Week Two Update

Despite another weekend taper, week two was a very strong week, thanks to strong performances from Leopold and Momsie.

The weekends are becoming a real problem for me in particular. I knew before we even started that my weekly engagements would preclude any Saturday walking, but I'm finding myself too worn out on Sundays to actually do the walking I need to do. I may start doing some extra walking during the week to try and make up for it.

My weekly enervation notwithstanding, the team as a whole is in great shape.

The Hufflanders
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One Total = 37.10 mi
Day 8	1.50	1.50	1.94	2.20
Day 9	1.50	2.50	2.32	3.40
Day 10	1.50	0.50	0.00	4.70
Day 11	1.50	1.50	0.50	2.50
Day 12	1.50	1.50	0.00	4.20
Day 13	0.00	0.00	2.38	0.00
Day 14	0.00	1.25	0.00	1.00
Total Distance = 78.49 mi

Some Fun facts:

• We're 18.56% done.
  
• Our week two total, 41.39, represents an 11.56% increase over the week one total.
• The average per person per day has increased to 1.54 miles.
  
• At that rate we'll walk 498.97 miles within the allotted time, and reach the width of Kansas on day 69, or during the tenth week.
• Leopold again leads the team with a dominating 18 miles walked during week two.
• Our single biggest day this week was day 9 with 9.72 miles walked. This edges out day 5's 9.33 for the best single day total so far.

Way to go, Hufflanders!

Bad Weather

Rough weather the past couple of days here in the midwest. The other day a Tornadoes killed people in a boyscout camp in Iowa, and a couple of people here in Kansas. Last night a tornado supposedly touched down between Haysville and Derby, but I never did here any reports of damage from that.

We sat in our basement and watched the local news during the storm though, just in case.

Fortunately, it hasn't really impacted our miles too much, and we have a very strong week going on right now. A strong finish to the week would put us further ahead of schedule and give us a very nice cushion indeed for dealing with any potential setbacks.

The Hufflanders
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One Total = 37.10 mi
Day 8	1.50	1.50	1.94	2.20
Day 9	1.50	2.50	2.32	3.40
Day 10	1.50	0.50	0.00	4.70
Day 11	1.50	1.50	0.50	2.50
Day 12	1.50	1.50
Total Distance = 69.66 mi

Japanese Bug Fights

On one of the Cubs boards I visit, someone posted a link to a website called Japanese Bug Fights. JBF is a very simple website featuring 30 videos of deathmatch-style fighting between scary-looking bugs. The rules of JBF are very simple:

1. Two Bugs to a fight
2. Bug fights go on as long as they have to
3. No outside weapons in Bug Fights

I thought the whole thing was fascinating, up until I watched a video in which the scorpion spent the whole fight trying to get away from the beetle. Now I just feel bad.

Anyway, enough anthropomorphizing bugs, on to the mileage. We're off to a nice, strong start this week. Momsie has started taking the dog on half mile walks in the morning, which should help us to build up a good cushion for weathering the, uh, weather. Hooray for mileage!

The Hufflanders
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One Total = 37.10 mi
Day 8	1.50	1.50	1.94	2.20
Day 9	1.50	2.00
Total Distance = 47.74 mi

Week One Update

Well, tonight is the last night of our first week, and thus time for our first weekly milestone post. Powered by The Fray.

Rough weather and social functions have combined to sink us once again this weekend, so Green team's total production the past two days is a measly 1.5 miles. This places Green team well below our goal of 8.4 miles each, but all is not lost. Thanks to a strong effort by the Orange team, The Hufflanders are in good shape at the end of the first week.

Kudos, Orange team! As a result of your outstanding walking, you've been promoted to Green team. Welcome to the Big Leagues.

On to the totals:

The Hufflanders
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One
Day 1	1.50	1.50	1.00	1.00
Day 2	2.00	0.50	1.80	1.50
Day 3	1.25	1.50	0.47	1.70
Day 4	0.00	0.00	2.32	3.50
Day 5	1.50	1.50	3.63	2.70
Day 6	0.00	0.00	1.53	1.80
Day 7	1.50	0.00	0.00	1.40
Total Distance = 35.70 mi

Some fun facts:

• We're 8.77% done with the challenge.
• The team overall average is 1.33 miles per day per person.
• If we maintain that average, we'll walk 471.7 miles in the allotted time.
• Leopold is the team leader with 13.6 miles walked this week
• Day 5 was our single best day with 9.33 miles walked.

Here's to building on a successful start!

what a stupid face you have here elgeecho

As everyone reading this blog probably knows, I use gmail. Gmail is pretty good about separating my spam email from my legitimate email, but sometimes I still like to check the spam folder just to make sure I don't lose any emails I want to keep. Sometimes the titles of the spam messages are actually pretty funny.

Take the title of today's post, for example. I noticed several of these emails recently, and the first time I saw one I almost fell out of my chair laughing. It's definitely a change from the typical email. It's so funny it almost makes me want to click on the email just as an acknowledgment of a superior spammer. Sort of a tip of the cap, if you will.

Of course, I never actually would, because spammers are my nemesis. I once shot a spammer in Reno just to watch him die. True story.

Anyway, on to the mileage. Rough weather and a broken elliptical trainer combined to shut us out of walking on Thursday, but mother and I got our miles in tonight. Even if we're not exactly falling behind, I worry that we aren't building up the sort of miles cushion that we should be. It would be nice to start the summer exploding out of the starting gates, so to speak. We're probably fine, though.

The Hufflanders
	Green Team		Orange Team
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One
Day 1	1.5 mi	1.5 mi	1 mi	1 mi
Day 2	2 mi	.5 mi	1.8 mi	1.5 mi
Day 3	1.25 mi	1.5 mi		1.7 mi
Day 4	0	0
Day 5	1.5 mi	1.5 mi
Total Distance = 18.25 mi

In which Geech posts his second update and the true team name is revealed

Ok, miles update. Geech and Momsie have some funny looking mileage the past couple of days. On Day 2, the track was occupied and the weather was crappy, which caused us to use the elliptical trainer instead of the track. However, Momsie's short stride doesn't work so well with the elliptical trainer, so she only did a half mile. I did an extra half to make up some of that.

Tonight our schedules didn't work out to walk on the track. Momsie went ahead and did her mile and half out there, while I attempted to do mine on the trainer. Unfortunately, I had to cut the session short when the elliptical trainer started making an odd thumping sound. When I get home form work tomorrow I'll open it up to see if I can tell what's wrong and whether I can fix it.

Also, Momsie spoke with the Rec Center representative, and our official team name is "The Hufflanders." Way to crap on my dreams, Momsie. If we complete the whole distance, we'll get T-Shirts with "our" team name on them, so there's your carrot if you need one.

Team Racecar
	Green Team		Orange Team
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One
Day 1	1.5 mi	1.5 mi	1 mi	1 mi
Day 2	2 mi	.5 mi	1.8 mi
Day 3	1.25 mi	1.5 mi
Total Distance = 12.05 mi

Every generation has a legend. Every journey has a first step. Every saga has a beginning.

Welcome to Team Racecar's Walk Kansas Headquarters. Here your attractive and humble blogmaster will keep you abreast of the team's daily progress, as well as the overall progress toward our goal of 423 miles.

For those of you who may not be aware, we have from June 2nd to August 29 to walk a distance equal to the width of Kansas. This works out to about 8.4 miles per week per person, slightly up from what I said earlier.

Team Racecar
	Green Team		Orange Team
Members	Geech	Momsie	Teresa	Leopold
Week One
Day 1	1.5 mi	1.5 mi	1 mi	1 mi
Total Distance = 5 mi