I had good endurance base due to my training for the Pan Mass Challenge and the outcome might have been quite different if the event was a longer and more demanding one. Not having done any bike racing in 8 years has really affected my ability to jump on breakaways. if I’m going to get away from the Ironmen who can run, I need to do it on the bike.

As it was, the top 3 Ironmen stuck together on the bike, even leading the pack on hillclimbs. I got into the canoe leg about 30 seconds behind the leaders, caught them, and built a 2 minute leas on them in the water despite running aground on the northern edge of Stockbridge Bowl. I held off Kent through the 2nd mile on the run and Matt didn’t catch me until 3.5 miles but the fact remains that I need to get out of the water about 8 minutes ahead of these runner specialists.

Goals for next year: Do more pack riding and some actual bike races, I can’t keep faking this; get in the canoe more – I definitely have an advantage here and need to build on it, set a new canoe leg record for myself; Lise more weight in order to make the run easier – lighter = faster; be healthy before the race – racing sleep-deprived and with a sinus infection means I’m just fooling around; get some help with my bike coordinator duties – pitting in 8 hours hand-sweeping the course and putting up signs is a strain my competitors are not subjecting themselves to 2 says before the race; get some childcare help – taking care of sick kids and babysitting for 2 days before the race prevented me from preparing materials during daylight hours and made me even more sleep-deprived.

Let’s see if I can do even 1/4 of these goals.

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I’m regularly getting up to 300 miles a week in mileage over the past few weeks.Last week my knees starting aching, particularly my left knee. I tracked it down to riding without knee coverings in the spell of cold weather we were having. For several days we never got out of the 50s and we didn’t get above 60 degrees for almost 2 weeks. Also, in doing some research, I followed suggestions to raise my saddle and focus on keeping my leg movements as linear as possible. After following that protocol for a few days the pain is almost gone. The other physical setback was having some kind of allergic reaction to pollen that must’ve been blown into my eyes during some extremely windy (and chilly days) – 5 days and most of a box of Benadryl later, my eyes weren’t swollen shut. What was weird was that I had no other symptoms: no runny nose, sneezing, or respiratory issues. I’d like to avoid this next year if possible.

Fundraising-wise we’re doing pretty good for starting the effort about 2 months ago. We’re over the 50% mark and there are some corporate donations slated but there have been a few frustrating issues. This is the Pan Mass Challenge but the majority of my donations have come out of state, courtesy of my very kind and supportive friends. I’d like to see more donations from Massachusetts, particularly the Berkshires where I live but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to get people to convert. These are people who will most likely know someone who has gone to Dana Farber for treatment or who would seek treatment for themselves there. It’s great that there’s over 170 people in my Facebook Support group but its strange that we’re not seeing some people that we know pretty well and who we know have the resources haven’t joined the group or made a donation. OK, so perhaps you can’t give, literally, just a few dollars this year but why can’t you join the group? I get a lot of invites to groups and I join most of them but some of these people aren’t reciprocating – and this is for a serious charity effort.

Alright, so I apologize for venting a bit. On the whole I’ve been incredibly overwhelmed by the support I have received and genuinely surprised by whom has helped me, some with multiple commitments – it really almost pushed me to tears on several occasions. It’s been great to find out more about people, how they’ve been affected by cancer, and to make this connection with them. I hope to be able to provide similar support for everybody who has helped me when I get the opportunity to do so. It’s kind of a strange way to find a way to be optimistic about life and people but that’s probably a good part of why I got involved in the PMC. If you’ve signed up to help me this year, thank you so very much, you are incredible.

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I’ve also been doing a cleanse diet since Monday which has meant restricted calories during the day which certainly hasn’t helped the energy levels and resulted in a near bonk earlier in the week. I found the diet in a blog post from Gwyneth Paltrow’s site and I chose the diet because it seemed to be a little more “real world” than some of the ridiculous ones like the Master Cleanse, which just seemed dangerous. The hardest thing to let go of was the refined sugar – I’m too used to eating whatever cookies and candy that I want. As the days have gone by I’ve gone from wanting cookies and candy to wanting something as basic as bowl of cereal or even a piece of bread.

I have enjoyed the organic vegetables and the soups but I’ve had to combine the meals of solids into one meal in the evening, mainly because I don’t have the time to prepare completely separate sets of soups. I’ve stuck to the recipes in the diet with the exception of the juices since I don’t have a juicer – I’ve just been having tea and instead of having a “handful of almonds”, I’ll have a bowl of them – something a bit more realistic for someone my size who is riding a bike several miles per week. It makes one wonder how many people make adjustments to these diets and if they are still keeping an eye on their overall intake. The only other changes I made was to have a couple grapefruit during the week which makes me think I’m still within the calorie intake boundaries.

What makes the diet tasty are a homemade carrot-ginger dressing for vegetables and a teriyaki sauce for the chicken. While I’m not normally a fan of salmon, I’ve enjoyed it steamed as the diet calls for. A big bonus was the inclusion of avocados which are used in both the raw vegetable meals as well as in a very tasty “soup” of pureed cucumber.

The big disappointment for the week has been the slacking off of donations to my PMC fund. I have $1700 in there now, and am truly thankful of the effort from people who stepped up in the first 2 weeks, but that’s a far cry from the $5k I need to raise by August. I’m almost at a loss of how to raise more money – any ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated.

Below are some of the videos I’ve been making and posting on my Facebook PMC Page:

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PLEASE SHARE MY DONATION PAGE WITH FRIENDS and make a contribution. 100% of the donation goes to cancer research and it’s tax deductible. I will be posting progress here and welcome your feedback and ideas on how to raise the $5000.

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Hopefully people will check out my entire photo set of the Olympics which I’m almost done identifying and captioning – perhaps there are 30 or less photos to process at this point.

The funny thing is that in looking over FasterSkier.com, I discovered that they are based out of Williamstown, MA, about 15 miles north of where I live. Many thanks to editor Topher Sabot who posted the link. Would be cool to meet those guys in person sometime.

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