Kickoff!

Today was our first meeting. Many expectant hikers showed up at the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Center in Palo Alto, fresh and ready for a challenge at 9:30 am. Our campaign manager gave us an overview of the program, information about fundraising, a training calendar, and directions to all of our conditioning hikes. We also got a nifty exercise jersey. Strength training and exercise will be taking place on Tuesday evenings. Friday is a day of rest and all of the other days are "YOYO"s or "Your On Your Own". That's not quite as bad as it sounds, as our training calendar has suggested workouts that we can do on our YOYO days.

We were also introduced to our honorees: people who are living with blood cancer, four of whom were there today. Some are young, some are older, some are in remission and some are not. But all of them clearly are fighters with a great attitude!

Our group of about 40 people is split into several teams. Our team leader is Bowman, who has done a Team in Training hike before and is now mentoring the newcomers. There are a few people who have done previous hikes, marathons or other events, but they do not seem to be many. He will be leading us on our conditioning hikes.

We finally got information about the Half Dome hike, which involves a 14 mile hike with a 4800 foot elevation change. More information is also available at the National Park Service's website. Can we do this? Even the idea of doing this is daunting, but we are going to give it our best try. Who knows? With diet, exercise and training, perhaps we can do what it takes. There is a deadline and if our trainer decides that we aren't ready, we won't make the cut. We have to raise money AND be fit. It's not an either/or. If we don't make the Half Dome cut, we'll be doing a different hike in Yosemite more suited to our abilities. But I'm still shooting for Half Dome!

Our Tuesday evening workouts will be held in at a local community college's track and field area. I've been told that we'll be doing a lot of up and down the bleachers. I really can't say that this sounds like a lot of fun, but perhaps this will be a good lesson in humility?