Personal

I have not been getting much training lately as I have been running my daughters to their practices and activities since school let out. The activities are fun but I will be glad in a couple weeks when the competitions are over and we can relax a bit more for the rest of the summer. I will finally be able to get back to my training also. I am not walking until November so I have plenty of time to train but I do miss my walking. I find it to be relaxing.

I also have plenty of other things to work on this summer. I am working on upgrading several websites and there are so many things I want to make better as I have learned so much since I first rolled out the sites.

Well I decided to go out and get a decent length walk in today as I have been kind of busy and have not been walking as much as I would like lately. I guess I missed the part in the weather forecast where it said it was going to be this hot. I thought maybe we would get to about 80 so it would be good training. Turned out it was almost 80 by the time I left at 9:30 and it was pushing 90 by the time I finished my 11.2 miles today. I had almost forgotten how much I hate walking in this kind of heat. It was 90+ each day of my first 3-Day in 2007 and I almost passed out a couple times on day 1. Today I had to really make sure I was drinking enough Gatorade and I bought a bottle of cold water at a gas station just to have cold water to dump over my head and hat to cool me down a little. I missed the cooling stations that they have during the 3-Day. I usually take advantage of those to cool down in Chicago. That was one thing I didn't have to worry about last year in San Diego. The weather in San Diego was perfect and I much prefer walking in 65-70 than 85-95. I am waiting for them to announce the days for next year. I suspect that I may have a conflict with my Family Reunion and Chicago so next year it may be back to sunny San Diego.

I guess I better get used to it for now. Summer is just starting.

Training for the 3-Day

Well the weather here in Wisconsin has been pretty hit and miss. We had some very awesome weather and things have kind of gotten cool again so I have not been walking as much. I did get a couple of good 10 Mile walks in the first two weekend of April but have been a little lax since then. I hope to get back to some longer walking this weekend but the weather may not cooperate and it may rain all weekend. We'll have to see what the temp is like. If it's not too cold I will do some training in the rain.

Podcasts

I don't listen to that many Podcasts with any regularity. I used to listen to Geeks and God every week and really looked forward to it but they stopped producing weekly Podcasts last fall as they are working on a new project. I was really surprised to see that there were a couple new podcasts when I checked out the site the other day. The original guys had a special podcast to publicize efforts to get more people so sponsor children through Compassion. They also were announcing that the Geeks and God Podcasts would be back on a Monthly basis with new hosts. The new hosts have all been active members of the Geeks and God Forums and I am really looking forward to checking out their podcasts as I have some spare time this week. Will let you know what I think.

I have been using Drupal to manage several websites for a couple years now but really have not spent as much time as I should have in learning more about CSS and Drupal theming.  I have been relying on Drupal themes that others have put together and just making some very minor changes to the themes for the sites that I am maintaining.  I spent some time over Christmas break working on a new theme for my Blog site and for my 3 Day Team site.  To learn more about theming in Drupal I ordered some downloadable video tutorials from a group call the Lullabots that do training on how to do things in Drupal.  I have not made it all the way through both videos yet but they are already helping me understand the theming much better than I had before and I consider them a good investment.  The only problem I have now is having enough time to make all of the changes that I want to.

This past weekend I travelled to San Diego to participate in my third Breast Cancer 3 Day.  I was really looking forward to walking with my team again.  From our team in Chicago we had 8 people travel to San Diego.  We had 3 on crew and 5 walkers.  And even though we were in a different City, our teammate Jacky still took care of us and made us name tags like she does for Chicago.  She does a great job and we always get compliments on them on the route.  

Thursday night we had our traditional team dinner to get ready for the weekend.  Our special guest for Dinner was our teammate Stacie's sister.  Sheila was celebrating 5 years of being Cancer free and this trip was a special celebration for her and her sister.  It's always an honor to have Survivors on the team and joining us.

Opening Ceremonies on Friday were very similar to what we are used to in Chicago just with a bigger crowd.  It did take a little longer to get going because of the large group.  It was not long into the day before we were greated with the sites of the Ocean.  Walking along the coast just never got old.  The biggest challenge on Day 1 was the hilll going into Torey Pines State Park.  That hill just seemed to go on forever.  We did finally make it to the top and I was very glad that was early in the day. We had nice lunch down on the beach and then a long walk into camp in the afternoon.  Day 1 seemed to end differently than we are used to because of the early sunset and the late getting back to camp.  Thanks to the young ladies who were helping setup tents at camp.  It was great to be able to rest a couple minutes before having to unpack.

Day 2 was a little bit of a blur for me since I was really not feeling good.  I was really nauseous all night and got very little sleep.  We still had nice weather for walking most of the day and we were really glad that we did not get the drizzle that was forecast for that morning.  The walk along the Ocean on Tuesday afternoon was awesome.  There were some beautiful homes and awesome beach to be seen.  We actually got back into camp before dark this time so we had a better sense of where we were this time.  It was a pretty nice area.

Day 3 always starts early because you have to repack everything and take down your tent.  I also had to head over to Medical after Breakfast to have the wonderful volunteers there bandage up my blisters before heading out.  I had quite a few this weekend but thankfully they were mostly small and not serious as many others that I saw in Medical.  A couple hours into Day 3 we came to the Hill for the Day.  The San Diego 3 Day has at least one good challenging hill each Day.  This was one of those hills that could have used stairs.  It was not as long as Torey Pines but it was steeper.  It was a relief to reach the top of that one.  From there out it was a pretty smooth walk into holding.

Holding is the area at the end of the 3 Day were the walkers rest and gather before we all go to Closing Ceremonies together.  Holding in Chicago and San Diego are like night and day.  In San Diego they actually do mean that holding is for Walkers only and they don't let in Friends and Family.  They also have a DJ and Volunteers who keep up the enthusiasm of the walkers until all of us are in and we are ready for Closing.  The support for walkers coming into closing and cross the finish in San Diego was simply awesome.  Closing in San Diego was also much different since it was being held downtown and they actually closed off streets for this near Petco Park.  I don't see that happening in Chicago.

There were a number of other differences between the two cities also.  I have never had anyone offer me a Beer or shot of tequilla in Chicago while walking but got several offers in San Diego.  I can't drink like that while walking but I think that is all part of the more festive athmosphere in San Diego.  Chicago has larger cheering stations but San Diego has more people everywhere on the walk.  Community support for the walk is top notch.

I have enjoyed walking in both cities and will again in the future.  I can't wait to get back to San Diego again.  It was an awesome experience and I am sure that this does not do the experience justice.

I owe many thanks to people that have helped me with this walk. I want to thank my teammates who were there to share the experience.  Thanks also to my co-worker Jeff who picked me up at the Airport and helped get the weekend off right.  Thanks to the people of San Diego for being supportive of this walk.  The final thanks goes to all of the people who donated to this walk.  With your help we raised over $9.5 Million to help prevent and fight Breast Cancer.  Thanks again and God Bless each of you.