This week has been filled with great beginnings and dreams. Training has been going on like normal for me, but the heat is somewhat overbearing. Texas, along with pretty much the rest of the US, has seen record temperatures and drought. Everything that is supposed to be plush and green has dried up and turned brown. There are water rations all over the state and lakes have dried up so much that some of the triathlons have had to cancel their swims. It has been very hard to keep motivated to train for sure, but it is times like this that I have to go back to why I started this journey in the first place. To become healthy, and make a difference in modern medicine and the life of another family and child like Shawn.
I received an email from Tara and Ellen that the Shawn's Anomaly Research Fund website went live this week which was really exciting news for me. They have been hard at work behind the scenes to set everything up, and I can't thank them enough for their hard work. Check out the new Shawn's Anomaly Fundraising Website. There is a lot you can do there besides donating. You are now able to set up your own personal fundraising page for anything. All of the donations are tax deductible and go to the ultimate goal of $25,000 to start the research. After raising only $120.00 in a little less than a year, I have realized that I need more help from other athletes and advocates. I ask that you consider becoming a part of the fundraising effort either as a donor or an advocate fundraiser. On top of the reward of knowing you are helping out millions of families and children, we will also be offering other perks for the athletes and advocates. Of course, my mind has been racing on other things we can do for fundraising and that is where the idea of the "Big Insane Challenge" came from.
Okay, so "Big Insane Challenge" may not be the best and ultimate name of what I am considering, but it is definitely big and some will probably will confirm my insanity for even considering it. It is still in the preliminary and planning stages, but I am pretty committed to doing it, and I even had some interest from some of the other Team Shawn members who want to do it will me. Are you ready for it? Okay here it goes!!! I am planning an athletic expedition and challenge to do 2 ironman distance events from Dallas To Texas Children's Hospital in Houston for a total of nearly 300 miles of swimming, biking, and running over a 2 day period. It will be a large undertaking consisting of route planning, medical staff organization, food planning, overnight stay planning, etc., but with help, I know that the impossible can become possible. Final planning on when it will be done is still in the works, but my assumption is that the expedition will be sometime next year after the heat of summer in late September or October pending that we don't have another drought that dries up all of the potential lakes we would be swimming in. So what do you think? Are you interested? Would you consider coming an unprecedented expedition like this? We are going to need not only athletes, but volunteers, sponsors, RV owners, Sag Wagons, etc. Think about it and contact me if you have any great ideas on how to make it happen or want to sign on for the "Big Insane Challenge."
