Weekend Update

After the 30 mile march of pain Team Chuck 300 endured last Sunday, this weekend was considerably more relaxed. With Jenn and Robyn out of town on Saturday, Zoe and I did an uncharted walk from about 8 till 12. We started off by hiking up the Cascadilla Gorge trail, which was filled with mist and gold morning sunshine.

We also took a tour through Cayuga Heights to see how the other half lives with their mansions and 10 acre lawns. Cutting back down the hill through the Lake View Cemetery, we stopped to investigate the Cornell family tomb (or at least, one of them). It was the epitome of tombness (tombitude?).

Finally, we arrived at the Ithaca Farmers Market where we enjoyed some fine macrobiotic cuisine. It was really, really good. Afterwards, we walked at a high speed back to town, just in time for me to meet the guy coming to hook up my cable Internet service.

On Sunday, Jenn came back from Rochester - she had been attending a conference with Jen Pappas on caring for people with brain tumors - and we joined Zoe for another day of walking at around 10:30. I had planned out 3 five mile loops that we could use interchangeably to mix things up a bit. Our plan was to do about 20 miles. Unfortunately for my plan, we took some wrong turns on our first loop and ended up off the course. On our second loop, we decided we wanted to go back to the farmer's market to visit Emmy's Organics, a new purveyor of raw, vegan, gluten-free food. If you are lucky enough to live within the proximity of the Ithaca Farmers Market and you want to have your mind blown by some incredible raw deliciousness, you must stop by their booth, which is open on Sundays only. The Chocolate Goji cheesecake (all raw, all vegan) was bliss. And the owners are super nice.

Where was I? Oh yeah, training!

So we left the IFM and ended up going approximately 4.5 miles before coming back to Jenn's and my apartment. Unfortunately, Zoe was called away from practice by some family concerns, and after taking a short break at home, Jenn and I went back out alone.

For our last loop, we took a modified version of the 10 mile loop we've been using. It ended up being about 8.5 miles, bringing our total for the day to about 18 miles. Like I said, it was a pretty mild training this weekend, but I was happy to notice that despite doing almost 20 miles, Jenn and I both felt pretty good when we were done. We were still tired of course, but I remember feeling fairly crippled after our first 20 miler just two weeks ago. And now 20 miles is the "mild workout."

The only semi-pain-in-the-ass is having to track mileage either by staying on a pre-determined route or by re-tracing the route on Google maps when we get home. And soon, we'll have a solution for that! My dad and his wife Mary are sending us a wristwatch GPS. It doesn't have the same level of navigational technology that you see in a car GPS, but it will tell us how far we've gone, what our pace has been and even when our pace is falling below a set rate of speed. Once we have this handy James Bond tool, we can kiss the maps goodbye and walk wherever we want, even going off road. Should be great.

Also, I'm pleased to announce that our online fundraiser has reached 11% of its goal so far. And we have 11 weeks left!