I Tri 4 Sixty Five Roses

“The Boomer Esiason Foundation is committed to increasing awareness, education and quality of life for those affected by cystic fibrosis, while providing financial support to research aimed at finding a cure.”

Meet my new charity of choice.  When I researched how to filter my personal money to benefit Cystic Fibrosis, I took a few factors into consideration. First and foremost it had to be geared towards funding research for the cure of Cystic Fibrosis. Secondly, it had to focus on creating awareness of Cystic Fibrosis. Finally, it had to benefit Maggie today. My niece Maggie currently lives with Cystic Fibrosis.  While I would love to see a cure for CF in her lifetime, I don’t know if it will happen. So it has to help her now.  The Boomer Esiason Foundation has two things that help her now. First a transplant fund to help families afford the expensive lung transplants that some people with CF need. And secondly, a scholarship fund for people with CF.  While Maggie might never need either of these, there is a child that will be able to use them.  I believe in the present and the future. BEF does both.

Here is a quick way to donate:

$10 bucks a month is a great way to start…

One of many perks of my job is that my employer pays for my Rotary Membership. On Wednesdays I can go to a meeting that is in a smaller group setting and often times there are speakers that specialize in certain areas. Today’s talk was on Stress Management. There was a great discussion about the different type of people and how they deal with stress. One of the very interesting concepts is how important sleep is to your cognitive ability during the day. Being able to concentrate during the day often relates directly to your diet and your sleep. Say for instance you, personally, should get 8 hours of sleep per night. That is just what your body needs. Now let’s say you only get 5 hours of sleep.  That is akin to operating after drinking 3 beers. Now, this is not to say that you are drunk because you didn’t sleep, but it is to say that your cognitive impairment is similar to how you would be with 3 drinks in you. Your memory is affected and your ability to deal with multiple issues at a time is also hurt by this. Stress can then result from this because your brain can’t handle what it is being asked to do. It was really interesting. The speaker used more examples to show stress and how it impacts you. And of course he showed how to reduce stress. One thing that caught my mind was creating purpose and meaning in life.  It made me think about I Tri 4 Sixty Five Roses. Not because this is the purpose of my life, but I think it is something that is important to me and my family.  But it really made me think about what the purpose of this Team is going to be.  Is it raising money? Raising awareness? Encouraging a healthy lifestyle?  Making people aware that they might carry this gene and not know it until their children have it?  Attempting to understand how people with this disease my feel when they breathe?  I think that it should incorporate all of these ideas, but most importantly I think it should show people with this disease that we care about them. It should show them that we are doing this for their future and that we love them.  Love will always go much farther than money.

In the next few days I will be unveiling the new team concept complete with a new uniform we have created.  Think about those people you know that have CF and their famiies. We want to include them in this process.  This team is not just for runners or triathletes or bikers or swimmers. It is for people that are interested in showing their love for family or friends with Cystic Fibrosis.

Hmm, what kind of statement is that?  Does it mean that I am training myself to go slow? Maybe…does it mean that my actual training is going slow, like, I am not doing much and feeling lazy and I need to get in gear? Maybe…maybe it means I am just slow to adapt to a new schedule. Regardless, I have 32 bike miles on the books compared to a goal of 1000. Yikes.   0 Running miles. 0 Swimming miles.  Maybe I should kick this off with an indoor tri. Swim 5 Minutes, Bike 5 Minutes, Run 5 Minutes. The 15 minute tri. I wonder if I could even do that right now.  It is hard to get motivated when the weather is just starting to get cold and the warm stuff is far far far far far away. Maybe I need to take up snowshoeing or skiing. More gear? More gear is about the last thing I need. I thought the establishment of goals would kick start me. Apparently, not.  I’ll have to set a new goal of an indoor tri in December. 15 minute Swim/1 hour Bike/20 Minute Run.  Just hard enought to get me going and just easy enough to get me going.

Where have all the leaves gone? How quickly the seasons change. We had temps in the 70’s on Monday and it was 30 on Friday. This pic was from Thursday.  We had light snow on Saturday and this morning it was 24 degrees.  Here it comes.

Keegan got a new bed this weekend and hasn’t left it since.  It looks pretty comfy.

I finally established my training goals for the winter.  I basically threw up some numbers, did some rough calculations on whether or not I could achieve them and called it a day.  they don’t call them stretch goals for nothing.  I kicked off the winter training with a goal party. The party consisted of an hour of riding in the basement which yielded 15 miles. This might take awhile. Although, it was an hour’s worth of consistent effort. I can’t always say that happens outside on the pavement. It should, but stop signs, traffic, and downhills change that. No coasting on the trainer. I achieved 1.5% of my bike mileage goal. Sweet.

My self imposed exile from the cardio world finally comes to an end. It was nice, but I feel sluggish. It hasn’t been a complete exile, but there has been very little structured training.  I mean very little. And no running. That will be the hardest, getting back on the treadmill. Building base fitness. So I guess I need a goal to work towards. Let’s see…two months until the end of the year.  I’ll be in Chicago, Kearney, and STL for three separate weekends.  Duluth overnight twice. Oh wait, Duluth for another weekend in December. What kind of goal should I set?  Run 100 Miles? Bike 500 miles on the trainer. (did I really just say that? Bike 500 miles in my basement while looking at cement?) How about completing an cumulative ironman in distance each week or every two weeks. Whatever it is, it needs to have structure.