Mid-Week Practice: Conditioning #1

Tuesdays are much better than Saturdays.

For now.

For the month of February, our Tuesday night practices consist of conditioning. What is this "conditioning," you ask? Let me give you an idea:

Practice #1: Pace Assessment, Also Known As Hell

I know, I know. I'm behind on my posts. But I do have a good reason! Basically, Facebook marked sharing my fundraiser page as spam and disabled my account. I've spent the last two, almost three, weeks sending at least five "Contact Us" forms a day since just emails can't get through, nor is there a phone number to reach because Facebook is such a "small" company that their meager number of employees can't handle dealing with users on a personal basis. I kid you not, that is their reasoning. Hopefully everything will be sorted soon.

So what does a Saturday morning practice look like?

Well, it starts with me rolling out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. That in itself is a miracle because I am not a morning person. Still, I made it on time to the Rose Bowl and proceeded with all that fun first day, meet everyone, finalize everything stuff.

Now, every morning has a similar structure. Everyone checks in and then we gather around to discuss what needs to be discussed. The first week, it was meeting the staff, who were all once participants like us. Then, we hear from someone on the team who and what their connection to the cause is. After they share that, we all get a ribbon with the honored teammate's name on it. And we wear them all season. The idea is that we have more and more reasons to fund raise for cancer research and to keep running. These moments have never failed to bring tears to my eyes and wearing those ribbons truly does remind me why I am doing this. I can't wait to have all of them at the end of the season.

I'm Going on an Adventure!

No, I'm not setting off to save Middle Earth. That would be pretty amazing though. I am, however, setting out to help eliminate blood cancer and learn how to run a race.

You might have noticed - or maybe you haven't, that's okay - I've run a few 5Ks recently. Why? I'm not really sure. I hated running as a child. I puked on my sixth grade teacher after being forced to run a mile in P.E. I dreaded running days throughout middle and high school. I managed to worm my way into a bowling class that counted as P.E. just so I wouldn't be required to run. College didn't change anything. I took a dance class to fill the requirement and, if I worked out, I was doing Zumba.

In short: if you had told me two years ago I would be running races now, I would have politely asked you to return to whatever mental asylum you had escaped from and please stop spouting such wild tales.

I digress.

Whatever pushed me to do that first 5K led me into doing more. Crossing the finish line was exciting. And each time I crossed, a little voice that grew progressively louder told me I could go longer. I could do a 10K. Look how fun the 5 was, the 10 would obviously be double that! So, the next obvious move was to sign up for the Tinkerbell 10K at Disneyland. But even that wasn't enough.

I have drunk the Kool Aid.

A friend of mine told me he was going to be a coach for this season's Team in Training. They were going to be doing the Tinkerbell Half Marathon. Train with people who know what they're doing? Raise money for blood cancer research? Sign me up! So . . . that's what I'm doing.