The Quest for Greatness

Okay, so what on earth is this about you might be wondering. Let me explain.

This past fall I signed up over at Baby Tea Leaves for her "Hot for the Holidays" weight loss challenge. That just ended last Friday. Basically the goal of that challenge was to collectively loose 500 pounds between September and December. We managed 474.49 pounds. Not all the way there, but certainly not bad. It was obviously working for many of us. Some participants lost 20 pounds over the course of the challenge.

I am very thankful that a new challenge is starting up. Care to join? The rules are easy - there are no rules. Got to love that! If you want to read the real rules though, click HERE. Basically, find an event (a run, walk, bike, something) that is happening between February & March. Sign-up. Train for it. Do the event. Post about it. That's it! Easy-peasy.

Since I live in Maine & there is NO WAY I'm running anything - especially in the midst of winter - I'm tweaking the rules for me & extending the days just a bit. So here is what I'm doing...

1. Signing up for the Tour de Cure bike ride. This is a fund raising bike ride that I have participated in every year for the last five years. 2009 will mark my 6th year.
2. Do the 50K ride per usual - that's about 30 miles.
3. The ride is going off on May 17th - which is about a month earlier than normal. We typically do the one on the coast in June but we all have scheduling conflicts this year. (When I say "we" I mean my MIL, another family friend, and anyone else we can convince to join our team.)

I will be signing up as soon as my MIL sets up our team for this year. Right now registration is about $15 & I have to raise about $100 (or $150) in order to ride. Over the past few years I've been able to raise close to double that ($200-$300). This money goes toward finding a cure for diabetes - obviously something very close to my heart since I am a type 1 diabetic.

My personal goals....

1. Ride this event with my eyes shut - in other words - end it as well as I feel starting it. BE IN SHAPE for it. I've only managed that really well one out of the five years I've done this. I've done it horribly out of shape & it is SO not fun like that. So I WILL be in shape for it this year.
2. Buy a trainer for my bike. What's that you may ask? I certainly did. Then my MIL explained it & I went & found some. Click HERE or HERE or HERE to see the three I'm considering. I was blessed with some birthday money & had no idea what to do with it. Now I do. (Any idea which one I should go with or is there one I'm missing? I have about $100 to spend on one which should include shipping. Let me know!) We have a screened in porch & my hubby puts up plastic panels in the winter. Except for exceptionally cold days, I can ride out there.
3. My goal is to loose 20 pounds before May 17th. That is about five months away which is about 20 weeks - one pound a week. Very doable.

We'll continue to weigh-in on Fridays as we did for the HFH challenge. I'm really looking forward to watching that scale go DOWN! So, care to join us for this challenge??