I've always enjoyed and chuckled at the phrase, "How do you eat an elephant?...... One bite at a time." I think that Kirk, Brad and I have all agreed that to best succeed at this ever-so-large endeavor we are starting, that we have to look at it in small 'chunks', or 'bites' if you will, so it is more manageable for our expectations. Nothing seems to be more negative and a drawback on reaching one's goals than your own mental attitude. Chuck Swindoll is quoted as saying, ".....I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it...". As such K, B, and I are setting smaller, physical goals for ourselves, to better 'measure' our progress as we pass the next 6 months. It would be a huge bummer if we got to Africa, only to find that what we thought was acceptable for physical conditioning was in fact, not enough. As an example, Brad and I will be walking the Pgh Marathon on May 3, 2009. And the week prior to that, I will attempt to run a 5K road race that goes up Chestnut Ridge from Hopwood, PA to the Summit Inn on SR 40; increasing about 1200-1400 vertical feet. Also, Kirk just posted a blog that he will be doing a charity event to climb 53 flights of a tall building in the Denver area. We will be using events such as these over the next 6 months to allow for small successes in our training, and also allow us an opportunity to change (most-likely increase) our training regiment if need be. I hope all the blog site visitors follow our training progress, and give us support when needed; because all three of us know that we can't do this alone... we need YOUR care and encouragement. There is no doubt in our minds that we will get mentally and physically tired over the next 6 months, and we know that YOUR prayers and words of encouragement will be catalysts to help us when we are not where we want to be. Thanks.