I have been training for 4 weeks now and have gone a total of 372.22 miles. I have been able to stay healthy for the past two weeks and logged over 130 miles.  It is fun to watch the miles increase, even though the fatigue is starting to creep into every day activities.  Yesterday we went sledding after I had ran and biked, and chasing a 3 year old up that 10 ft hill was brutal.  I guess it is time to start conserving my energy as much as possible, although I would rather be dead beat tired and spend time with my family than rest.   After all, family is what is important in life, so I will continue to play tag your it and dance with my daughter till wee hours of the night.  I have also started eating more.  I wake up every morning with my stomach growling, no matter how much I eat the night before.   Janelle laughs at me when I say I'm hungry twenty minutes after eating dinner.  Time to put some money aside for the grocery bill.

Overall it has been a fun experience so far.  I have made just shy of $900 and continuously thinking about new ways to inspire people to donate.  I have begun dropping flyers off at business that I visit.  I have a stack in my truck and hand them out when I stop somewhere.  Hopefully the community will get behind this effort to fight for a cure.  It has been really fun to watch all of the activity on the Facebook page.  There are new followers and likes daily, from all over the country.  Now those people just need to donate.  Even a couple dollars will make a difference.

I have two trips coming up, one to Florida for the PGA Show and another to Alabama and Texas to visit family.  It will be hard to get my training in.  The last thing I want to do on vacation is to wake up and go for a run or ride a bike in some tiny hotel gym.  But training for an event like this takes a great deal of dedication, and I have to keep it in mind that there are only 8 months left, and it is for a great cause.  It is hard for people to have perspective on situations. 
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No matter how hard your current situation is, there is someone out there going through something ten times worse.  Enjoy your life, and remember that hard times will pass.  There is always someone there to help you through these times and you should never give up.  

  Week two is in the books.  I had to take the first couple days off to get rid of my sickness, but I still managed to log 41.46 miles which puts me at 240.31 total miles.  I have really been lucking out with the weather, but it is not looking good this week.  On Wednesday it looks like I will be running when it is 3 degrees outside.  I wake up and workout so early that I can crawl back into my warm bed until Bella wakes up which is nice. 

    I don't know if it is an illusion or what, but this training has not really taken away from my time with my family.  When I trained for my marathon, Janelle was working on her MBA, I was working on my PGA Apprenticeship, and we had a baby under the age of one.  When Janelle and I trained for our half ironman we had a toddler and it is not possible to train at the same time.  This made training absorb our entire days together.  Now Janelle is working on strength training and neither of us are in school, so I am able to schedule my training in a way that will take away as little time as possible, this will change when I am riding 100+ miles and running over 20 in a day, but that is a ways away. 

   Our family has already booked a cabin that sleeps 13 people in Idaho and we are excited to spend the week with family and friends.  We would like to encourage everyone to come out and witness the race in person, and would love to see everyone there.  In the meantime there are miles to be traveled and dollars to be raised.  I cannot thank everyone enough for their contributions, and for those that have not donated yet please do so.  Our next promotion to raise money is coming soon, the Rowdy Bars were a success and we are very thankful to Kellie for her generous help.