Florida Trek

The Alachua County Board of County Commisioners, in a effort to make sure that they don't have a bunch of fat slobs working for them, has concocted several health and wellness programs over the years. My favorite since I have been here is the Florida Trek.

This is a personal competition where you keep track of the miles that you log each week and our Risk Management co-ordinator keeps track of them for you on a handy dandy spread sheet.
The miles break down pretty easy, if you do something with distance, say running, walking, biking, etc. you just keep track of the miles. But, if you do something active, like softball, tennis, step class or strength training, 15 minutes = 1 mile.

There are several "points" along the trek and with each one you get your name in a drawing for a fabulous bike at the Employee Health Fair in May. The points are as follows: Alligator point -250 miles, Panther point - 500 miles, Flamingo point - 1000 miles, and Manatee point - 2000 miles! Amazingly enough there are people who do reach the Manatee point, so they just start back over again. These people are cyclists and ride like a million miles on Saturdays and Sundays, so I am in awe of them.

The Trek starts on June 1 and lasts all the way until April 30. Last year, I logged an impressive 713 miles! I was truly proud of myself. Most of these miles were logged during my marathon training. I did take two months off after the marathon (I didn't feel like running or even going to they gym after that) so I know that I could have easily done 1000 miles.

That brings me to my goal for this years Trek - 1000 miles. I know I can do it! I've had a few good weeks, and one not so good week - 2 miles :-( The way I figure though, is 2 is better than zero, right? I have other goals also, last year my goal was to have the most miles in Fire Rescue, which I did, so I'd like to repeat that goal again.

My friend Beth, whom I met because of the Florida Trek has been pushing me to ride with her. (She is one of those amazing bike riders I was talking about earlier.) She took me out to the Hawthorne trail and we rode 24 miles. I thought I was going to die, because I was pedaling my butt off to keep up with her "easy ride." It was fun and I think the spin class might help me to hang with her.

This week has been exceptional! Not including yesterday, when I was at work, and it's not easy to get in a good workout on R16, I have worked out every day! I did a spin class on Tuesday with Leslie and we rode 22 miles! Then after that we went downstairs and did a 30 minute abs and glutes class.

Right now I am sitting on 125 miles!! Halfway to Alligator point!

MDA/IAFF Local 3852 yard sale

While most people were sleeping in or enjoying a day off Saturday, I was busy with the MDA yard sale that I organized. 6:00 am rolls around pretty quickly, especially when you spent most of Friday moving all the generous donations from your station to the location of the yard sale. Jonathan and Tara Richardson were awesome to let us use the parking lot of their store, The Babies' Room for our sale. As I arrived at the location, the weather was clear and sunny and perfect for a yard sale.
Ashlee and Jean showed up to help get things set up and we were open for business sooner than you could say, "Squad 16 on scene, investigative mode." Ashlee, our resident artist, was put in charge of making signs to direct the public to our location. I think this sign took her like an hour to make ;-)


Below, is a shot of some shoppers picking up that much needed item at a discount price!

I wish that Mother Nature had been more cooperative, because she let it start raining around 10:30 and the ladies that I was working with less than enthusiastic about being out in the rain. We packed up and called it a day, but not before making $450 for the Muscular Dystropy Association!!

I'm pleased with that amount and more than grateful for all of the donations that my brother and sister firefighters made to help this thing be so successful.

I have the coolest job

Last Monday I arrive at work only to find out that our USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) team has rope training at Deerhaven. I am not on the USAR team, but my partner is, so we got to go out to Deerhaven (energy plant that burns coal into electricity, I think.) There were 4 trucks and a District Chief out there, so we had a lot of people.

Rope training is rapelling. We took the elevator up to the 10th floor and set up to rapel down to the 8th floor. We had to rapel down the side of the building through the outside stairwell. It was so awesome! Here is a picture of the view from the 10th floor:After checking out that breathtaking view looking south towards Gainesville down US441, I put on my harness (with some help from the USAR guys, of course!)

The next picture is me getting ready to let go and start lowering myself down. I'm pretty sure at this point I was shaking and my breath was shallow and fast.Upside down! The only way to keep yourself from bouncing when you change levels! By the time I got halfway down, I was having fun!!

I love my job!!

June/July races

So, this race a month thing is getting sort of like a job. I had a really hard time finding a race for June and July. Two reasons are that I have been super busy and June and July are the hottest months ever and not many races are out there.
June's race was the Dash for Dreams 5K at Westside park. A small race, but pretty good except that the 1st leg of the race was on 8th avenue - up the hill! What a crazy first mile. Also, they only had one water station at the one mile mark and I think that they could have done with a second one. (Things I will note for the 5K that I am planning.) Overall, it was fun. They had an auction for some items and I got $20 gift certificate to Ivey's grill for $15. I guess the highlight of the race was that Shelley Meyer ran in it. I don't remember seeing her, but somebody mentioned it like it made the race more official or something.
July's race, ironically, was the Dream Society's Firecracker 5K in Inverness. I happened to be in Orlando on the 2nd and 3rd, so on the way home I stopped in Inverness for the race that started at 6:30PM. It was actually kind of cool. The race course was an out and back on the Withlacoochie Trail, so it was kind of naturey (I may have just made that word up) It also happened to be the same night as the city of Inverness' fireworks display, so there was a bunch of people and they had a little miss firecracker contest and some churches sang patriotic songs. I would have liked to have stayed for the fireworks, but I was by myself and it was a little depressing to be there alone.
My times for both races were around 35 minutes, which doesn't sound good to me, but I just don't know what to do to make myself faster.
Actually, I feel like I am stuck. I love to run, but I don't want to "just run." I'd like to improve myself at the same time. I thought about hiring a running coach, but that might cost too much. I don't know what to do.