Setting Goals

September 28th, 2010 | Posted by john in Fund Raising Tips | Training Tips - (3 Comments)

If you have looked into your participant center and seen the “Goal” section then you know as well as anyone that setting goals for yourself on the 3-Day is an important thing.  Goals will help you keep going and give you something to shoot for as you make your way towards and on your 3-Day journey.  But the goals that you focus on may or may not be related to fund raising.

As I see it, there are there are several different categories of goals.  This week, I hope to cover what I see as some of the different categories and maybe mention what my goals have been through the years.  Hopefully it will inspire you to expand your goals for this year or years in the future on the 3-Day.


Planned Controllable Goals

Planned controllable goals are just that.  Goals that you set out in your plan at the beginning of the year that you have a good deal of control over.  Sure, everything in the world has some outside influence on the outcome of your goals, but there are things that you have more control over than others.  For instance, the economy could have a negative influence on your fund raising, but you still have control over the methods you use to fund raise and the amount that you put into your fund raising.  You may have a goal to finish all 60 miles.  Yes, injury could take you out of that, but a good deal of control lies in your hands for how much you train to get you ready enough to hopefully make it through the walk without being injured.

Ok, so here’s my planned controllable goals this year:

  1. Complete two 3-Day walks this year.  I am halfway through with this goal!
  2. Raise the minimum fund raising for both walks and do it before the end of May.  This one was accomplished thanks to some awesome friends and family and of course the guys at TheSpeedGamers.com
  3. Use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to raise donations.  In the past I had used some Facebook to do this, but I really wanted to push myself further with the use of Social Medial and fund raising.  I think this goal is accomplished.  I had a lot of donations from my video fund raising series and am still getting donations on both Facebook and Twitter thanks to the Winners Choice Sweepstakes.
  4. Raise a good deal of money going door to door.  So far I have raised over $800 and I’m still plugging away at it, so I would say it’s a success.


Planned Uncontrollable Goals

The next type of goal is one that you plan but you have much less control over.  In my mind, these tend to be the larger goals or the goals that you are in competition with others for.  It may be that you can put a ton of effort in there, but if the goal is too large or the competition is too stiff then you might not be able to achieve your goal.  Since these goals are larger and more long term usually than the controlled goals, they are a good way to stay motivated to keep fund raising or training or talking to people about the 3-Day moving even after I have achieved the minimum set forth by the 3-Day.  Personally, these are goals that I don’t usually share with anyone, but as time goes on, if I am making great strides towards my goals it becomes apparent to some people in my life.  Here are what my planned uncontrollable goals set this year are:

  1. Raise $20,000 – This is one that I hadn’t told anyone but the team from Boston and then only because at our first team meeting the question was asked what our goals were.  I realize that this is a fund raising goal and I could really push it and make the goal, but with the balance that I’m trying to maintain there are just to many variables to say that I can do it.  So far though, I am at about $17,000 so I would call it a success even if I don’t meet my goal.
  2. Be the top fund raiser in Dallas – This was one of my goals last year too and I didn’t make it, but that doesn’t mean that I should stop trying.  Currently I am leapfrogging with another walker over who the top fund raiser is, so I’m trying to pull out all of the stops to raise as much money as possible to achieve this goal.  I would REALLY like to make this one.

If there is anyone that would like to help me achieve one of the above goals, please donate whatever you can at http://60miles3days.com/donate.  Anything that you can donate to help me reach those goals would be hugely appreciated!


Unplanned Goals

All of the goals that I have mentioned so far have been things that, at the beginning of the year, I have planned to strive for.  This next section is for those things that cropped up through the year that I decided to make a goal of even if I hadn’t thought of it before.  This could be anything.  I am pretty sure that Jay Furr had an unplanned goal to walk in 3 3-Day walks this year.  He didn’t start out doing this, but as circumstances changed he realized that it was a possibility and set his goal to do it.  My unplanned goal this year was to be an Energizer® Keep Going® Blogger.  It came up after I had set my goals and sounded like a great thing to try out for.  There was some fantastic competition and somehow I was chosen for Dallas.


The Point

So what’s the point of all this?  It’s definitely not labeling the goals that you have.  If that were the point I could have come up with a lot better names than I did.  Something like “The Super Terrific Awesome Sparkly Goal”.  No, the point is realizing that having goals on the 3-Day, just as in life, helps you realize where you need to be going so that you can determine the best way to get there.  Once you have the goals you can start your way to accomplishing them.  How you get there is entirely up to you!

What about you?  What are your goals for the 3-Day either this year or next?  I’d really like to know, please comment and share them!

 

I Need Your Help!

September 16th, 2010 | Posted by john in General - (3 Comments)

I know that through most of the year, I ask people for some sort of help with donations to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  This time is a little different, I’m still asking for help, but this time it is a little brain power help that I need!

So here’s the situation.  As most of you know, I’m the Energizer® Keep Going® Blogger for the DFW 3-Day.  Some may also know that as the result of one of my fund raisers earlier this year, I have promised my donors that I will wear a bra all three days of the walk.  Everything is great except for one thing.  Energizer sent me a pretty cool t-shirt so that I could wear it on the walk so that while I’m walking people would know that I’m the Keep Going Blogger.  Good stuff and I am very happy at the prospect of being able to wear it.  The problem is that when I wear the bra you can’t see the logo on the shirt and to be honest, I’ll probably end up wearing only the bra and not a shirt.  I still want people to know that I am the Keep Going Blogger, it’s something I’m very proud of, but I also need to honor the promise I made to donors.  This is where you come in!

Please send me suggestions on how I can visually promote that I’m the Keep Going Blogger (using the logo that you can see on the right side of this page) without changing the fact that I need to wear just the bra.  The only thing I have tried so far is an at home t-shirt transfer kit and the curve of the bra just made it look like a cheap sticker when I put the logo on it.  So other than that, any suggestion is fair game.  If you have an idea, click “Contact” at the top of this page and send me an e-mail with your suggestion!  If your suggestion is chosen then you will win a 60Miles t-shirt, one of the shirt styles is pictured in this post, but any of the shirts at http://www.cafepress.com/offensive1/7285557 can be chosen if you win.  If your idea is the winning idea and other people have suggested it, I’ll do a random drawing to award the prize, but I will mention everyone’s name that suggested it on a post on 60miles3Days.com

Thanks for all your help!  Get those creative juices flowing!!  If you have multiple great ideas, please feel free to submit multiple entries, but try to keep one idea per mail just so I can sort out the individual ideas easier.

 

Camping!!

September 14th, 2010 | Posted by john in At the Walk - (5 Comments)

There haven’t been a lot, but I have met enough people that stay in a hotel instead of camp to know that it happens.  And I understand, there is a certain allure to sleeping in a hotel room instead of an air mattress or camp bed.  I can see where it would be appealing to be able to go to a restaurant and order what you want instead of eating what’s being served at 3-Day camp (though I will say the food is pretty good).  I can also understand how someone might want to see their family and friends at night.  Despite all of those reasons, I still think that staying at camp overnight is as much a part of the 3-Day as walking those 60 miles and raising that $2300.  For those of you that are set on staying somewhere other than camp, consider this my attempt at persuading you to at least give camp a try.  For everyone else, consider this a preview of some of the awesome stuff that you can get to do at the 3-Day camp!  I went back and forth on how to organize it and finally settled on breaking it out by section of camp.  So here is your preview of what’s in store for you at camp.


Living Quarters

For those of you that are on the fence about staying in camp, please stick it through until at least the next section.  I will freely admit that this section of camp is probably the least compelling reason to stay, but it is still an integral part, so I have to talk about it!

You see how I put living quarters up there like it was more than just a tent?  Well, truthfully there is more to what I am calling living quarters than just a tent.  When I talk about living quarters, I really think of three things and they’re not all in one spot, thankfully.  I think about showers, tents and port-o-potties.

Just last weekend I was walking with some people from Chi Chi Mamas DFW, a 3-Day team in Fort Worth, and was asked if the showers are actually hot.  Apparently they asked someone on staff and wanted to get a second opinion.  I can confirm that the showers are hot and definitely welcome after a long day walking!  In fact, for many the showers will be the most appealing part of the living quarters section.

Next comes the tents, a giant sea of pink tents.  The rows are all marked well, but it is still a good thing to somehow mark your tent so that you can remember where it is.  That’s where the decorating contest comes in.  Those walkers that have SO much room left in their 35 lb duffel bag will pack decorations for their tent.  There are two reasons for this.  First it makes it easy to find your tent if you have a miniature boxing ring in front of your tent.  Second you can win a legacy pin for having the best decorated tent!  I will say, that I really appreciated my neighbors for the second year that I walked that put something on top of their tent that made it look like a breast with a pierced nipple.  That pierced nipple was like a beacon to get back to the tent!  The really good thing about staying in the tents is that you don’t have to worry about wake-up call or an alarm clock because camp will be like your alarm clock for you.  SOMEONE in camp will set their alarm and that will be just like having your own alarm that you can hear but don’t have to worry about turning off!

Last in the living quarters section of camp is the port-o-potties.  I realize that this isn’t the most glamorous thing to talk about, but you should be getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (if you’re not, shame on you!  You’re not drinking enough!) so it’s a good thing to get acquainted with where the port-o-potties are.  To be honest, when I wake up in the middle of the night and have to go to the bathroom, I try to gauge by the light how close it is to when people will be getting up.  Then I try and determine if I can just wait until people are up or if I should go right then, because who really wants to get up in the middle of the night to traipse their way to a port-o-potty?  Invariably the answer is always that I have to go to the bathroom at that moment and waiting will just not do.


Dining

So you’re probably looking at that last section and thinking that I have done a bang-up job of selling you on why you shouldn’t go to camp.  Peeing is a real bathroom is pretty compelling to a lot of people.  But don’t fret!  The next couple of sections are bound to have something that will pique your interest!

After you’re done walking 20 miles, you’ll need to eat a good dinner and re-fuel.  You will get plenty of food for dinner and over the two nights and you’ll be able to eat steak, chicken, apple pie and much more.  But food is not all that you will get for dinner.  You’ll also get a show!

Jenne Fromm is your host and I have to say that she does a marvelous job.  Yes, it is scripted and I have seen the script evolve over the years, but Jenne rolls with what happens up on stage and when the 3-Day participants on stage with her throw a curve ball and the result is usually a lot of laughs.  But Jenne is not everything for the dinner show.  They also have the “Are You Cure-ious” game show where three walkers or crew members try to be the first to answer questions about breast cancer facts and it is highly entertaining.

Then there are the people that will get on stage and talk about why they walk and I have to say that I haven’t made it through a 3-Day where I haven’t cried  at this part of dinner.  Hearing the stories of strength, struggle, sadness and hope is one of those things that you walk in the 3-Day for.  It also gives you so many more reasons to walk.


3-Day Main Street

Once you have had your fill of food and dinner entertainment, you should head on over to the 3-Day Main Street. No, I assure you that they didn’t lay pavement down in the middle of the field that you’re camping in, but they have set up tents with all sorts of people available to help you out.

Let’s start with the Energizer® tent.  I start here primarily because if you’re walking or crewing, you should definitely go visit the Keep Going® Blogger that they have in there.  If you’re participating in the Dallas walk, this would be me and I would more than welcome the company!  But wait, that’s not all!  In addition to that, the lovely people at Energizer® will be providing chair massages!  Everyone needs a massage after a long day walking, so you should definitely drop by and take them up on it!  Hold on, there’s more!  They also have Internet access so that you can communicate with loved ones and a phone charging station where they will loan you a portable power pack to get your phone charged up and ready to go for the next day!

While the Energizer® tent is pretty awesome for what they provide, there are also other things to see on the 3-Day Main street.  Let’s go to the 3-Day post office next.  If you read the my earlier post, Mail Call, then it will be no surprise to know that you can get mail at the 3-Day.  This is where you go to pick it up, so remember to tell all your loved ones that you would love to hear from them while you are on the walk!

AT&T is the next stop and you’ve probably realized by now that I am doing these in no particular order, but in the order that they come to mind.  At the AT&T tent, you will also have the opportunity to charge your phone while you wait and you can pick up the silly bands that you missed getting while you were out on route.  In addition to that, there will be AT&T people on site to ask any questions you might have about some of the AT&T phones or apps.  In addition, AT&T does some giveaways and this is where you can sign up for them or get information about their photo mosaic project (which is pretty cool once it’s done!)

Next up is Shop3Day.com and their tent full of 3-Day for the Cure gear.  If there were things that you saw on the online 3-Day store that you would have preferred to touch and feel before purchasing, this is your chance.  So make sure that you bring along some method of payment to make sure that you can buy what you need!  It would be terrible if you wanted something and couldn’t pay for it!

The Bank of America tent has oh so heavenly foot massages.  You may not think that your feet would want a foot massage after a day or two of walking, but I assure you if you wait too long then the line will get too long and you will miss out entirely, line up for this one early!

The next on 3-Day Main street that I’m remembering is the New Balance tent.  In here, you can turn in your entries for a drawing for a new pair of New Balance shoes!  They also have a big screen tv, New Balance products and on Saturday night they have Bingo.  It’s great fun for everyone!  And if I’m not mistaken, if you show up here sporting your New Balance gear you will get a gift just for arriving.  This may have just been on previous years, but I’m pretty sure they are doing it this year too!

The last thing I will talk about for the 3-Day Main Street is the 3-Day cafe.  This is where they have a camp services table, it’s also where you collect your legacy pins for the 3-Day.  They also have a tv and comfortable chairs that are a lot better to sit in than folding chairs or the ground.  Lauri Yanis and her husband Matt, both of whom have been on this site before, told me that they basically hang out in the 3-Day Cafe until they get kicked out, so there’s one more recommendation for it!


<I>The Final Ingredient</I>

As you can see, camp is pretty awesome.  It’s less like camping out and more like one big slumber party with prizes and entertainment.  But there is one thing that is involved in all of these things that hasn’t been mentioned yet.  The one thing that you will find here that you won’t find in any hotel room that you might to choose to stay in is the phenomenal walkers.  Yes, it might not be the most comfortable thing to sleep on the ground and go to the bathroom in a port-o-potty but the 3-Day walkers and crew are some of the most amazing people that you will ever meet and that makes up for a lot of discomfort while you’re sleeping.

It’s one huge community at 3-Day camp and part of the reason is that people choose to camp.  Sure they could have chosen to stay at home in a comfortable bed, but they chose to stay at camp with you, because you’re awesome too.  I hope that you will consider joining everyone at camp, it really is great fun and if you haven’t stayed there before you should really try it at least once!


 

Get Crossed

September 8th, 2010 | Posted by john in Training Tips - (Comments Off on Get Crossed)

If you’re like me, you have looked at the recommended 3-Day for the Cure training schedule and seen the “Cross Training” days and said to yourself, “I don’t need to cross train!  Those can just be rest days!”  Really, until recently I didn’t understand the importance and value of cross training, especially when it comes to an event like the 3-Day.  All it took was a question about shin splints.

Last week I visited my doctor and had the full intention of asking her about shin splints and then writing a post on here about that conversation.  There was a series of tweets on Twitter recently and it made me think about that.  Well, the conversation about shin splints didn’t turn up a whole lot more information than what I had already found online, but the conversation naturally turned to something else.

I also asked her about knee health.  When I had my shin splints, I overcompensated for the pain and as a result, my knee in the other leg started hurting.  It took quite awhile for that to go away, I would think it was gone but then go out on a training walk and then come back.  In fact, this past Monday was the first time I had walked since the Boston 3-Day that I didn’t have knee pain.  At any rate, that got me to thinking about overall knee health and what I could do to make sure that I didn’t have chronic knee pain that would potentially cause me to not be able to complete a 3-Day.  It would take a lot to do that, but I still wanted to look out to the future and be doing the things now that would be a benefit in the long run.

She told me that there are a number of things that can cause knee problems that you have under control.  The first thing that she mentioned was weight.  This made sense to me, the more weight that those joints have to support, the more likely it is that they will wear out.  So, in my mind there was nothing earth shattering there.

Second was flip flops.  “Flip flops?” I asked.  Apparently because of their lack of cushion and support for the feet, wearing flip flops can have a long term effect on your knees.  She even told me that she had teen athletes that she had treated that had knee and back problems that she felt could be at least partially attributed to them wearing flip flops.  So that did take me a bit by surprise.  After all, our kids wear flip flops.  It’s the easiest shoe to get them on their feet and out the door quickly during the summer.

The last thing she mentioned was cross training.  At first I didn’t understand.  After all, cross training could potentially put more strain on the knees depending on what you were doing.  Riding a bike I would think would cause a lot of wear down from repetitive motion problems.  Apparently though, it’s not the joint itself that necessarily benefits from cross training.

She told me that what cross training does is strengthens a broader diversity of muscles.  Look at it this way:  If you are a 3-Day walker and all you do to train is walk, then the only real muscle development will be in the muscles that are required to walk.  A lot of injuries can apparently happen by having one group of muscles overdeveloped and another group of muscles not so.  In fact, I’ll tie this back into shin splints and say that one of the causes I found mentioned when I did my online research into them said that a potential cause of them can be an imbalance in the strength of the shin muscle with the calf muscle.  There were several other potential causes listed, but I think this one illustrates the point and benefits of cross training quite well.

So even if it seems unnecessary to do the cross training, there are benefits of doing it.  Yes, like a lot of other things regarding training, you CAN get through the 3-Day without doing them.  I’ve walked in four events without cross training and for the most part did pretty well.  However, after thinking about the long term benefits of doing it, I will definitely start doing cross training.  I don’t want to just walk this year.  I want to continue walking until the threat of breast cancer is eliminated.  And to do that, I need to keep in mind my long term health.  I hope that you’ll do the same.

 

Move Out!!

September 3rd, 2010 | Posted by john in At the Walk - (Comments Off on Move Out!!)

When the time for the event comes, sometimes you can plan so much that you forget some of the most important things about participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  Namely, how to get your stuff to the event and then back home.  As trivial as this may seem, leaving it until the last minute is not a good decision.  Just like everything else on the 3-Day this part of your journey also requires planning in advance.


Getting There

For those of you that are traveling from out of town and staying at one of the 3-Day recommended hotels, getting to the event is probably the easiest for you (of course, this doesn’t take into account the airfare and getting from the airport to the hotel and everything else, but we’re just talking about getting to the event in the morning for now).  The reason for this is because you will be able to take the shuttle directly from your hotel to opening ceremonies.  This is great and I highly recommend it, even for those of you that have loved ones traveling with you.  It is much better to let them sleep in so that they can show up at the cheering stations well rested and happy!  Besides, the shuttle gives you the opportunity to meet new walkers as you make your way to opening ceremonies and you don’t have to worry about any long car lines as you wait to get into the event.

Options for those of you that live in the host city are a little different.  I’m assuming that you’re not going to stay in one of the 3-Day hotels overnight when you could be staying in your own bed.  With that in mind, you have a couple of different options.  First requires having someone who either likes you a lot, owes you a favor or both.  The first year that I participated in the 3-Day, I had a good friend of mine, Chris Puyear, my mom (and teammate) and I to the event.  It required him getting up very early and if I had any other options I would have let Chris sleep in.  The second year, my sister (and teammate) had her husband drive us to the event.  Her husband is much more of an early person than any of my family so this worked out well.

The third year of the 3-Day, our team of three went in together and got a town car to pick us up and take us there.  This was nice because we could all split the cost and none of our friends or family had to wake up extremely early and trudge across town to make sure we could participate in the 3-Day.  He even drove us by a fast food place on the way to pick up breakfast!

The last option that is available to you is to drive to the event yourself.  I don’t recommend doing this and I’m not sure if you can park at all of the events.  The first year, one of my teammates opted to drive herself instead of joining us and ended up having to pay $20 to park and then after the event was over had to go pick up her car there before she could drive the thirty to forty-five minutes home.

Before I wrote that last paragraph I was going to say that there is no wrong way to get to the 3-Day as long as you get there, but I can’t in good faith recommend you driving there.  Find an option from one of the others available to you if at all possible before you decide to drive yourself, it will just make your whole experience a lot less stressful.


Getting Back!

Before we talk about the event being over and trying to get back to wherever it is you go for the night, I need to mention this.  If you plan to stay at the 3-Day hotel AFTER the event and want to take the shuttle you will need to purchase a ticket for the shuttle.  If I am not mistaken, you need to purchase this on the first night in camp, but I am hoping one of the readers will correct me if I am wrong.  I have been lucky enough to have someone able to pick me up at closing ceremonies for all of the walks.

Speaking of having someone pick you up at closing ceremonies, I cannot recommend enough having someone come to closing ceremonies.  There are two reasons for this.  First, they really need to see closing ceremonies.  It’s an emotional thing and it’s the culmination of all that you have done for the past three days so your loved ones and friends should really think about joining you in it.  Second, if you get someone to come to closing ceremonies then they can carry your bag back to the car.  If they get there early enough, like my brother in law did last year, then they can even get your back back to their car before you even step out of the holding area.  That way you don’t have to stress out or worry about finding your bag at all!  If you have family or friends anywhere near the city that you are walking in, definitely get them to come along, if not for you then for them!

Now, if you don’t have friends or family at the event and you aren’t staying at a 3-Day hotel after the event, it’s not the end of the world.  The gear and tent crew does an amazing job of getting all the bags out and ready to go in as much order as possible.  You will see the sign with the letter of the tent you were assigned and you just have to find your bag in the group of people that shared the same letter, not everyone on the walk.  I’m pretty certain that there are taxis that are there to pick people up.  I have seen them after the events.  However, if you have a team and you are wise enough to plan in advance, it might be a good idea to arrange for a town car or other car service to pick you up so that it is reserved and you know that they will be there for you when everything is over.

Again, the key to any of these things is being prepared and planning ahead.  Do that and you’ll do just fine, no matter what kind of ways you choose to get to and from the 3-Day.