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