Monday, June 28, 2010

26 Days and Counting...

I can't believe it has been a month since I have last written.  Yesterday, when I had two people ask me when I was going to write another blog, I had to motivate myself.  Here goes.

Training has kicked in to high gear recently.  I was nervous about this because I had sprained my ankle a few weeks ago.  I was hanging new drapes, stepped off my couch, and rolled it.  Stupid, I know.  I had an aircast for a while, but now it is feeling much better; however, I was tentative about this weekend because it is the toughest of the entire training schedule.  Saturday we walked 18 miles!  Yes, I said 18.  Seven of us met at Patty's house at 6AM.  Kaitlyn lives too far away, Gretchen had soccer, and Maurine would possibly join us midway.  We walked to downtown Amesbury, up the Riverwalk, and all along the river to Vicky's house in Merrimac.  It was a beautiful walk because much of the road along the river is closed.  The views were delightful, and there was often a refreshing breeze.  We stopped at Vicky's, the halfway point, and had breakfast--lots of high protein food.  While there, Maurine called and said she would be joining us for some of the walk.  Speaking of Maurine, that woman absolutely amazes me.  After being diagnosed a second time, being part of a clinical trial with drugs she doesn't know much about, her mother's recent passing, and just the general crazy life that goes along with 2 adolescent boys, she ALWAYS manages to make people laugh.  Her upbeat personality is an inspiration to us all.  I am in awe of the fact that she is even attempting to do this walk.  I don't know if I could have while I was in treatment.  Fortunately, she was able to walk with us for a few miles.  Just as we turned up Rocky Hill Road we saw Gretchen, who was out on the second half of her walk.  With our crazy lives, we sometimes have to break up our longer walks because of our kids' commitments--soccer, baseball, dance, gymnastics.  Even though Gretchen was headed in the other direction, we grabbed her and forced her to come with us.  After a quick stop at DD, we finished up the last few miles.  It was really beginning to get hot, and we were happy to have the longest of our training walks completed.

While training, your body becomes used to walking almost every day.  Walking 10 miles feels like a piece of cake; however, 18 completely exhausts you.  Your body is in good enough shape to generally not feel too sore, but you are just physically tired.  I think almost the entire team napped at some point over the past two days.  These weekends can become very trying on our families and our husbands.  We are lucky to have such an amazing group of men that understand our commitment, and our need for sleep after these walks.

Sunday was another longer walk, 15 miles.  We were set to leave from my house at 6AM.  I had gone to bed early, around 9:00.  Unfortunately, something funky has been going on with my alarm clock and it never went off.  I awoke at 6:40 to see everyone's cars parked along my street.  I immediately called Patty and met up with the girls along the route.  I told them to call my house phone if it ever happened again.  They thought it was really funny and decided to take a picture of all of them waiting outside my house.  These are the women I walk with!

The second day of walking is always harder than the first.  It takes a good 2 miles before your body gets into that auto-pilot mode.  Everyone was feeling a little sore, but got over it relatively quickly.  Sunday's walk took us over the Chain Bridge, into Newburyport, along the river to Rolfe's Lane, and back along High Street.  It is one of my favorite walks.  I love the smell of the marsh early in the morning, and there is always lots of activity on High St.  A bonus is that there are no hills!  We made it back home and still had a good portion of the day to ourselves. 

In the early afternoon I decided to take a nap.  My girls had a sleep over the night before and were tired as well, so we all crashed.  After waking up I actually felt worse, and so did one of my girls.  It ended up that we both had fevers--not just little ones, but high ones!  Even though I felt awful, I was pleased to know that I could make it through those long walks when I wasn't 100%.  Today it is off to the doctor for both of us.  I have my fingers crossed.

So training isn't the only thing that has been going on for the 3-Day.  I have recently achieved my goal of $5000!  Yahoo!  The only thing that could be better would be if I could surpass the $5,600 I raised last year.  I am almost there with $5255.  There is still time to donate if you haven't already done so.  You can just click on the link to the right of this page.

Another exciting piece of news is that I made it through the preliminary round for a New Balance casting call where they will be doing a short documentary on someone's 3-Day experience.  Early last week I received an email from Komen explaining that a group of people were selected to participate if they chose to.  I went back and forth, but decided to tell my story.  I stayed up late Wednesday night, and ended up writing over 2 pages!  Once I got started I couldn't stop.  It was the first time that I had written everything down, and it was quite therapeutic.  The following day I received an email thanking me for sharing so openly and honestly.  The day after that, I received another email asking me to complete a phone interview on Tuesday morning.  The most exciting thing about this is that Patty received one too!  How awesome would it be if they profiled the Tough Warrior Princesses on our 3 day journey?  Way too cool!  I will be sure to keep all of you posted, and let you know how Tuesday goes.  Now that school is out, I should be able to write more. 

Another bit of information I would like to share is the address for the 3-Day Post Office.  While we are at camp, we can actually receive mail from our friends and family.  It is one of my favorite things about camp.  These messages do so much to motivate me and remind me of why I walk.  If you feel inclined to send a note, all you have to do is mail it to:
3-Day for the Cure
ATTN: Sherri Ziomek
P.O. Box 8557
Warwick, RI 02888
Envelopes only, please.  Mail must be postmarked no later than July 13th in order to ensure delivery at the Komen 3-Day for the Cure Camp Post Office.  I would love to hear from all of you.

Lastly, we have the information for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies this year.  We are starting at Farm Pond in Framingham again, and will be ending at UMASS Boston.  I am hoping that the route will be similar to last year.  The only thing I could do without would be that horrific hill on Day 2!  The information on the cheering stations should be coming out later this week or early next week.  I will keep you posted, but you can always check the3day.org and go to the Spectator Information page. 

26 days and counting...

Royally yours,
Sherri

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