Fargo

A co-worker heard on the radio over and over Thursday morning about the flood in Fargo/Moorhead and how they needed volunteers. She thought she had to do something, so she came to work and asked the boss if it would be okay for her to take Friday off to go up north. They said sure and if you want to bring anyone else with you tell them they need to turn in a request off by noon today. She sent out the email and 2 others heeded the call. I sent out an email to my friends and family asking if they wanted to join me-Margaret was a yes.

So this morning (5:30am!) Margaret met me at our house and we drove to a Clearwater exit. We car-pooled from there with Cari, her daughter, and her daughter's friend. Tamara followed us with her car and had her son and his friend in tow. We arrived at the MSUM around 10am. We got signed in, then they had tables set up with food that you could fill a bag to take with you. Margaret and I headed outside to help sand bag. They had a good system going. We went all the way down to the end because there weren't a lot of people down there. 2 people shoveled, 2 people held bags under orange cones that were upside down in a table. Three shovels full were poured into each bag, then it was tossed off where someone else was tying them off and someone else piled them onto a pallet. After a while we ran out of pallets. They brought in roll-off containers. We formed a train and passed bags from one end the other until the containers where full. When we ran out of those they kept making bags and they were just put into piles everywhere until more pallets or containers were found. I don't know how many dump trucks of sand we went through-but Margaret and I did this for 6 hours!

I am so sore right now, but it was worth every bit. When people would ask if we were local we said no we're from Mpls. They would ask if we had relatives in the area. We said no. They were so happy that people would travel that far just to help them. We weren't the only nice people there - it was MN nice all over the place. Please, thank you, excuse me, sorry, can I help you with that, do you want to switch jobs. Just amazing how everyone could work together. And seeing all the sand bags that were filled was proof that we were working together.

As we drove home we listened to the radio and it didn't sound good. I hope what we did today makes a difference.

Benefits

I knew going into this training for the 3-Day that I would end up losing weight because I am actually walking so much. Exercise that I wouldn't normally be doing. I weighed myself the other day - lost 2 lbs!

Even better...Yesterday we went to a WILD game and normally I would be out of breath walking from Victory ramp to Excel Center. Jon pointed out when we got to the Excel that I wasn't out of breath. I hadn't even noticed.

Training update

An update on my training for the 3 day.

Monday is always a rest day.

First week: no problem. Tuesday=3 miles, Wednesday=0 min cardio, Thursday=3 miles, Friday=30 min cardio (with a personal trainer), Saturday=3 miles, Sunday=3 miles. I made it through the first week.

Week 2: Same as above except I switched Thursday and Friday because I had my last (free) personal training session. He really kicked my butt. I wish I could actually afford to have someone there to tell me what exercises to do, when and then to push me through the last rep. Yesterday I went for a walk outside instead of going to the gym-Saturday was supposed to be 4 miles. It was Mike, Margaret and Jadah and 3 dogs. We tried going the 3.7 route around the lake, but it was about 7pm and we thought we better cut back. The dogs LOVED it. They were running everywhere. All were so pooped out when we got back. Even though we have a large back yard, it is very flooded and muddy right now so Polly does not have the freedom like she does at the park to run full out and bound through the prairie. I was really tired after that one too. I don't think we did the 3.7 or 4 miles, but with having to steady yourself on ice patches, through slush and mud, and up hills; I think I still got the workout that was intended.

On my donation tally: as of today, I am still $27 short of the first milestone of raising $500. We are going to have a garage sale in May. First at our house and then whatever is left we will move to the Moritz house to try in the Oakdale area. If you would like to be the one to put me over that first milestone I have included the link to the donation site.

thank you to all of you that have helped with the fund raising and/or walked with me during training.

Honestly

So I started at Gold's Gym because we had a huge snowstorm Tuesday and that was supposed to be my first day of training. Since MN weather is so unpredictable I decided to join the gym. Thursday I walked my first 3 miles. No problem. Not very sore. Made the mistake of getting bored around 1.5-2 miles and started doing lunges on the treadmill. My hip was a little sore from that. Then today I ended up getting off work early and I had an appointment for a personal training session (you get 2 when you sign up).

Since I was early for the personal training session (by an hour) I decided to catch up on my walking since I missed out Tuesday. So I walked for 50 min while watching NCIS. Yes, you have your own personal tv attached to the treadmill that gets many cable stations and you just plug in your own headphones. So after doing this walk I met with the trainer.

Every person I have talked to has asked me many times what my reasons for joining the gym were. I told them that I need to train for the 3-Day. So the trainer asks me this again, I tell him the same thing. Then he asks me how much weight I'm wanting to lose. I said I'm not really here for losing weight, I'm here to gain endurance so I can walk 60 miles in 3 days. I know by doing this I will most likely lose weight at the same time, but this is not my goal.
So he suggests 40 lbs by August 21st. I told him if I did that I would still be 80+ lbs overweight. He proceeded to weigh me and then he did a fat analysis. I have never had one of these done. It was interesting to know that even if I lost the weight on my body that is fat I would still weigh 155 from my muscle. I think I'm okay with that, plus some.

We did a quick cardio routine. I was more tired from that 20 min than I was from walking for an hour. Then we went back to his office for the sales pitch. He told me about the fitness plans that the club offered. Meal plans, dietary aids and supplements, personal training...all sounding great, but who can afford it! If you're going to offer something like this and I just told you that the dues alone for your gym were too high compared to other gyms, why would I spend tons of money for you to tell me what to eat and what vitamins to take. No thanks, I'll look it up on the internet.

To answer your question of why am I going to this gym when there are others that are less expensive:
1. location-it is between home and work
2. the manager actually gave me a deal when she found out I was joining to train for the 3-day.
3. sorry, but the personal TV is really cool :)