen in our first walk through. We would have gotten finished a lot sooner had we not spent so much time milling about the festival and dropping by local shops! We were still able to finish our 14 miles by about 2:30, at which point we headed back to Lawrence to watch the KU/OU game.

Mom did a lot of napping during the game, and after it was over (a mere 4 hours later) we headed back out for our last 4 miles. We took the dogs along this time, which always takes longer for all the sniffing and squatting and leg-lifting, but we managed to finish the day by about 8:30 or so. Mom didn't get tired necessarily, but she did have some weakness and lightheadedness that we think was probably due to minor dehydration. We didn't wear our fanny-packs around the festival during the day so we probably didn't drink nearly as much as we needed to!

Since our 18 mile walk took so much time to talk about, I'll save the 15 mile story for tomorrow!