Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Moment of Truth

Week 2
Swim - 1.5 miles
Bike - 30 miles
Run - 0 miles
Total Training Hours - 2.5 hours

Week 3
Swim - 3 miles
Bike - 0 miles
Run - 8.5 miles
Total Training Hours - 3 hours

The thing about this challenge that I set up for myself is that it forces me to be brutally honest. Each week becomes a moment of truth. Did I deliver or did I not? Unfortunately for myself, its been tough, but the little volume you see here in training is not necessarily an indication of my laziness. I would probably be more inclined to train more if I had a donor that did challenge me on my training volume. I've had some interesting challenges, but none that have pledged a small amount of money for each mile I cover. Anyway, if you're interested in raising the stakes for March, April, and May, please visit my page here

I've been involved in some other physical activities including dodgeball, basketball, and even bikram yoga and have experienced some small victories outside of triathlon. We made playoffs in dodgeball, made the championship in basketball (and lost while also managing to get a first real injury that I had to get checked out), and lived through one bikram yoga session (an accomplishment, I swear!).

I also got the chance to finally tell my story to a bunch of college students at NYU. I was invited to speak about community service and my charity which I was really excited about. It felt like I was finally taking the right baby steps towards making my charity a much bigger movement. The key challenge I had here was that college students just don't care. Nothing against them at all either because I was there once and really didn't care. Like every stage in our lives, the minds of college students get so consumed with their own problems and responsibilities pulling them in about 9348759328475 different directions. For college students, its finishing a paper, getting a job, figuring out your major, stretching your money, getting with that girl, clubs, fraternities, etc... I knew donating is a pretty large task for poor college students, so the goal of my presentation was to get their hearts and souls invested into my charity as well as performing community service in general. I looked at this presentation as an investment for the future, because they will one day be making the big bucks and calling the shots around here. I just wanted to tell a story and get them to think about outside of themselves so that they could really take in all the causes out there that are larger than themselves. I was glad to finally give this presentation because not only did it further my cause, but it was truly the first time that I shared the complete details of my story with others. While I was presenting, I realized that I was entering a new stage of bereavement from being secretive and quiet about my story to telling the masses so that they can learn something from history to make a better future for everyone. A large task of course, but I hope I touched a few people. At the end of the day, I really enjoyed giving the presentation and I hope my audience did as well. I hope this is an indication of bigger presentations and more initiatives to fight cancer.

That's pretty much it right now, but more to come soon. In the meantime, I'll be nursing this stupid basketball injury so I can get my run training back in gear...


Luckily X-Rays said it wasn't broken, although my ego took a hit after having to go to the ER only to tell the receptionist that my toe hurt when she asked what was wrong...

Also, I've started to Twitter to provide some quick updates on training and any charity efforts. I'm sure there are many of you that are saying "Soooo what" but for times when I'm in my training cocoon, I hope to stay in touch with friends and family through Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

your ate wouldn't approve of that toe ;)