Reposted from
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted August 22, 2010
14.47 miles in 4:19:47 today, the second half of the last scheduled major training weekend before the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Santa Barbara. There will of course be more training walks in the next 19 days, but they're all relatively short, no more than 10 miles or so.
Today's pace was only 17:57 per mile, much slower than yesterday's 16:35 pace, but there was a freakin' mountain in there! Up over Santa Suzanna Pass Road from the San Fernando Valley into Simi Valley, then back up & over Box Canyon Road from Simi to SFV.
Then there was the rattlesnake... I came around a blind curve in the canyon, very narrow, no shoulder, a fair amount of traffic, and I looked down just in time to see my foot coming down on two feet of Western Diamondback. I promptly set a new world record for the standing high jump, screamed like a little girl, and only on the way down from Low Earth Orbit noticed that it was dead.
Oh, and I can update this blog using my iPhone. (Assuming THIS posts...) Let's hope they have wi-fi at the Wellness Village & major rest stops!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Uber-Training Day One In The Books
Reposted from
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted August 21, 2010
It was a good day to walk, despite the fact that it was HOT. Pushing triple-digits for the last three hours today, while the previous three long (20-mile or more) training walks were on days that were cloudy & at least 25 degrees cooler.
26.44 miles in 7:33:45 today, and when you take out the brief stops to refill on Gatorade or find a bathroom, I was averaging 16:35 per mile, an excellent pace.
Good news - the battery in my Garmin GPS watch will actually hang in there for the entire route. Not by much, but it did make it.
Bad news - the battery in my iPhone will NOT make it due to the power needs of RunKeeper. There's no Mophie Juice Pack available yet for the iPhone4, so I'll have to figure out something else.
Good news - the word from the Avon Walk folks this week was that the Saturday walk starts at 07:00 and the course closes at 18:30, so we have 11:30 to finish before they sweep us off the course into the shuttle buses. This was a concern of mine early in the training, but I now know that I can complete a flat-ish course in 7:30, so no worries!
Tomorrow, a small mountain range and we'll see how well I can do the morning after doing the full 26.2+!
Finally, thinking about it while walking today (one can have a LOT of time to think on a long walk...), I wonder if I can update this blog live from the walk rest stops in three weeks, using my iPhone. Anyone interested? Worth my time to try?
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted August 21, 2010
It was a good day to walk, despite the fact that it was HOT. Pushing triple-digits for the last three hours today, while the previous three long (20-mile or more) training walks were on days that were cloudy & at least 25 degrees cooler.
26.44 miles in 7:33:45 today, and when you take out the brief stops to refill on Gatorade or find a bathroom, I was averaging 16:35 per mile, an excellent pace.
Good news - the battery in my Garmin GPS watch will actually hang in there for the entire route. Not by much, but it did make it.
Bad news - the battery in my iPhone will NOT make it due to the power needs of RunKeeper. There's no Mophie Juice Pack available yet for the iPhone4, so I'll have to figure out something else.
Good news - the word from the Avon Walk folks this week was that the Saturday walk starts at 07:00 and the course closes at 18:30, so we have 11:30 to finish before they sweep us off the course into the shuttle buses. This was a concern of mine early in the training, but I now know that I can complete a flat-ish course in 7:30, so no worries!
Tomorrow, a small mountain range and we'll see how well I can do the morning after doing the full 26.2+!
Finally, thinking about it while walking today (one can have a LOT of time to think on a long walk...), I wonder if I can update this blog live from the walk rest stops in three weeks, using my iPhone. Anyone interested? Worth my time to try?
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Training Program's Pinnacle Awaits
Reposted from
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted August 20, 2010
First of all, my thanks again to all of my friends, family, business associates, and classmates for their support in this endeavor, particularly their financial support. Special thanks go to John and Susan MacLaurin for their extremely generous donation! Thanks to everyone's help I'm now at the 74% point toward my goal with three weeks left before the big weekend. Thanks, one & all!!
Three weeks to go. It's late so I'll be brief and try to fill in more details this weekend and later next week (lots of ideas, little time to write it seems) but the short version is that the scheduled training walks for tomorrow and Sunday are for 22 and 10 miles respectively, the last two "long" walks before the actual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer event in three weeks.
I, of course, am planning on exceeding those training goals by a bit. When the plan called for 16 miles I did 18+; when the plan called for 18 I did 20+; the two weeks when the plan called for 20, I did 21+ and 22+. So tomorrow I'm planning on walking from my house to my office and back, which pencils out at 26.5 miles. And on Sunday I plan on walking from my house in the West San Fernando Valley over the Santa Suzanna Pass to Simi Valley and then back over the canyon roads, which looks like 14.2 miles with a small mountain range to boot.
Agressive!
I'll keep you updated on how it goes, but remember this (hint, it's Klingon):
"porghDaq narghDI' 'oy', HoS poch"
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted August 20, 2010
First of all, my thanks again to all of my friends, family, business associates, and classmates for their support in this endeavor, particularly their financial support. Special thanks go to John and Susan MacLaurin for their extremely generous donation! Thanks to everyone's help I'm now at the 74% point toward my goal with three weeks left before the big weekend. Thanks, one & all!!
Three weeks to go. It's late so I'll be brief and try to fill in more details this weekend and later next week (lots of ideas, little time to write it seems) but the short version is that the scheduled training walks for tomorrow and Sunday are for 22 and 10 miles respectively, the last two "long" walks before the actual Avon Walk for Breast Cancer event in three weeks.
I, of course, am planning on exceeding those training goals by a bit. When the plan called for 16 miles I did 18+; when the plan called for 18 I did 20+; the two weeks when the plan called for 20, I did 21+ and 22+. So tomorrow I'm planning on walking from my house to my office and back, which pencils out at 26.5 miles. And on Sunday I plan on walking from my house in the West San Fernando Valley over the Santa Suzanna Pass to Simi Valley and then back over the canyon roads, which looks like 14.2 miles with a small mountain range to boot.
Agressive!
I'll keep you updated on how it goes, but remember this (hint, it's Klingon):
"porghDaq narghDI' 'oy', HoS poch"
Friday, August 6, 2010
Where Has The Time Gone?
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted July 8, 2010
It's been a really, REALLY busy couple of months and my training is going great! But while I've got a whole list of things to write about and blog posts half-written in my head, the time to actually get them written & posted has been scarce, and for that I apologize. Let's see if I can start to break that creative logjam... First, let me tell you about two incidents that happened on the last two long Saturday training walks.
Two weeks ago, on June 26th, I was on a scheduled 12-mile walk (that turned into 14+ miles -- some things never change!) and going along Ventura Boulevard, a busy, main thoroughfare here in LA's San Fernando Valley. I was just coming to the driveway of a small shopping center when I noticed someone barreling out of the lot without bothering to see me. Rather than get run over with the right-of-way sanctimoniously but uselessly shielding me, I naturally hopped back a step or two and then walked behind the guy's pickup truck after he went by.
I was on an endorphin high from my walk and didn't get all PO'd and self-righteous (really, I didn't, no Ratso Rizzo act from me!) but I did wave at him and said something non-committal about watching out for pedestrians on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, this guy was going straight off of the deep end, screaming at me about how it was my fault for being on the sidewalk, I was just one of a hundred thousand cockroaches (his term, not mine!) on the streets of LA making his life miserable when he was trying to drive around, where did I get off on expecting him to stop his truck for me, etc...
I listened to it all for a minute or so, just let it wash over me, more bemused than upset, wondering what had set him off, not responding at all. (Not even to point out little details like...THE LAW!!) Finally he had to come up for air, saw a chance to get into a break to turn right, and he tore off into traffic. I just waved and said, "I hope your day gets better!" I just shook my head in wonder and got back to my next 16:45 mile.
A block later I noticed someone pulling up beside me at the curb and honking, and my first thought was that it was someone wanting to ask for directions. I stopped, pulled off my headphones, and realized it was the same guy. He had done a U-turn, come back to find me, then done another U-turn to pull over to the curb next to me. I had about a half-second to wonder what kind of grief this was going to deteriorate into when he said that he wanted to apologize for the actions of his "evil twin brother" a few minutes ago. He then proceeded to deliver a very sincere apology.
I accepted and thanked him sincerely for coming back to talk. I understand that sometimes we get set off by something when other "stuff" has piled up on us and some innocent bystander gets a blast of undeserved vitriol. I've been the one going off the deep end once or twice. Because of that, I really did appreciate him making the effort to come back. I wished him a better day ahead, we agreed that we were good now, and off we went on our separate ways.
In some situations in the past (a guy cuts me off on the freeway, someone's a jerk at the store or at a ballgame, whatever) I've reacted with anger and watched the situation get ugly quickly. This time, for whatever reason, without thinking, I just waved it off and let it go, and not only did it not get worse, the situation actually improved! There might be an actual lesson here.
Last Saturday the universe used my 14-mile training walk (which turned into 17+ miles) to give a lesson in connectivity & that whole "six degrees of separation" thing. I was walking around Chatsworth Reservoir, headed north on Valley Circle Drive, into a rural residential & park area that might only be three or four miles from wall-to-wall houses & mini-malls but feels like it's a thousand miles away. On a telephone pole I saw a couple of posters about a lost pet. Walking as I'm doing now I see these all the time and usually don't give them more than a glance, but something about this poster and its picture caught my eye. I stopped to read it and found out that "Lester", a peacock and beloved pet out here in the horse properties and canyons, was missing and its humans were worried sick.
As I was reading the poster someone came out of the house there and saw that I was reading it. They didn't say anything, but I hollered across the fence to ask if they were the "peacock people". Turns out they were. And it turns out that my wife and I had seen a peacock over by our house just the week before. Coincidence? Perhaps. But how many peacocks are there in the wall-to-wall houses & mini-marts LA suburbs?
The previous weekend Ronnie & I had been just a couple of blocks from our house, near a local private high school, looking at houses that I had seen on other walks. I'm noticing lots of paint schemes and decorating ideas and landscaping touches that I like and I was driving around to some of them with Ronnie, showing her what I had spotted so that we could think about things we might like to do to our house. And there, in the middle of the road as we tried to get out of the cul-de-sac was this huge "big blue chicken".
We had seen it once or twice before, and we've heard it every now and then. They're loud! Our dog, Jessie, had spotted it once when Ronnie was walking her. Jessie had just about wet herself (she's the most cowardly "attack dog" in the world), an incident which had inspired the "Big Blue Chicken" legend in our household. But this one wasn't in someone's yard or being kept as a pet, it was wandering free and blocking the street. And it was big! It took its sweet time, not in any hurry at all to get out of the street, not afraid of us or the car at all. After a minute or so it wandered off and we went home with what was, at the time, just another BBC sighting confirmed.
The BBC seen near our house looked just like the one on the poster, but as they say, they all look alike to me. I told the "peacock people" about what we had seen a week earlier and asked if they knew where the high school was. They did, they used to live over there. A-ha!! It seems that Lester might have taken off and "gone back home". So I gave them all of the information I had about where we had seen our BBC and went on my merry way.
Three hours and eleven miles later I got back over into my neighborhood and walked by the high school to find "Missing" posters with pictures of Lester on every block! Glad to know that I was taken seriously, I guess. No word on whether or not Lester's been found or returned, or if the BBC we found was not really Lester (what are the odds of there being a Lester-impersonator?), or if all anyone's found is a pile of feathers and a well-fed coyote.
But it seems to me that the fates are conspiring to get Lester back home, and I feel good that I and my walking program were key components in that cosmic plot, either intentionally or as a pawn of the gods. I guess that it pays to get off your butt and get out there, and keep your eyes open when you do it. You never can tell when you might help to reunite a Big Blue Chicken and his lost & worried human. (I'm sure it's the human who's lost -- Lester no doubt knows right where he is.)
Originally posted July 8, 2010
It's been a really, REALLY busy couple of months and my training is going great! But while I've got a whole list of things to write about and blog posts half-written in my head, the time to actually get them written & posted has been scarce, and for that I apologize. Let's see if I can start to break that creative logjam... First, let me tell you about two incidents that happened on the last two long Saturday training walks.
Two weeks ago, on June 26th, I was on a scheduled 12-mile walk (that turned into 14+ miles -- some things never change!) and going along Ventura Boulevard, a busy, main thoroughfare here in LA's San Fernando Valley. I was just coming to the driveway of a small shopping center when I noticed someone barreling out of the lot without bothering to see me. Rather than get run over with the right-of-way sanctimoniously but uselessly shielding me, I naturally hopped back a step or two and then walked behind the guy's pickup truck after he went by.
I was on an endorphin high from my walk and didn't get all PO'd and self-righteous (really, I didn't, no Ratso Rizzo act from me!) but I did wave at him and said something non-committal about watching out for pedestrians on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, this guy was going straight off of the deep end, screaming at me about how it was my fault for being on the sidewalk, I was just one of a hundred thousand cockroaches (his term, not mine!) on the streets of LA making his life miserable when he was trying to drive around, where did I get off on expecting him to stop his truck for me, etc...
I listened to it all for a minute or so, just let it wash over me, more bemused than upset, wondering what had set him off, not responding at all. (Not even to point out little details like...THE LAW!!) Finally he had to come up for air, saw a chance to get into a break to turn right, and he tore off into traffic. I just waved and said, "I hope your day gets better!" I just shook my head in wonder and got back to my next 16:45 mile.
A block later I noticed someone pulling up beside me at the curb and honking, and my first thought was that it was someone wanting to ask for directions. I stopped, pulled off my headphones, and realized it was the same guy. He had done a U-turn, come back to find me, then done another U-turn to pull over to the curb next to me. I had about a half-second to wonder what kind of grief this was going to deteriorate into when he said that he wanted to apologize for the actions of his "evil twin brother" a few minutes ago. He then proceeded to deliver a very sincere apology.
I accepted and thanked him sincerely for coming back to talk. I understand that sometimes we get set off by something when other "stuff" has piled up on us and some innocent bystander gets a blast of undeserved vitriol. I've been the one going off the deep end once or twice. Because of that, I really did appreciate him making the effort to come back. I wished him a better day ahead, we agreed that we were good now, and off we went on our separate ways.
In some situations in the past (a guy cuts me off on the freeway, someone's a jerk at the store or at a ballgame, whatever) I've reacted with anger and watched the situation get ugly quickly. This time, for whatever reason, without thinking, I just waved it off and let it go, and not only did it not get worse, the situation actually improved! There might be an actual lesson here.
Last Saturday the universe used my 14-mile training walk (which turned into 17+ miles) to give a lesson in connectivity & that whole "six degrees of separation" thing. I was walking around Chatsworth Reservoir, headed north on Valley Circle Drive, into a rural residential & park area that might only be three or four miles from wall-to-wall houses & mini-malls but feels like it's a thousand miles away. On a telephone pole I saw a couple of posters about a lost pet. Walking as I'm doing now I see these all the time and usually don't give them more than a glance, but something about this poster and its picture caught my eye. I stopped to read it and found out that "Lester", a peacock and beloved pet out here in the horse properties and canyons, was missing and its humans were worried sick.
As I was reading the poster someone came out of the house there and saw that I was reading it. They didn't say anything, but I hollered across the fence to ask if they were the "peacock people". Turns out they were. And it turns out that my wife and I had seen a peacock over by our house just the week before. Coincidence? Perhaps. But how many peacocks are there in the wall-to-wall houses & mini-marts LA suburbs?
The previous weekend Ronnie & I had been just a couple of blocks from our house, near a local private high school, looking at houses that I had seen on other walks. I'm noticing lots of paint schemes and decorating ideas and landscaping touches that I like and I was driving around to some of them with Ronnie, showing her what I had spotted so that we could think about things we might like to do to our house. And there, in the middle of the road as we tried to get out of the cul-de-sac was this huge "big blue chicken".
We had seen it once or twice before, and we've heard it every now and then. They're loud! Our dog, Jessie, had spotted it once when Ronnie was walking her. Jessie had just about wet herself (she's the most cowardly "attack dog" in the world), an incident which had inspired the "Big Blue Chicken" legend in our household. But this one wasn't in someone's yard or being kept as a pet, it was wandering free and blocking the street. And it was big! It took its sweet time, not in any hurry at all to get out of the street, not afraid of us or the car at all. After a minute or so it wandered off and we went home with what was, at the time, just another BBC sighting confirmed.
The BBC seen near our house looked just like the one on the poster, but as they say, they all look alike to me. I told the "peacock people" about what we had seen a week earlier and asked if they knew where the high school was. They did, they used to live over there. A-ha!! It seems that Lester might have taken off and "gone back home". So I gave them all of the information I had about where we had seen our BBC and went on my merry way.
Three hours and eleven miles later I got back over into my neighborhood and walked by the high school to find "Missing" posters with pictures of Lester on every block! Glad to know that I was taken seriously, I guess. No word on whether or not Lester's been found or returned, or if the BBC we found was not really Lester (what are the odds of there being a Lester-impersonator?), or if all anyone's found is a pile of feathers and a well-fed coyote.
But it seems to me that the fates are conspiring to get Lester back home, and I feel good that I and my walking program were key components in that cosmic plot, either intentionally or as a pawn of the gods. I guess that it pays to get off your butt and get out there, and keep your eyes open when you do it. You never can tell when you might help to reunite a Big Blue Chicken and his lost & worried human. (I'm sure it's the human who's lost -- Lester no doubt knows right where he is.)
A Different Way Of Seeing The Urban Jungle
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted May 19, 2010
Aside from the physical exercise & preparation for the September Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Santa Barbara that I'm getting out of the training routine, I've found that I'm gaining a new perspective on my community in a most literal way. After nearly twenty years of living in the same house & neighborhood but almost always going through it by car, I'm seeing things for the first time that I never knew were there.
There's an amazing variety of flowers & plants out there for one thing, some of it in people's yards and landscaping, some of it apparently growing wild on some of the hillsides and the little interstitial areas between the sound walls and sidewalks on our major streets. They're proving to be a great source for my "Picture Of The Day" posts over on Facebook. ("Friend" me and look them up if you want, I'm just passing 500 pictures going back to be beginning of 2009.)
There's wildlife as well. We've always seen squirrels & some common birds (crows, sparrow, mockingbirds) and some more "exotic" critters such as bats, possums, raccoons, coyotes, and deer. But after never seeing a rabbit anywhere near our house in two decades, I've now seen them on my training walks two or three times a week, both cottontails and larger jackrabbits.
There are folks all over my neighborhood that have art and sculpture in their yards. I never saw any of it before. At the other end of that spectrum, while I thought that we lived in a reasonably graffiti-free area, there's a surprising amount of it written onto the sidewalks where you see it while walking, instead of being written up on walls where you see it while driving.
I've gotten to see some great views of the hills surrounding the San Fernando Valley at all hours of the day, from sunrise to sunset, in different lighting conditions and with different cloud & sky backgrounds. It's really been quite an eye opener.
We tend to zone out when we drive, ignoring what we're driving past if it doesn't interfere with our path and we're not hunting for an address or some store location. In doing so we blind ourselves to much of what's in our surroundings without realizing it. While walking, one of necessity has to be more aware of one's surroundings for safety and navigational purposes, but a wonderful side benefit is that the blinders come off to reveal whole new layers to our everyday world.
So get out there and walk, and keep your eyes open!
Originally posted May 19, 2010
Aside from the physical exercise & preparation for the September Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Santa Barbara that I'm getting out of the training routine, I've found that I'm gaining a new perspective on my community in a most literal way. After nearly twenty years of living in the same house & neighborhood but almost always going through it by car, I'm seeing things for the first time that I never knew were there.
There's an amazing variety of flowers & plants out there for one thing, some of it in people's yards and landscaping, some of it apparently growing wild on some of the hillsides and the little interstitial areas between the sound walls and sidewalks on our major streets. They're proving to be a great source for my "Picture Of The Day" posts over on Facebook. ("Friend" me and look them up if you want, I'm just passing 500 pictures going back to be beginning of 2009.)
There's wildlife as well. We've always seen squirrels & some common birds (crows, sparrow, mockingbirds) and some more "exotic" critters such as bats, possums, raccoons, coyotes, and deer. But after never seeing a rabbit anywhere near our house in two decades, I've now seen them on my training walks two or three times a week, both cottontails and larger jackrabbits.
There are folks all over my neighborhood that have art and sculpture in their yards. I never saw any of it before. At the other end of that spectrum, while I thought that we lived in a reasonably graffiti-free area, there's a surprising amount of it written onto the sidewalks where you see it while walking, instead of being written up on walls where you see it while driving.
I've gotten to see some great views of the hills surrounding the San Fernando Valley at all hours of the day, from sunrise to sunset, in different lighting conditions and with different cloud & sky backgrounds. It's really been quite an eye opener.
We tend to zone out when we drive, ignoring what we're driving past if it doesn't interfere with our path and we're not hunting for an address or some store location. In doing so we blind ourselves to much of what's in our surroundings without realizing it. While walking, one of necessity has to be more aware of one's surroundings for safety and navigational purposes, but a wonderful side benefit is that the blinders come off to reveal whole new layers to our everyday world.
So get out there and walk, and keep your eyes open!
Things I've Learned SINCE I Learned Things Last Saturday
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted May 6, 2010
One of the best things that I'm getting (so far) from of my participation and training for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is a growing understanding that what I'm getting out of the process is not what I expected it's much more, but in ways that I never anticipated.
Saturday I wrote about how I need to plan better & stick to it. Sunday I got up early and took off on my four-mile walk for the day, walking from home to the restaurant where my wife and I usually have our Sunday morning breakfast. It didn't take long before I got bored with the route that I had planned. For one thing, it was very close to a big part of the route that I had walked on Saturday. Been there, done that. More importantly, it was along major streets which, while they will get you there in the most direct fashion, are noisy, crowded with traffic, and tend to be dull as dishwater as far as the scenery goes.
So what did I do? Right! Off into the side streets again, ignoring the hard-earned lesson of Saturday. Surely it couldn't happen two days in a row! This little side street heads off in about the right direction it's got to get back to the main road over there someplace, right? Once again we find our brave hero, an additional ? mile and fifteen minutes later, now going in the wrong direction, finally getting back to a major cross street. But this time the choices are even more interesting. Backtrack another ten minutes to the right (away from the restaurant) or go over that really big hill that's suddenly there on the left?
As I was trudging up the hill it finally became clear to me that Saturday's lesson wasn't quite correct. While it's important to have the basics of the route planned (let's not turn a 6-mile walk into a 60-mile walk by accident!) it's just as important (if not more so) to have fun on the walk. If that means an "adventure" to avoid a boring "walk-to-be-walking" experience turns a 6-mile walk into a 7-mile walk, then so be it!
I got questioned by my wife about my methods after Saturday's "adventure". She wanted to know why, once I had done my six miles and had gotten myself off to somewhere I hadn't expected to be and I was a couple of miles from home still, why hadn't I called her to come pick me up? Especially since I had sore feet and blisters on top of it? I believe my daughter used the word "stubborn" to describe my handling of the situation. My wife may have used more blunt terms, and really didn't seem to comprehend my answer.
I explained that I hadn't called because I wasn't at my destination, i.e., home, and I wasn't hurt or experiencing some other emergency. The goal for Saturday wasn't simply to walk six miles and then call for a ride home. It was to be a six-plus mile walk, but when I made decisions that led the day's walk to be eight-plus miles, that's OK. That's a good thing!
Sure, my feet hurt and I was tired and hot and sweaty. That's not an emergency, that's an annoyance. What was important to me was getting my walk for the day done on my terms, and that meant getting to the final destination IN SPITE OF THE ANNOYANCES AND DISCOMFORT. Yes, it was hard and painful. But being hard isn't a reason to quit and being in pain isn't necessarily a reason to stop. Sometimes it's the reason to finish anyway. Didn't President Kennedy say something about that when he sent us on the way to the moon in the 60's?
So there's what I'm learning now as the walks become longer, and while I might be tired & sore when I get home, THAT'S A GOOD THING. This training and experience and adventure isn't turning out to be a wonderful thing for me DESPITE being difficult and painful it's wonderful BECAUSE it's sometimes difficult and painful, and because I'm getting it done anyway and overcoming those difficulties and pains.
A guy at the gym has a T-shirt that says, "Pain is just the weakness leaving your body". I've gotta get me one of them. In pink. This is the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, after all!
Originally posted May 6, 2010
One of the best things that I'm getting (so far) from of my participation and training for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is a growing understanding that what I'm getting out of the process is not what I expected it's much more, but in ways that I never anticipated.
Saturday I wrote about how I need to plan better & stick to it. Sunday I got up early and took off on my four-mile walk for the day, walking from home to the restaurant where my wife and I usually have our Sunday morning breakfast. It didn't take long before I got bored with the route that I had planned. For one thing, it was very close to a big part of the route that I had walked on Saturday. Been there, done that. More importantly, it was along major streets which, while they will get you there in the most direct fashion, are noisy, crowded with traffic, and tend to be dull as dishwater as far as the scenery goes.
So what did I do? Right! Off into the side streets again, ignoring the hard-earned lesson of Saturday. Surely it couldn't happen two days in a row! This little side street heads off in about the right direction it's got to get back to the main road over there someplace, right? Once again we find our brave hero, an additional ? mile and fifteen minutes later, now going in the wrong direction, finally getting back to a major cross street. But this time the choices are even more interesting. Backtrack another ten minutes to the right (away from the restaurant) or go over that really big hill that's suddenly there on the left?
As I was trudging up the hill it finally became clear to me that Saturday's lesson wasn't quite correct. While it's important to have the basics of the route planned (let's not turn a 6-mile walk into a 60-mile walk by accident!) it's just as important (if not more so) to have fun on the walk. If that means an "adventure" to avoid a boring "walk-to-be-walking" experience turns a 6-mile walk into a 7-mile walk, then so be it!
I got questioned by my wife about my methods after Saturday's "adventure". She wanted to know why, once I had done my six miles and had gotten myself off to somewhere I hadn't expected to be and I was a couple of miles from home still, why hadn't I called her to come pick me up? Especially since I had sore feet and blisters on top of it? I believe my daughter used the word "stubborn" to describe my handling of the situation. My wife may have used more blunt terms, and really didn't seem to comprehend my answer.
I explained that I hadn't called because I wasn't at my destination, i.e., home, and I wasn't hurt or experiencing some other emergency. The goal for Saturday wasn't simply to walk six miles and then call for a ride home. It was to be a six-plus mile walk, but when I made decisions that led the day's walk to be eight-plus miles, that's OK. That's a good thing!
Sure, my feet hurt and I was tired and hot and sweaty. That's not an emergency, that's an annoyance. What was important to me was getting my walk for the day done on my terms, and that meant getting to the final destination IN SPITE OF THE ANNOYANCES AND DISCOMFORT. Yes, it was hard and painful. But being hard isn't a reason to quit and being in pain isn't necessarily a reason to stop. Sometimes it's the reason to finish anyway. Didn't President Kennedy say something about that when he sent us on the way to the moon in the 60's?
So there's what I'm learning now as the walks become longer, and while I might be tired & sore when I get home, THAT'S A GOOD THING. This training and experience and adventure isn't turning out to be a wonderful thing for me DESPITE being difficult and painful it's wonderful BECAUSE it's sometimes difficult and painful, and because I'm getting it done anyway and overcoming those difficulties and pains.
A guy at the gym has a T-shirt that says, "Pain is just the weakness leaving your body". I've gotta get me one of them. In pink. This is the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, after all!
Things I Learned On My Walk Today
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted May 1, 2010
As a first-time walker I've found the training guides provided by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer to be very useful and easy to follow. Getting ready to walk a marathon & a half is definitely a major commitment in terms of both time and effort, but I was looking for exactly that kind of physical challenge and I've found that it's much easier to fit the time into my schedule than I thought it would be.
For the 39.3 mile walk there are four different training programs, depending on how early you want to start. I got involved fairly early in the year so I was ready to do the 24-week program, which has you walking five days a week and building up time & distance slowly. The first four weeks the schedule only has you walking 14 miles a week, in segments of 1, 3, 3, 4, & 3 miles on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. This will build up slowly so that by the end of August we'll be doing training walks totaling 42 miles a week, at 2, 4, 4, 22, & 10 miles.
This was the first week that the mileage bumped up a little bit, from 4 to 6 miles today. (The 8-mile walk two weeks ago was a "bonus" for me, I was only scheduled for 4 miles, but I've been exceeding the scheduled distances by a bit every day to begin with. Stinkin' over-achieving super-ego...) Looking back on today's walk I think that I learned a few things.
#1 Use a checklist. As a pilot, I know about checklists. Wouldn't fly without using one, it's not smart. I need to have one for walking, especially as the training walk distances start to pick up. There have been a few times that I've forgotten something or the other (sunglasses, water bottle) but today I made a bigger mistake, forgetting to put on my fancy, expensive, and really good fitting & supportive running shoes. Instead, because I had just come from playing racquetball, I realized about 1.5 miles in that I was still wearing my regular old gym shoes. I realized it because my feet were starting to hurt and I thought that I might be developing blisters. (I seemed to have somehow dodged that bullet, although my feet are tender & sore. We'll see how they are tomorrow morning.) Time to put a short checklist card into that fanny pack.
#2 As walks get longer, plan them out better & stick to the plan. At first I was planning routes using Google Earth, but I had gotten away from that after the first two weeks because I had a pretty good feel for how far three & four mile walks would take me. Today I had done a quick look at the map and had an idea of where I wanted to go, but then changed the route a bit at about the 5-mile mark just to get into a different neighborhood, get off of the loud & noisy major streets, and not walk back home the same way that I had left. Instead, my impulsiveness got me into a tract of homes that didn't have an easy exit due to a couple of flood control channels cutting off the major cross streets, and by the time I wandered about looking for a way back out to where I wanted to be, I went way over the 6-mile target for today's walk. (Total distance today ended up at 8.57 miles.)
#3 Trust the dog when it comes to being comfortable! When your feet hurt, taking off your shoes and socks and just resting your feet on the grass in the shade feels *wonderful*! Late this afternoon my feet were still sore. Not in agony, but sore & tender. Jessie was lounging out on the grass and I went out to sit with her and without thinking slipped off my shoes. Aaaaaahhhhh!! Jessie had been trying to tell me that all afternoon. Next time I'll listen.
Originally posted May 1, 2010
As a first-time walker I've found the training guides provided by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer to be very useful and easy to follow. Getting ready to walk a marathon & a half is definitely a major commitment in terms of both time and effort, but I was looking for exactly that kind of physical challenge and I've found that it's much easier to fit the time into my schedule than I thought it would be.
For the 39.3 mile walk there are four different training programs, depending on how early you want to start. I got involved fairly early in the year so I was ready to do the 24-week program, which has you walking five days a week and building up time & distance slowly. The first four weeks the schedule only has you walking 14 miles a week, in segments of 1, 3, 3, 4, & 3 miles on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. This will build up slowly so that by the end of August we'll be doing training walks totaling 42 miles a week, at 2, 4, 4, 22, & 10 miles.
This was the first week that the mileage bumped up a little bit, from 4 to 6 miles today. (The 8-mile walk two weeks ago was a "bonus" for me, I was only scheduled for 4 miles, but I've been exceeding the scheduled distances by a bit every day to begin with. Stinkin' over-achieving super-ego...) Looking back on today's walk I think that I learned a few things.
#1 Use a checklist. As a pilot, I know about checklists. Wouldn't fly without using one, it's not smart. I need to have one for walking, especially as the training walk distances start to pick up. There have been a few times that I've forgotten something or the other (sunglasses, water bottle) but today I made a bigger mistake, forgetting to put on my fancy, expensive, and really good fitting & supportive running shoes. Instead, because I had just come from playing racquetball, I realized about 1.5 miles in that I was still wearing my regular old gym shoes. I realized it because my feet were starting to hurt and I thought that I might be developing blisters. (I seemed to have somehow dodged that bullet, although my feet are tender & sore. We'll see how they are tomorrow morning.) Time to put a short checklist card into that fanny pack.
#2 As walks get longer, plan them out better & stick to the plan. At first I was planning routes using Google Earth, but I had gotten away from that after the first two weeks because I had a pretty good feel for how far three & four mile walks would take me. Today I had done a quick look at the map and had an idea of where I wanted to go, but then changed the route a bit at about the 5-mile mark just to get into a different neighborhood, get off of the loud & noisy major streets, and not walk back home the same way that I had left. Instead, my impulsiveness got me into a tract of homes that didn't have an easy exit due to a couple of flood control channels cutting off the major cross streets, and by the time I wandered about looking for a way back out to where I wanted to be, I went way over the 6-mile target for today's walk. (Total distance today ended up at 8.57 miles.)
#3 Trust the dog when it comes to being comfortable! When your feet hurt, taking off your shoes and socks and just resting your feet on the grass in the shade feels *wonderful*! Late this afternoon my feet were still sore. Not in agony, but sore & tender. Jessie was lounging out on the grass and I went out to sit with her and without thinking slipped off my shoes. Aaaaaahhhhh!! Jessie had been trying to tell me that all afternoon. Next time I'll listen.
The 8-Mile "Mock Walk" & Other Adventures In Santa Barbara
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted April 20, 2010
The 8-mile "mock walk" in Santa Barbara is history and I'm thrilled to report that I made it with energy to spare! No blisters, no cramps, no agony, and I managed to set a pretty good pace, despite the fact that it was (unexpectedly to me at least!) uphill for over half the course.
There were a couple hundred walkers there for the 8-mile and 4-mile mock walks, more than I expected I guess. After all, the walk itself is still nearly five months away. Ronnie came along with me to cheer me on and we had managed to get out the door early enough to get to Santa Barbara just after 8:00AM. I got registered and then the fun began.
Mile Zero We're all wearing these pink, checkered wrist bands, presumably so that they can identify the bodies as being associated with the Avon Walk if one of us should end up passed out in someone's yard or in a bar. The bands are almost impossible to put on by yourself and in trying to do so I end up with half of the superglue end attached to my arm, ripping out hair every time it touches me. Not a good start, but I make the best of it as I start socializing with my fellow walkers, using the "wristband attachment dexterity test" as an excellent icebreaker to introduce myself and help out. Everyone's also taking photos while milling about, so my usual habit of offering to take group pictures so that everyone's included works well. We get our instructions (lots of legalese that translates into "Don't be stupid") and we're shown the road promptly at 08:30.
Mile One We've walked from the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort along Cabrillo Boulevard, through Chase Palm Park. OK, I can see why people love Santa Barbara, this is stunning. I don't even want to know how expensive it is to live here, but it's undeniably gorgeous. On flat ground along the coast I'm setting a good pace, about a 16:20 mile. (The Avon Walk marathon & a half in September will need to be at an 18:45/mile pace or better and I've been training at about a 17:00 pace.) I know that it's not a race but I'm not "competing" against my fellow walkers, I'm competing against myself and my own times and expectations. It helps with the motivation. (Motivation, delusion, po-TAE-toe, po-Taa-toe...)
Mile Two Uphill on State Street through the shopping district full of little boutiques & stores, most of which are still closed. I'm walking with a group of about eight women and they're playing a window shopping game as we go, which I can't really join in. I don't care how empathetic to the cause I am, I'm not gonna look good in ANY of those dresses! I also find out that the term "walker(s)" is the politically correct unisex term after one lady hollers "Come on, girls!" as we hustle across an intersection with the "Don't Walk" signal just starting to flash, then she apologizes to me for using the term "girls". No apology needed at all, I'm the most non-PC person you'll meet, but I'm glad that I know what the correct term is for when I'm trying to pass in polite company.
Mile Three We're STILL going uphill, now in residential neighborhoods on State Street. I had figured that the walk would all be along the coast with nothing more uphill than a freeway overcrossing. Wrong!! (And thank you for playing!) It might not be like climbing Ascutney or Jay Peak in Vermont, but it's most certainly steadily & relentlessly uphill. My pace has slowed some, down to about 16:50/mile ("It's not a race..."), but given the terrain I'm pretty happy with it. One poor golden retriever is barking his head off as we pass, making sure we don't get any cute ideas about going into his yard. Good luck, puppy, there are an awful lot of walkers behind us -- you're going to be hoarse tonight.
Mile Four We found the Santa Barbara Mission, the first time I've ever seen it. Neat! From up here as we keep climbing on this "scenic route" we get glimpses through the trees of the ocean & city back down below us. It's half way through the course, why are we still going uphill? My time at the nominal halfway point is 64:32.
Mile Five OK, we've finally made the turn downhill, and now I know why it's five up and three down. A couple of these little streets are like that one in San Francisco (Lombard Street?), very steep and narrow. I find that my thighs and back prefer going downhill, but by ankles are not that happy about it at all. Time to pick up some speed (I know, it's not a race!) and make up for the slower pace uphill. Just try not to break an ankle, or you'll be trying to figure out if that wristband has an emergency beacon and a GPS built into it.
Mile Six We're back down on relatively flat ground, sloping down to the beach on Garden Street, and it's the Attack Of The Giant Blue Chickens!!! That's the name that we've given to the couple of peacocks that occasionally show up in our neighborhood at home, based on our dog's response to them. There are peacocks here as well, something I really didn't expect to have yelling at me from the bushes on the hillside. It was a pleasant surprise, if a bit startling at first.
Mile Seven We're back down into the city's downtown area and hitting all of the stop lights and traffic noise, which I find a little bit disconcerting after the quiet walking up at the top of the hill in the parks. But I'm really hitting my stride now and I like what that may portend for the actual walk in September. It may just be the endorphins (or the above-mentioned delusional thinking) but my initial aches & pains today have actually faded and I'm feeling really good. I'm still maintaining a good pace and the average time for the overall walk is dropping steadily.
Mile Eight I'm back at the Fess Parker and feeling great! Total time was 2:06:58 for 7.84 miles, a pace of 16:11/mile, far better than I had expected, especially given the uphill nature of half of the course.
The rest of the morning was spent with seminars hosted by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer about training, fundraising (thanks again to all of you who have donated for me!!), hydration, equipment, meeting other walkers, and so on. Overall it was a great day I'm now even more confident that the September walk is going to be fantastic!
Originally posted April 20, 2010
The 8-mile "mock walk" in Santa Barbara is history and I'm thrilled to report that I made it with energy to spare! No blisters, no cramps, no agony, and I managed to set a pretty good pace, despite the fact that it was (unexpectedly to me at least!) uphill for over half the course.
There were a couple hundred walkers there for the 8-mile and 4-mile mock walks, more than I expected I guess. After all, the walk itself is still nearly five months away. Ronnie came along with me to cheer me on and we had managed to get out the door early enough to get to Santa Barbara just after 8:00AM. I got registered and then the fun began.
Mile Zero We're all wearing these pink, checkered wrist bands, presumably so that they can identify the bodies as being associated with the Avon Walk if one of us should end up passed out in someone's yard or in a bar. The bands are almost impossible to put on by yourself and in trying to do so I end up with half of the superglue end attached to my arm, ripping out hair every time it touches me. Not a good start, but I make the best of it as I start socializing with my fellow walkers, using the "wristband attachment dexterity test" as an excellent icebreaker to introduce myself and help out. Everyone's also taking photos while milling about, so my usual habit of offering to take group pictures so that everyone's included works well. We get our instructions (lots of legalese that translates into "Don't be stupid") and we're shown the road promptly at 08:30.
Mile One We've walked from the Fess Parker Doubletree Resort along Cabrillo Boulevard, through Chase Palm Park. OK, I can see why people love Santa Barbara, this is stunning. I don't even want to know how expensive it is to live here, but it's undeniably gorgeous. On flat ground along the coast I'm setting a good pace, about a 16:20 mile. (The Avon Walk marathon & a half in September will need to be at an 18:45/mile pace or better and I've been training at about a 17:00 pace.) I know that it's not a race but I'm not "competing" against my fellow walkers, I'm competing against myself and my own times and expectations. It helps with the motivation. (Motivation, delusion, po-TAE-toe, po-Taa-toe...)
Mile Two Uphill on State Street through the shopping district full of little boutiques & stores, most of which are still closed. I'm walking with a group of about eight women and they're playing a window shopping game as we go, which I can't really join in. I don't care how empathetic to the cause I am, I'm not gonna look good in ANY of those dresses! I also find out that the term "walker(s)" is the politically correct unisex term after one lady hollers "Come on, girls!" as we hustle across an intersection with the "Don't Walk" signal just starting to flash, then she apologizes to me for using the term "girls". No apology needed at all, I'm the most non-PC person you'll meet, but I'm glad that I know what the correct term is for when I'm trying to pass in polite company.
Mile Three We're STILL going uphill, now in residential neighborhoods on State Street. I had figured that the walk would all be along the coast with nothing more uphill than a freeway overcrossing. Wrong!! (And thank you for playing!) It might not be like climbing Ascutney or Jay Peak in Vermont, but it's most certainly steadily & relentlessly uphill. My pace has slowed some, down to about 16:50/mile ("It's not a race..."), but given the terrain I'm pretty happy with it. One poor golden retriever is barking his head off as we pass, making sure we don't get any cute ideas about going into his yard. Good luck, puppy, there are an awful lot of walkers behind us -- you're going to be hoarse tonight.
Mile Four We found the Santa Barbara Mission, the first time I've ever seen it. Neat! From up here as we keep climbing on this "scenic route" we get glimpses through the trees of the ocean & city back down below us. It's half way through the course, why are we still going uphill? My time at the nominal halfway point is 64:32.
Mile Five OK, we've finally made the turn downhill, and now I know why it's five up and three down. A couple of these little streets are like that one in San Francisco (Lombard Street?), very steep and narrow. I find that my thighs and back prefer going downhill, but by ankles are not that happy about it at all. Time to pick up some speed (I know, it's not a race!) and make up for the slower pace uphill. Just try not to break an ankle, or you'll be trying to figure out if that wristband has an emergency beacon and a GPS built into it.
Mile Six We're back down on relatively flat ground, sloping down to the beach on Garden Street, and it's the Attack Of The Giant Blue Chickens!!! That's the name that we've given to the couple of peacocks that occasionally show up in our neighborhood at home, based on our dog's response to them. There are peacocks here as well, something I really didn't expect to have yelling at me from the bushes on the hillside. It was a pleasant surprise, if a bit startling at first.
Mile Seven We're back down into the city's downtown area and hitting all of the stop lights and traffic noise, which I find a little bit disconcerting after the quiet walking up at the top of the hill in the parks. But I'm really hitting my stride now and I like what that may portend for the actual walk in September. It may just be the endorphins (or the above-mentioned delusional thinking) but my initial aches & pains today have actually faded and I'm feeling really good. I'm still maintaining a good pace and the average time for the overall walk is dropping steadily.
Mile Eight I'm back at the Fess Parker and feeling great! Total time was 2:06:58 for 7.84 miles, a pace of 16:11/mile, far better than I had expected, especially given the uphill nature of half of the course.
The rest of the morning was spent with seminars hosted by the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer about training, fundraising (thanks again to all of you who have donated for me!!), hydration, equipment, meeting other walkers, and so on. Overall it was a great day I'm now even more confident that the September walk is going to be fantastic!
Support Is Wonderful! Stay Tuned For More!!
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted April 16, 2010
My personal site here has now been open for about a week and I must say that I'm grateful and excited by the support shown in such a short time. My exuberant thanks go out to everyone who's donated so far!
To those who know me well it goes without saying that fundraising and soliciting financial support for a cause like this is not a normal or comfortable activity for me. My comfort zone is way back there over the horizon in the rear view mirror, and that makes it even more gratifying to see friends, family, classmates, co-workers, and acquaintences stepping up to support my effort to help this great cause.
This weekend we're off to Santa Barbara for a sneak peak at a bit of the September walk route, as well as a day of seminars on training, healthy walking, and what it takes to get to the end of 39.3 miles on September 12th not just in survival mode, but triumphantly and successfully! If I can roust my lazy behind out of bed at O'Dark-Thirty we'll be in SB for the eight-mile training walk at 08:15 - if not, maybe the four-mile training walk at 09:15 will have to do. I'll let you know how it goes. (I have faith that we'll make the eight-mile, but at O'Dark-Thirty, while the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak.)
Originally posted April 16, 2010
My personal site here has now been open for about a week and I must say that I'm grateful and excited by the support shown in such a short time. My exuberant thanks go out to everyone who's donated so far!
To those who know me well it goes without saying that fundraising and soliciting financial support for a cause like this is not a normal or comfortable activity for me. My comfort zone is way back there over the horizon in the rear view mirror, and that makes it even more gratifying to see friends, family, classmates, co-workers, and acquaintences stepping up to support my effort to help this great cause.
This weekend we're off to Santa Barbara for a sneak peak at a bit of the September walk route, as well as a day of seminars on training, healthy walking, and what it takes to get to the end of 39.3 miles on September 12th not just in survival mode, but triumphantly and successfully! If I can roust my lazy behind out of bed at O'Dark-Thirty we'll be in SB for the eight-mile training walk at 08:15 - if not, maybe the four-mile training walk at 09:15 will have to do. I'll let you know how it goes. (I have faith that we'll make the eight-mile, but at O'Dark-Thirty, while the spirit may be willing, the flesh is weak.)
I'm Walking HOW Far? And WHY??
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted April 12, 2010
Why does someone want to commit months of training to walking 39 miles over two days?
There will be several thousand folks walking in Santa Barbara in September, and I'm sure there will be several thousand different reasons. In my case, I started out by looking for a physical challenge, an "excuse" to force myself to get more exercise and push my physical boundries now that I'm in the "50 to 59" demographic. I had toyed with the idea of running a marathon (and I still plan on running one -- soon, or at least soon-ish) but that's a big step from where I was, so a marathon & a half walk seemed to be a good middle ground.
But having found my personal physical challenge, I find myself fascinated and excited about the Avon Foundation cause, raising money to fight breast cancer. While I haven't had anyone in my immediate family dealing with breast cancer personally, I do have a mother, wife, daughters, sisters, and friends all of whom could potentially have to deal with this disease.
To recap, I can do some good for myself and my personal physical fitness goals while simultaneously helping raise funds for a truly outstanding cause? Great, it's a "two-fer"!! Months of physical strain, exertion, and exhaustion while training and then two long days on the beach? What's not to love? I'm excited about this plan!!
Originally posted April 12, 2010
Why does someone want to commit months of training to walking 39 miles over two days?
There will be several thousand folks walking in Santa Barbara in September, and I'm sure there will be several thousand different reasons. In my case, I started out by looking for a physical challenge, an "excuse" to force myself to get more exercise and push my physical boundries now that I'm in the "50 to 59" demographic. I had toyed with the idea of running a marathon (and I still plan on running one -- soon, or at least soon-ish) but that's a big step from where I was, so a marathon & a half walk seemed to be a good middle ground.
But having found my personal physical challenge, I find myself fascinated and excited about the Avon Foundation cause, raising money to fight breast cancer. While I haven't had anyone in my immediate family dealing with breast cancer personally, I do have a mother, wife, daughters, sisters, and friends all of whom could potentially have to deal with this disease.
To recap, I can do some good for myself and my personal physical fitness goals while simultaneously helping raise funds for a truly outstanding cause? Great, it's a "two-fer"!! Months of physical strain, exertion, and exhaustion while training and then two long days on the beach? What's not to love? I'm excited about this plan!!
Off & Running (That Is...Walking)
Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted April 2, 2010
Thanks for visiting my Avon Walk page. I’ve committed to participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Santa Barbara in September and I'm asking for your help.
It’s a big commitment, one that will require me to spend the next several months training (something I'm looking forward to) and fundraising (something that's way out of my normal comfort zone). But breast cancer is a big disease, one that still affects far too many people, and I’m determined to do everything I can to help put an end to it.
The money we raise will be managed and disbursed by the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade to help provide access to care for those that most need it, fund educational programs, and accelerate research into new treatments and potential cures. I’ll be just one of thousands of people that will walk up to a marathon (on Saturday) and a half (on Sunday) over the weekend of September 11th & 12th, raising awareness of the cause and educating even more people.
I can’t do it without your help. I hope that I can count on your support. If you have any questions, please call or e-mail me and I'll be glad to talk about the Avon Walk.
Donations Gratefully Accepted Here!
You can make a donation to my fundraising campaign right here on the website by clicking on the pink "Donate Now" button. If you prefer to write a check, just contact me and I'll send you the information and form.
As I prepare for this exciting event, I plan to update this page frequently so that all my supporters can follow my progress, so please visit often. While you're here, you might want to spend some time on the site to find out more information on why this event is so important, and the organizations and people that will be helped by the money we all raise.
Thank you in advance.
Originally posted April 2, 2010
Thanks for visiting my Avon Walk page. I’ve committed to participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Santa Barbara in September and I'm asking for your help.
It’s a big commitment, one that will require me to spend the next several months training (something I'm looking forward to) and fundraising (something that's way out of my normal comfort zone). But breast cancer is a big disease, one that still affects far too many people, and I’m determined to do everything I can to help put an end to it.
The money we raise will be managed and disbursed by the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade to help provide access to care for those that most need it, fund educational programs, and accelerate research into new treatments and potential cures. I’ll be just one of thousands of people that will walk up to a marathon (on Saturday) and a half (on Sunday) over the weekend of September 11th & 12th, raising awareness of the cause and educating even more people.
I can’t do it without your help. I hope that I can count on your support. If you have any questions, please call or e-mail me and I'll be glad to talk about the Avon Walk.
Donations Gratefully Accepted Here!
You can make a donation to my fundraising campaign right here on the website by clicking on the pink "Donate Now" button. If you prefer to write a check, just contact me and I'll send you the information and form.
As I prepare for this exciting event, I plan to update this page frequently so that all my supporters can follow my progress, so please visit often. While you're here, you might want to spend some time on the site to find out more information on why this event is so important, and the organizations and people that will be helped by the money we all raise.
Thank you in advance.
When We Last Left Our Hero...
As mentioned in May, all of my recent creative & writing efforts have been going into my blog over on the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer site. However, two issues have come up with that site that can probably best be resolved by posting here as well.
1. I can't post pictures on the Avon site
2. What happens to those posts after the walk is done?
So, here are the posts to date, copied/mirrored from the Avon blog, and I'll post updates simultaneously here in the future. And there will also be supplementary posts here that include pictures!
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
to find out more about the Avon Walk & to make donations
http://momdudemusings.blogspot.com/
to see the pictures and read any blog posts not related to the Avon Walk.
Become a follower of this blog to get notified whenever there's a new post. And make comments! Geez, you would think that I'm writing all of this to just hear myself think!
1. I can't post pictures on the Avon site
2. What happens to those posts after the walk is done?
So, here are the posts to date, copied/mirrored from the Avon blog, and I'll post updates simultaneously here in the future. And there will also be supplementary posts here that include pictures!
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
to find out more about the Avon Walk & to make donations
http://momdudemusings.blogspot.com/
to see the pictures and read any blog posts not related to the Avon Walk.
Become a follower of this blog to get notified whenever there's a new post. And make comments! Geez, you would think that I'm writing all of this to just hear myself think!
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