Monday, March 11, 2013

Progress

     This past week was our first week with a training routine and I have to say, I quite enjoyed it!  I cannot say the same for Kathryn however.  Being in charge of training has meant having to survive prolonged death stares from Kathryn which seem to say “some day when you least expect it, bad things will come”.

Case in point:

     In order to give her a way to get back at me and in light of the fact that most of what I eat consists of Nutella I have decided that Kathryn will be in charge of Nutrition.  Not that she is much better at eating right… Anyhow for those Doctor Who fans out there, Kathryn and I are working on organizing a raffle with the grand prize of a Doctor Who wall hanging brought to you by Kathryn’s mom!  I’ve seen some of her work, including a Weasley sweater she made for Kathryn, and it’s amazing!  It will take some time to make but we’ll be sure to post the final product and details of the raffle.  We’re also looking for prize donations from local businesses in order to have a Stony Brook raffle as well.

     Speaking of local businesses, Campus Bicycle, the bike shop across the street from Stony Brook University has been kind enough to give us a gear discount!  (I’ve been put in charge of gear too btw)  We are so thankful, and can’t wait to check out their stock.

Since we have not perfected our own bike tricks yet I leave you with this video:




Wednesday, March 6, 2013

I want to ride my bicycle!

Greetings everyone!

First of all, if you haven't donated yet, why not? You should really get on that, it's an amazing thing to do and all the cool people are doing it. (Donate to Kathryn, or to Annamaria)

Annamaria's last post surprised me (seriously, I had no idea this was happening) by saying that we would start really working out this week (8:30am!!). Monday and Tuesday I used some of those stationary bikes that the gym has, and Stony Brook just opened up a new fancy-pants fitness center with new fancy-pants equipment, so these bikes are more like video games. Seriously, you can steer these bikes and catch dragons while you're pedaling in place. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I remember stationary bikes being, but still not the time of my life. On Wednesday we had a rest day (yay!) but tomorrow it's gym time again at 8:30am.

Also, surely everyone has noticed (or remember that she told you last time) that Annamaria and I have reached the $1,000 needed to order our Bike&Build bikes! This is super exciting and we are biting at the reins to get started. But first we need to go to our Giant bike dealer and get sized so we won't be in huge amounts of unnecessary pain by getting a bike that's too big or too small. We were all pumped to go on Tuesday but, get this, our Giant dealer is closed on Tuesdays (ONLY on Tuesdays), so we are going to go on Thursday instead. Then we'll send Bokoo Bikes our sizes and they'll send us our bikes and everything will be peachy!

Even though we have >$1,000 now, that's only about one-third of the way to our $4,500 goal. For the past month or so we've been brainstorming a lot about possible fundraising ideas, and here's a sample of the ideas we've come up with: Bake sale! Yes, a bake sale. Everybody loves cupcakes and cookies, and bake sales bring in some pretty sufficient funds for organizations on the Stony Brook campus. Raffle! (If you are part of a company that would like to donate something for us to raffle, e-mail us.) Stony Brook students, you know all those things that you hate to do? Like going outside to get food, waiting for the bus to take you grocery shopping, maybe even taking out the trash? For a small donation of $3-5 we will do these things for you! Just e-mail us or comment to get our attention.

Lastly, most of you probably know (or... I don't know... do you?) that March is Women's History Month! A whole month dedicated to remembering the contributions of women worldwide, which Annamaria and I think is worth a mention. Both Annamaria and I were blown away last week by a PBS documentary "Makers: Women Who Make America" and I have made it my personal mission to share it with everyone I know (or don't). As many people often forget, it was less than a century ago when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granted women the right to vote (Woohoo!), but activists still had their work cut out for them  fighting discrimination and speaking out against domestic violence. In this documentary, activists, authors, actors, entrepreneurs, and law enforcement officers talk about what the Movement was like during the last half of the 20th century.

As always if you have any comments, questions, or answers feel free to contact us!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Our Training Schedule/What Kathy Doesn't Know

     If you haven't noticed our awesome new fundraising thermometers, Kathryn and I have both hit the $1,000 mark. Much thanks to our family and friends!  This means that we will soon be sent our bikes and that we can now bring our affordable housing awareness to the road.  It will be my first time riding a modern road bike and Kathy's first time teaching me her ways, so in order to represent Bike & Build accordingly Kathy and I have a lot of training ahead of us.

     Luckily Bike & Build helps us outline a training schedule. Starting this month and into April we will be starting by biking 10 miles about 3 times a week.  Seeing as we don't have our bikes quite yet however we will be following our usual routine: eating and watching T.V. Just kidding.  Kathy might not know this yet but we will be going to the gym 3 times a week as an attempt to make up for our lack of bikes.  We usually try and go to the gym at least a few times a week but from now on it is set in stone and our work outs will be geared more towards biking (no pun intended).  Our campus recreation center just got some new simulated spin bikes so we'll be sure to give them a go. If anyone has some good cross-training advice we'd love to hear it.  Of course nothing is like the real thing so once our bikes are out of their boxes it's go time!
   
      In May we are expected to try our first 65 mile ride and our average ride should be 20 miles.  Hopefully by this time we will be gear masters and eating miles for breakfast.  If not we better get crackin.  We have to ride 500 miles total before June and my total (and I think Kathy's) so far is zero.  This will soon change however, starting Monday our new routine begins!
   
     Our schedule for this coming week (Kathy definitely doesn't know about this):

Monday: 3:45pm Tae kwon do (counts as gym)

Tuesday: 8:30am Gym- 30 min stationary bike, 30 min weights

Wednesday: Rest Day - (Kathy has no class so she can work out all day while I rest)

Thursday: 8:30am Gym - 40 min swim

Friday:  Rest Day