Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Leaving the comfort zone behind.

I have weigh in tonight. I'm not anticipating a loss because I seem to have used being sick as an excuse to slack a bit in the eating department. This would have been ok if I'd been getting my normal amount of exercise but that was the last thing on my mind when I was trying to breathe.

However, tomorrow we begin a new week and it's GAME ON!

**********

I have a couple new ..um.. projects (??) that I'd like to tell you about. I say projects because they really are going to be things that I have to work on regularly.

First up.....

There is a little girl here in town named Honor.

At 2 months old she was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms. The first medication she tried worked well for 3 months, it was thought all was well and Honor would develop and grow like any other child. Little did they know that the medication would stop working very soon and Honor would regress to newborn stage at 5months old.

Many different medications have been tried but nothing seems to work, they would get their hopes up with each new medication thinking maybe this will be the one to work, but each and every time they were let down.

Honor has been to Christchurch hospital and Auckland’s Starship Hospital many times over the last 2 years for different tests and medication changes. Honor has tried 10 different medications in her short life; she has had 2 MRI scans, numerous EEG scans, a lumber puncture & many blood & urine tests.

Honor will be 2 in August.

Honors Infantile spasms have almost depleted but have now changed to generalized/Myclonic a seizure which is what the Doctors always said will be likely to happen.

Honor also has global development delay; she can sit & move around the floor (not crawl) but can’t reach out to a toy which means she cannot feed herself or play. She very seldom smiles and is slowly starting to focus on people and objects.

Neurologists still don’t know what’s causing Honors seizures or how much she will develop in the future, we just take each day as it comes and treasure her good days.

This was brought to my attention on Facebook by my fearless leader, Tex. And so, on August 8th, 2010, a number of us will be taking part in a local race. There is a 21 km half marathon option, a 10 km fun run/walk and a 5 km fun run/walk. Everyone is doing what they feel most comfortable with.

Honestly, I know I can walk 21 kms but decided that this time I would go a bit smaller. Some of the ladies are doing the 10K but I am going to try for my very first 5K. And to achieve this, I will be following the Couch to 5K program.......because I would like to run as much of this as possible.

I am stepping outside of my very cushy comfort zone and doing this. And by doing this, I hope to raise some money for the beautiful little girl that is Honor. If you would like to sponsor me for this run/walk, to help raise money for this girl and her family, you'll find a little DONATE button over on my sidebar.

All funds raised will go to Honor and anything she may need, now or in the future.


***********

Secondly......

I've thinking recently about getting out and about on my bike. Except I don't have one. I could borrow my husband's but that then requires the effort of dealing with the height of the seat. Then I got to thinking about how cool it would be to see more of New Zealand. Except I don't have the money to do that. So what do you do when you don't have the money to travel or the bike to do it on?

You do it on an exercise bike at the gym! A virtual tour of New Zealand.

Starting tomorrow, every time I am at the gym, I will get on the stationary bike and pedal away. I will log my distance and plot it on a map much like this one:


Eventually, I hope to ride the entire length of the country. It's approximately 2000 kms or 1245 miles. As I make my way down the country, I will share with you the beauty of the country that I live in, through a few pictures. And of course, I hope to lose some more weight with this too.

This will take a while. There was a man who did it for real a couple of years ago. He made the entire distance in 4 days, 17 hours and 40 minutes. WOW!

This is, again, me stepping out of my comfort zone. But I'm looking forward to it.

***********

What will YOU do this week to step out of your comfort zone?

7 comments:

  1. I have always dreamed of riding my bike down the oregon and california coast. I like your idea of doing the work and giving us the virtual scenery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When I decided that I wanted to shoot for 160 miles in June on my stationery bike one of the first things I did was pick a spot 160 miles away it would "take" me to. I've got 92 miles left to go (YIKES!) but by the end of the month I WILL end up here (at least in my basement):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupper_Lake_(village),_New_York

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fun idea to plot your mileage and apply that to a map! I love that!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Neat idea! But.. will you make the riding harder on the hills... and HOW?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I left you a present on my blog :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Game on? LOVE IT!!! The most recent thing I did to step out of my comfort zone was going to a new gym. It's tough but I'm glad I did it. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love the idea of a virtual bike tour! And you absolutely can master the C25K. If anyone has the determination to do this, it's you! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete