Some background - The Hike for Discovery is an endurance training program that raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I first heard about the program at a company-sponsored health fair back in September. It sounded like a fantastic idea, one of my closest friend's lost his mother, Carolyn, to lymphoma the year before and the unfairness of the disease really struck me. I've had my share of difficulties but nothing compared to what people coping with the impact of cancer have to go through. If Carolyn managed to handle it to the end with a positive attitude then the least I could do was get out and appreciate the fact that I can get out at all.
I went to the orientation and spoke to some alumni of the program. They swore to me the Hike for Discovery was for regular people, so I pledged to raise a minimum of $5000 and spend 19 weeks doing successively longer weekly hikes, culminating with a big weekend hike in Yosemite National Park (June 7-11th). Throughout the process we have daily training schedules, various clinics on proper gear, hydration, stretching, etc... and perhaps most importantly, we do a lot of fundraising.
The first week after I signed up was a little bewildering and surreal to say the least. A lot of "what have I done" and "how much is this going to hurt me" moments. Ironically I don't even love a challenge that much.
As an example of what I'm up against, here's me about 8 years ago when I was getting out of the house more:
Then there was a long period of inactivity, and here's me a few months ago:
The drink in hand is pretty standard, but could easily be replaced by a plate of food or the occasional cigarette. If I'm going to hike Yosemite without embarrassing myself then I have some work to do. When I dug my old hiking gear out of the back of the closet there was about 3 inches of dust on the pack and one of the cats had thrown up on my boots.
