Day Seventy-Three

Whew - what a great couple of weeks it's been! I have definitely found a better balance between fundraising and training. What a relief that is! I was feeling a little dizzy and stretched thin moving around from task to task without a good plan in place.

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As it stands, I've raised $658 to date. YAY! All of this money has been raised solely by donations from my co-workers, friends, and family. I am also gearing up for my first actual fundraiser. I have received what seems like hundreds of donated books from co-workers, friends, family, strangers (through Craig's listing ads), and a large portion from a small local used bookstore owner. I had a tough time finding stores and property managers that would allow me to sell on their property, so I found out that our local Farmer's Market/Swap Meet charges only $22 for a space. I figure I'll give that a try and see how well I do. The good thing about this market is that I will have tons of foot traffic comprised of people already looking to buy something - so why not my books? The bad thing is that there is a fairly large space that is already dedicated to selling used books. Those books are priced at used book store type prices though - so I should be competitive. Only time will tell...

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As far as training goes, I'm feeling pretty good about what I'm doing. I was really bouncing all over the place as far as how long I would walk each evening. I found that was actually doing the opposite of what a training program should. I think my body was confused about what I was doing. So - I found some great training plans on the Susan G. Komen website. One spans 12 weeks that will get me walking 3 miles a day. Then a second that lasts for 24 weeks - easing right up to the 3-Day walk that will get me walking in excess of 20 miles a week. This is a nice slow training program to get my body used to walking long distances with a focus on stretching and cross training - to stay flexible and build up my endurance. So far so good! My walking speed is slowing increasing. I was averaging about a 22 minute mile in the beginning and am now averaging about 20 minutes. I probably need to be at about an 18 minute mile if I don't want to spend 9 hours on the road during the 3-day walking event! :)

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Anyway, I'm feeling great. My muscles are talking to me - but in a good way. I feel very positive about meeting my fundraising goal considering I'm already 30% of the way about 45 days in.

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Wish me luck this Saturday everyone!