We Made It!

We made it!!!!

Jen and I crossed the finish line together with our team. We both walked the full sixty miles. It was one of the hardest things we have done both physically and mentally.

I am so glad that we went and had the experience but I don't think we will ever do it again! The second day was the hardest for us. By time we got to the third day we knew the finish line was coming and that kept us motivated.

After lunch we went full speed for the final 6.7 miles to the finish line. A few of us got to the finish line before the others so we waited for them so our team could walk across the finish line together.

You can check out all of our photos here.

We Finished Day 2... Somehow

Today was so much harder than yesterday. We barely crawled along the 20.8 mile path today. We skipped the first pit stop hoping to finish earlier today.

It came up on lunch time and the 10 mile mark and we were both feeling really bad. We were thinking about taking the bus back to camp. Usually if I am feeling bad, Jen is feeling good and we bring eachother up. Both we were both on the low at the same time and we knew that was bad.

We needed inspiration so Jen called her mom and husband and I sent a text to my bestfriend looking for words of encouragement.

We sat down for lunch in a restaurant and contemplated taking the bus. Then we left the restaurant and went to the medical tent to bandage up our feet. The tent was on waterfront property of Lake Washington and it was absolutely gorgeous.

We decided to try to go a little further. Then we walked through the town of Kirkland. It was absolutely gorgeous. It felt like we were in Pleasantville. The town is waterfront and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. People were walking their dogs and floating in the lake on rafts. It was amazing. I think this part of the walk inspired us to finish. We were too busy looking at the scenery to know how bad we felt.

We crawled along the path slowly but surely. We were the last to come in from our team today, but we finished.

One more day and 18 more miles to go tomorrow...

We Finished Day One!

We woke up at 5 a.m. this morning and met the rest of our team in the lobby at 5:40 a.m.. Then we went to the opening ceremonies of the 3 day walk. We got lots of inspiration there. They were playing loud, positive, motivational music for us.

We finally headed out for our walk around 7:45 a.m.. I didn't realize that we were going to walk on sidewalks through Seattle. There was a total of 3,299 walkers along these sidewalks.

Some of the most inspirational things along the way were people that dressed up their dogs in pink and would stand out by the road and cheer us on. People set up tents with baked goods along the side of the road, there was a constant stream of honking horns all day, parents dressed up their small children and stood at the end of their driveway and waved at us.
I could go on and on with stories of people coming out to cheer us on. It was amazing.

There were 5 pit stops along the way where you could get a drink, food and use the restroom. Each pit stop was themed. Of course the beach themed pit stop was my favorite.

Around the 17th mile mark we were feeling very grumpy and just wanted to get to the end. Neither one of us ended up with any blisters but I have 3 places that will be blisters on my feet within the first couple of miles in the morning.

We took over 52,000 steps today over ten hours. I normally do that in half of a month.

We were very thankful that we are not sleeping in tents with the hundreds or thousands of other walkers. I can't imagine walking all day and sleeping on the ground in a tent at night.
Thanks MarketLeverage for putting us up in a hotel!

I think our team did great today and I am looking forward to finishing the walk with all of them on Sunday.

We Are in Seattle!

My alarm went off at 5:50 a.m. this morning. I gave myself 10 minutes to get ready and out the door. I needed to pick Jen up by 6:30 a.m. to catch our 8:40 a.m. flight.

We had a non-stop flight and it was pretty good, just a long one.

We got to the Redmond Inn and we were checked-in the hotel in about one minute. That was the quickest we have ever checked-in. It was so nice.

We decided to head to downtown Seattle, check out the city and grab some dinner. We drove over Lake Washington and it was beautiful.

We walked around the Pike Street Market and saw some beautiful fresh flowers that were really inexpensive. Then we walked past a fresh fish shop and we were hoping we were going to get to see them throw the fish but we didn't.

We got back to the hotel and just happen to run intoa bunch of our team members. We went up to Jen Goode's room and got our shirts. (Thanks Jen for hauling them out to Seattle!) Then we retreated to our room and we are about to go to sleep. It is only 8:00 p.m. here! The alarm is set to go off at 5 a.m..

Shoemoney Stops by the MarketLeverage Office

Jeremy Schoemaker stopped by the MarketLeverage office yesterday. When I got to the airport this morning and logged on to the internet I saw that he posted the video of us talking about the 60 mile walk. Thanks Jeremy!

It's Almost That Time!

Jen and I went and purchased a few last minute items that we need for our trip today. We are flying to Seattle on Thursday morning. We have a 6 hour and 20 minute non-stop flight from Orlando to Seattle. That will be the longest flight I have ever been on. The flight is so long I am packing two batteries for my laptop!

We will take pictures and video of our trip and post it here daily. Be sure to stop back everyday and see how our feet are doing on our walk.

I am Proud of Jen!

I am so proud of Jen! She has trained a lot more than I have for the walk next week. A few weeks ago Jen and Missy Ward went on a 17 mile walk. They walked in the pouring rain for two miles of it.

Increasing Mileage Before the Big Walk!

As the days get closer to our walk, I am feeling more pressure to step up my walking. I have been walking every night with a goal of reaching 10,000 steps at the minimum.

So far I have been 66.6% successful!

September 1st - 10,627
September 2nd - 10,579
September 3rd - 5,867

If I can keep up this pace I will have increased my steps by 200% over last month.
Plus we just moved into a new office that is HUGE! My mileage around here will surely increase by two or three times what I use to get at our old office.

First Aid for our Walk!

Jen and I headed to Super Target to get our first aid supplies for our walk last night. We weren't quite sure what we REALLY needed. We didn't want to purchase a bunch of extra stuff that we would have to haul in our bags for sixty miles, that we wouldn't end up using.

We ended up purchasing...

6 pairs of socks each. 2 for each day and we made sure we got the socks that will pull the sweat away from our feet.
2 trial size Johnson and Johnson first aid kits
Baby powder
New Skin
Purel
Waterproof band-aids

As I am writing this I just remembered we didn't buy a rain poncho. We also still need to purchase fanny packs and water bottles for them.

Other than that I think we are pretty much ready to go. We made sure that we have a new clean outfit for each day. I don't think the same jogging pants are going to be able to used more than one day during the walk! We fly out to Seattle a week from tomorrow!

Pedometer Steps in August

The items in green went up in August and the items in red went down in August. I will get a minimum of 120,000 steps in during Jen and I's 60 mile walk. There was a small amount of improvement in August and I am sure the numbers from September will be much higher.

Steps for July - 116,200
Steps for August - 122,371
Daily Average July- 4,648
Daily Average August - 3,947

Total Aerobic Steps July - 16,240
Total Aerobic Steps August - 25,090
Daily Average July - 650
Daily Average August - 809

Aerobic Walking Time for the Month July - 139 minutes
Aerobic Walking Time for the Month August - 223 minutes
Daily Average July- 6
Daily Average August - 7

Distance for the Month of July- 43.89 Miles
Distance for the Month of August - 46.21 Miles
Daily Average July - 1.76 Miles
Daily Average August - 1.49 Miles

Fat Burner for the Month of July - 198.5 grams
Fat Burner for the Month of August - 207.5 grams
Daily Average of July- 7.9 grams
Daily Average of August - 6.7 grams

Raising Money for Breast Cancer at the Affiliate Summit Meet Market

The first day of Affiliate Summit they hold a "Meet Market". We rented a table to raise money for breast cancer. Someone could buy a button for $10.00 and they were entered in to a raffle for prizes that were all donated. Here are the prizes that were won.

Prizes include:

• Ice Wine - 2004 Saw Mill Creek from GayWeddingGear.com
  Bin 88, Ice Wine, a Vidal from the Niagara Peninsula in Canada
• 1 hour of consulting from Shawn Collins Consulting
• One of a kind Sterling Silver Unisex Necklace from Tiffany Spaulding Designs, valued at $200.00
• FREE Checks for a year from 4checks.com
  Winner receives free checks from any of the brands featured on 4checks.com for one year, up to 6 boxes.
• An original hand made Pink Ribbon Penguin and $50 gift certificate from JGoode Designs
• A Build Your Business Package from GigglePrint.com
  Winner receives one order of business cards, letterhead w/ envelopes, postcards and an endorsement stamp.
  
• A Ribbon Of Hope Checks & Accessories Package
  Winner receives 2 boxes of checks, one set of address labels and one leather checkbook cover in our Ribbon of Hope design
• 1 hour of phone consulting $300/hr value from Paulson Management Group.
• One iPod Nano and an iTunes gift card from Lisa Riolo
• 1 Free full conference pass to Affiliate Summit Vegas 2009
• 1 Month ad placement from Revenews
• 25 cases of Jones Soda
• (Ten) $60.00 Gift Certificates from LoxlyGallery.com (to be awarded individually)
• Video Spokes Model Certificate
  

I do not have the exact count of what we raised at the booth but it was over $1,000.00.
Thank you to everyone that stopped by the booth and showed your support. Thank you to CafePress for donating the buttons.

How Many Steps?

I decided to publicly post how many steps I am taking with my new pedometer. That way it will motivate me to walk more because I know I am going to post them on here. I received my pedometer on July 8th.

Steps for July - 116,200
Daily Average - 4,648

Total Aerobic Steps - 16,240
Daily Average - 650

Aerobic Walking Time for the Month - 139 minutes
Daily Average - 6

Distance for the Month - 43.89 Miles
Daily Average - 1.76

Fat Burner for the Month - 198.5 grams
Daily Average - 7.9 grams

After typing out these numbers I realized they are pretty pathetic to be honest. I need to start getting up early in the morning and/or walking at night to get more steps in.

I did go camping over the weekend and didn't wear my pedometer around the campground. I am going to have to walk more to make up for those days that I don't have numbers to report with.

Looking for Guest Posts

We are looking for guest posts!
We are looking for posts that are related to breast cancer. If you or a loved one has fought breast cancer and you would like to share your story please submit your post to deborah@marketleverage.com.

Have you walked the 60 mile walk or a similar walk that benefits breast cancer? Have you raised money to help breast cancer research? We would also love to hear your story!

If you would like to see your story here please submit your post to deborah@marketleverage.com .

Rained Out Again....

Jen and I were so excited about walking sixty miles on Wednesday. About 4 o'clock it started pouring and didn't end for hours. We were willing to walk in a slight drizzle. When we left to drive over to Missy's house it was still coming down in buckets so we had to cancel our plans. Hopefully we can schedule a group walk again soon.

Walking Ten Miles Today

Jen and I are meeting up with Missy Ward tonight to walk ten miles. I think this will be a good test if we are on track with the training or not.

I am guessing that it will take us around 3-3.5 hours to walk the full ten miles. Missy has ten miles mapped out for us. We will be walking well in to the darkness this evening.

I will have my pedometer on so I can see how many steps we take. It is a little more than 2,000 steps per mile. We will end up with over 20,000 steps for the night in addition to how many we accumulate during the day.

I love this new pedometer. I wear it everywhere. It love that I can put it in my purse or in my pocket and it still counts my steps. I don't have to worry about it falling off my belt.

I will post pictures and/or video tomorrow from our walk.

Rain Rain Go Away!

I really enjoy going to the park and walking. Not only do I get the view of the water and generally nice weather, it is nice to have someone to walk and talk with. I seem to walk much further there than in the gym.

A good friend of mine and I planned on going to the park yesterday but it was raining again, so we went to the gym. I got on the elliptical and that machine kicked my butt! By time I went a mile, I was drenched in sweat. (I normally don't sweat!) HA!

Then I got on the treadmill and walked/ran another mile. By the time I had two miles in I was exhausted. We left and I mentioned that I like going to the park to walk because the time goes by so much faster. I feel like I got a better workout in the gym though. I wonder if walking casually five miles is any less or more beneficial than going to the gym and doing two miles and getting drenched in sweat?

35 Miles this Week...

Jen and I receive an email weekly with the training schedule for the week. According to the schedule we should walk around 35 miles this week. I don't know if we are going to make it to 35 miles but we will try.

I uploaded my stats from my pedometer to the software that is provided to my computer this morning. That definitely gave me motivation to get out and walk more. I had one day in the last week that I walked over 10,000 steps.

I am going back to Cranes Roost park today and will probably walk between 5-6 miles. That will definitely put me over the 10,000 steps for the day. According to my training schedule I need about 70,000 steps this week! WOW!

I am not sure if I will make 70,000 or not. I am leaving for BlogHer in San Francisco on Thursday. I am sure we will do plenty of walking around the show, San Fran. and the airports. I just may have to get on the treadmill at the hotel so I can my mileage in! I don't want to show up to Seattle and be out of shape and hold the group up!

Training for the 60 Mile Walk

One of my best friends and I went to Cranes Roost yesterday to run 5 miles. I am not sure what I was thinking when I thought I could run five miles...

So I ended up walking most of it. I am not sure if running just isn't for me or if that is something that has to be built up to. It is a good thing that this is a 60-mile walk and not run!

I ordered an Omron Pocket Pedometer from Amazon the other night. It arrived today. Woo hoo! I can't wait to play with it!

You don't have to hook it to your belt. You can put it in your pocket or purse and it still calculates how much you walked. It comes with a USB drive that uploads all of the information to the computer. It will give me a chart of miles walked and statistics. This is pretty exciting, I love to be able to track things.

Thank You Tyler and Nick!

Tyler Cruz and Nick Throlson were gracious enough to donate almost 4500 Entrecard credits to this blog so that we can advertise on more sites. We are still very short of our goal and would like to advertise more. With all of these credits, we will be on a quite a few blogs over the next couple of days.

As of today, I have raised $884.09 and Jen has raised $1200.00. We are required to donate a minimum of $2200.00 each.

Our team goal is $45,000.00 and as of today we have raised $25,621.09.

If you would like to donate to either one of us please click on the links below:

Debby Phillips
Jen Fluker

Help Us Win Blogging Idol!

We entered this blog in to Blogging Idol. The blog that gains the most RSS subscribers during the month of July will win $3,000. If we win, we will donate all of the money to breast cancer research! It will help our team (Affiliate Marketers Give Back) reach our goal of $45,000.

Subscribe to our RSS feed and help us win!

73 Days and Counting...

Only 73 days until the big event! That is kind of scary seeing as how we haven't logged too many miles yet! Our team has reached $25,471.09 of our $45,000.00 goal. We need to raise $267.52 everyday from now until September 12th, in order to reach our team goal. We have some fundraising plans already set up for while we are at Affiliate Summit. Hopefully, that will help with reaching our goal.

We are Looking for Fundraising Ideas

We need fundraising ideas! Please share your ideas with us!

The ideas we came up with so far are:
Car wash - only if we have to!
Sell stuff on ebay
Bake sale

We want to help our team become number one!

TOP TEAMS

1. Kindred Spirits - $88,465.75
2. Valley Girls A Walking In Memory of Michelle - $84,867.99
3. Areola Borealis - $48,886.00
4. Team Diane - $42,793.50
5. Heart and Soles - $41,934.16
6. Saving Second Base - $37,029.35
7. Warming Hut Hotties - $31,193.05
8. Starbucks Sassy Sirens - $28,628.89
9. Affiliate Marketers Worldwide - $24,481.00
10. My Breast Friends - $23,128.83

If you would like to donate to us please click on one of our links below and help support our team!
Jen Fluker
Debby Phillips

Donate Money for Breast Cancer Research

Donate money for breast cancer research and get a link in our top spot! We just added the "Are You In My TOPSPOTS" widget. All money raised will go towards Jen's and my combined goal of $4400 that we are raising for breast cancer research. Donate today!

Rain Rain Go Away!

Jen and I didn't make it out for any training together this week because it has been raining here everyday! We could have gone to the gym and walked on the treadmill but that isn't nearly as fun! I walked four miles on Monday with a co-worker who has been walking with us. Hopefully next week the weather will cooperate with us so we can walk around the lake at Cranes Roost Park. We are wondering how many miles our teammates are logging! Are they putting us to shame with training? Come on team...leave a comment and tell us how many miles you have walked!

Sticking to the Training Schedule...

Jen and I are going to try to stick to the training schedule this week. It will be the first week that we will ATTEMPT to stick to it! We would really like to arrive in Seattle in September and be in the best shape of our lives. We would love for the walk to be enjoyable instead of a struggle all of the way through! It is a little more than 21 miles for the week which is certainly attainable! Here is our training schedule for the week.

Countdown: 14 Weeks

Your Training Schedule for This Week:

Monday Rest
Tuesday 3 miles Easy walking
Wednesday 15 minutes Moderate cross-training
Thursday 5 miles Moderate walking
Friday 30 minutes Easy cross-training
Saturday 7 miles Easy walking
Sunday 6 miles Easy walking

Jen and I Get Soaking Wet In the Rain!

Jen and I headed back to Cranes Roost Park and managed to make it around the lake about 1.25 times before it started pouring down raining! We turned around and started running back to our car. By the time we got there we were pretty soaked and it stopped raining!

Jen's and My First Day Training Together

After work, Jen and I headed to Cranes Roost Park in Altamonte Springs, FL. Cranes Roost Lake is surrounded by a mile of walkway. It was a beautiful evening. It looked like it was going to rain but luckily it didn't! There was a cool breeze in the air, which helped us to get around the lake four times!

Take the Affiliate Survey and Give Back

NETexponent, a leading performance marketing agency is launching an affiliate marketing research study conducted from the perspective of affiliates/publishers.

The goal of this survey is to give the affiliate community a clearer understanding of:

• How best to communicate with affiliates
• What tools and information affiliates crave
• Better understanding of who affiliates are and what challenges they face

If you are an affiliate or publisher and would like to provide your feedback, I encourage you to take the brief survey. In exchange for a few minutes of your time, NETexponent will provide you with a copy of the survey results.

In addition, for every completed survey, NETexponent will donate $1.00 to Team Affiliate Marketing’s fundraising efforts for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-day/60-mile walk!

What a great way to help shape agency best practices, strengthen affiliate relationships and help out a great charity at the same time.

To take the survey, click here.

NOTE TO AFFILIATES: NETexponent respects the privacy of affiliates and only aggregate information will be shared.

Shopping for Shoes for the 60 Mile Walk for Breast Cancer

Jen and I headed to the Track Shack in Orlando, FL on Saturday to shop for some shoes for the walk. The staff was ultra friendly and helped each of us fit a shoe to our foot type and the way we walk. We probably spent an hour trying on different shoes and walking around the store to make sure they were the right fit for each each of us. It is important to have shoes that are already broken in when we arrive in Seattle for the 60 mile walk. As new shoes would cause more blisters!



MarketLeverage will match all donations made to the Susan G. Komen foundation in Jen Fluker's name or mine, Debby Phillips.