It appears I was a happy camper

Or maybe I just like to have my picture taken. I promise you that where you see me running, and smiling on the out side...my insides are crying. Can't wait for next year! Adventure Cam to come soon...and a race report.

Last Friday - night of extremes

Hey everyone!

Joan is back! I've been a bit MIA with posting here - my excuse is that I've been busy with back to school and now, school. I am starting my first year in UBC Pharmacy, and it is a bit overwhelming now, but it is all very interesting and I'm sure I will adapt to it all very soon. Tonight I finally have a bit of down time, and seeing that Malcolm hasn't posted about last shift, I will do the honours!

On volunteer shift that night were me, Malcolm, Santos, and new peer volunteer, Amanda! Jen, the receptionist-family hybrid volunteer was also back at reception after a long break to take care of her dog and summer holidays. Welcome back, Jen! Kids in the house included Nina, Nina's brother Doug (I forgot what name he wanted!), Isaac, Elvis, Patrick, and Christina.

The entire night can be effectively described by one word : extreme.

After dinner, we all gravitated towards the Sun room. We turned on Barney to keep Nina happy, plugged Elvis into his celtic and campfire songs on his CD player, and the rest of us sat on our bums and just talked. With Barney's and the singing children's soothing voices, as well as the room's dim lighting, all of us started getting sleepy. We seriously could have just lay our heads down on the sofa and taken a nap - but no! That's not what good volunteers do!

After awhile, a burst of energy came by and Santos, Malcolm, and Doug started having an intense matches of air hockey. And I mean INTENSE. Play was accompanied by frequent yells of joy and frustration, so loud that we had to turn Barney on to almost full volume to keep Nina satisfied. Anyways, the boys finished their matches all tired and sweaty, and I believe Santos was the ultimate winner. =)

And of course...I had my friday-nightly toast and half-a-toasted-bagel with nothing on it.

psych!

I woke up to a $9000 donation today! my mind raced!
long story short: do you own donations online...and make sure you check what you have submitted!!!
$9000 has been refunded. $900 coming our way!

$220 000

thats a big number. that is what 120 of us adventurers have collected for saturday's race. wow!
congratulations everyone. good luck on saturday!

www.adventurechallenge.ca

Training

Here are a couple of training videos I put a lot of thought into in preparation for the big race on Saturday:
The first:


And the Second:

to be here soon!


I will leave you to decide which is best. I can tell you how I felt after the pancakes.

Looking forward to the race next weekend. As out of conditioning as I feel it will still be a fantastic day. Have you seen the totals for funds raised? I am over $2600 (thanks to Justin) and the Challenge is at $201 000! Hot Dawg! Thank you everyone!

Short term vs long term planning...

well....the race with the trailrider may be on hold as a result of this short term, getting too excited planning philosophy i ascribe to, but that is ok! I understand the limitations that short term planning has to offer and what this leads to is planned, organised, all areas covered, long term planning....which is good.....right?

Some of our ideas might come to fruition this year. I believe that ALL of our ideas (and more) will make it for next years race.

Sweet news in the DONATIONS box this week. Remember my student Justin? He emailed me with some news on a donation that was to be made by his family with thanks to his Aunt. Unfortunately his Aunt is ill. She made available some money to be donated in Justin's sisters name (Tamryn) to a charity. Justin's family has been a part of the Canuck Place family for a number of years. Tamryn passed away at the house after living her short life with Tay-Sachs.

Thank you to the Fishman family for the $900 donation.