A few weeks ago, Louellen woke me up in the wee hours of the morn to tell me that she’d somehow managed to get a lottery spot for the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon and that we had only a few minutes to decide if we were going to go or not. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes and checked my inbox to see if I, too, had won a lottery spot. I had not.

Getting a lottery spot is pretty special (about a 30% chance), so we knew we couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I decided to join Louellen in her quest to Escape from Alcatraz and joined TeamFox to help end Parkinson’s disease, the second most common neurological disorder.

But of course, there’s more to getting there than signing up for the race and fundraising. Both Louellen and I will be training for what is one of the craziest races out there over the next few months. Here’s my first training update for my Escape from Alcatraz for Parkinson’s Research Backers.

Lou and I were camping at Isle du Bois State Park to do the the 15K portion of Endurance Buzz Adventure’s Isle du Bois Trail run. After waking up at 6:00 am to pouring rain that sounded like a battalion of Santa’s Elves banging toy hammers along the top of the Airstream, we decided to wimp out and sleep in.

Skipping 11 miles of running in 44 degree driving rain along rocky, muddy trails sounded like a good idea at the time. However, a few hours later, I started to feel like I’d wimped out.

So, to make up for it AND officially start the cold weather swim portion of my EFA training, I decided to go for a swim. The water temp in Lake Ray Roberts wasn’t San Franciso Bay cold, but my Garmin read it at 60 degrees. All I know is that it was C-O-L-D!!

My neoprene hood and booties checked out fine. Just need some gloves and I think I’ve got this. I’m going to try to keep swimming in local lakes until water temps fall below expected San Franciso Bay temps.

I’ll keep updates going on this website as well as on my fundraising page for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Thanks for all your support!