We hit our first goal!

With two days to spare, we've hit our first goal - $400 raised!  If I am understanding our site correctly (and by the volume of emails to Stacy is any indication, it has been a struggle), it looks like Jen Athanas's generous donation pushed us over the top!

This is only the beginning though - we still have roughly $3200 to raise by May, so stay tuned as we continue to raise funds and train.

10%

In just our first few days of fundraising we've hit a milestone - 10% raised!

Thanks to Beth Mickey, Erin Pittman, Julie Johnson and Marlene Biddinger for their donations! We greatly appreciate you getting us off to a good start!

Only $33.50 needed in the next two days to meet our first fundraising goal of $400 by the end of the year. I'm sure our generous friends and family can get us there. And perhaps, even exceed our expectations and give us some momentum going into the new year?

Whoa, we're halfway there!

We're half way to our first fundraising goal - $400 by the end of the year.  We've got just four days left to raise $198.80.  If just five more people would donate $39.30 in honor of Stacy and I walking 39.3 miles over the course of two days, we would be well on our way to raising the $3,600 needed by May.

PS - I'm also hoping someone has picked up on the lyrics reference.  Stacy and I, along with two other friends, have seen Bon Jovi at least twice that I can remember... I think it's just two times, but Stacy is the team member with the good memory.

What have I gotten myself into?

When I originally told Stacy I would do this walk with her, I wasn't intimidated by the distance (never mind that in logging my steps via Fitbit, I average between 7K - 8K a day), nor the training (never mind that typically, I'm active about... let's pretend it's 3 days a week).

Nope!

What completely freaked me out was the commitment to raise $3,600.  To me, that's a lot of money.  And with this walk, if you don't raise it, you don't walk.  So all that training would be down the drain.  Then I texted a friend who pointed out that we simply needed 72 friends to support us with $50 each.  That actually didn't sound so bad.  Surely between Stacy and myself, we know 72 people willing to give $50.  Or 92.3 willing to give a dollar per mile that we'll be walking in May (I'm not sure which of us knows .3 of a person, but I'm sure we can find one).

Much like that saying about a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step, our fundraising journey begins with a single dollar.  Or, in this case, our goal of $400 by the end of the year.  Any donation is greatly appreciated - much like the walk, which we'll tackle step-by-step, we'll tackle the fundraising dollar by dollar (or penny by penny if we have to).

Anyway, I'm sure that we'll make it - both physically, financially and mentally.  Breast cancer is an important topic to me, but more on that for another post (oh, the cliff hanger!).

PS - I may also find the idea of blogging to be intimidating as well, but didn't realize that until I actually started writing.  It's kinda like listening to your recorded voice - yikes, who wants to hear that!  Anyway, bear with me while I work through this blogging thing as well.

PPS - Fitbit friends, watch out!  I should be top of the list once I start training!

Let the fundraising begin!

As I've established, 39.3 miles is long. 

Another aspect of this challenge is the fundraising. 

$3600 is a lot of money. We're each responsible for raising $1800, but as I told Mary when we signed up, we are in this together, so I figure I should be thinking about it as the full amount. 

My hope is that if we set targets for ourselves, and our potential donors, that we can raise the money in stages. 

Rather than people thinking "the event isn't until May, I have plenty of time to give," our plan is to try and reach small goals throughout the next few months. 

And our first target is to raise $400 by the start of 2015. 

You can donate to the team here: Team Ped-A-Cures and it will be split between the two of us, or you can do individual donations for Stacy or Mary. 

Thanks in advance!

Stacy & Mary

39.3 miles is far

If you read through the materials for the Avon 39 Walk you see references to participants walking "up to 39 miles." The event has two tracks, for lack of a better word. Some people will do 26 miles (a marathon) divided over the two days, but the full event is a marathon on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday.

It sounds crazy. 39.3 miles is long!

But, I figure if I'm going to do this event, I'm really going to do it.

I walk a lot already. I've been tracking my steps with a pedometer, and then a Fitbit for about 18 months now. But just averaging 10-12k a day is not going to be nearly enough to get ready for this.

The training schedule starts 16 weeks out, which conveniently enough is the first of the year. The first few weeks aren't much different than what I typically do, but by late the totals go up and my weekends will start to be spent walking 8, 10, 13, 17, up to 22 miles. Yikes!

So, while I'm requesting donations for sure, I'm also requesting walking buddies and your favorite routes in the metro area I shouldn't miss. So far I've heard about the 11 mile bike path around BWI and figure the C&O Canal trail would also be a good one for one of the longer walks. Any other scenic suggestions that would help make the miles fly by?

Greetings from Team Ped-A-Cures

Hello!

Thanks for visiting Team Ped-A-Cures blog to learn more about our efforts as we train and fundraise for the 2015 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.

Team Ped-A-Cures is the combined efforts of Stacy Biddinger and Mary Fain. We'll both be blogging here, though I (Stacy) will probably end up updating a bit more frequently. The plan is to document our training, share information about our fundraising, and dive a bit into the issue of breast cancer and why we've chosen to raise awareness and funds.

The commitment we've made to the Avon Walk is a big one, and to be honest, a bit intimidating, so I am putting it out there now - your support, encouragement and words of wisdom will be MUCH appreciated over the next four months!