As promised in previous posts, I was earning badges as part of a challenge from FurtherFasterForever.  The challenge went from March 1st to March 17th.  Of course, you all know I love me a good challenge!  And, the fact that I could post pictures too … sign me up!

I quickly started adding badges, but some had to be carefully thought out and planned ahead.  There were some badges I wanted to get, but either couldn’t because I didn’t want to compromise my Ironman Training, or they just didn’t fit with my schedule.

Here are a few of the badges I earned:

These first four badges were super easy!! I was already part of the F3 community via their website (really cool — YOU should totally check it out!), and I was already following them on Twitter and Instagram, and of course, I liked them on Facebook!  Four badges right away — just like that! POW!

Another easy one, was the marketing badge!  I had already bought myself a pink F3 shirt, but decided to buy a teal one for my friend Judy!  BAM — another badge, just like that!  We wore ours to the track and earned another badge for doing a track workout.

A couple of badges had to be carefully planned out!  Like the Pi badge — running 3.14 miles on 3/14!!  And, the Patriot badge — wearing Red, White, and Blue on March 10th.  This also happened to be Daylight Savings, AND there was a badge for that as well!  All I had to do was work out between 2 am and 3 am.  I might have borrowed my daughter’s sparkly blue cheer spankies and her cheer bow for the sake of the picture of course. 😉

Oh — and if you can see behind me — I dug out some Red/White/Blue trinkets.

A few unexpected badges came when I decided to run a half marathon at the last-minute.  Not only did I earn the 13.1 badge, but I earned the Podium Badge as I placed 1st in my AG, and I set a new PR for my half marathon time!  WOOT.  Talk about a true FurtherFasterForever moment!  Oh, and did I mention the brutal winds for this race?!  Well, that crappy weather earned me another badge!

One of my favorite days for training and earning some badges came when I rode 50 miles with my friend Lora!  I got an unexpected flat 30 minutes into our ride and I couldn’t have been happier — because, you guessed it — there was a badge for fixing a flat!  WOOT.  My lucky day.  I changed my flat in a jiffy, but it was the whole putting the rear tire back on my bike and chain that gave me a little heartache.  Overall, it was a beautiful day and I collected several badges.

As the end the challenge approached, I found myself in Portland with my daughter and her cheer team.  I took full advantage of this opportunity to collect some final badges!  There was the Vagabond badge — working out more than 100 miles from home.  There was also the Irish Jig badge, showing your Irish pride on 3/17.  AND, my toughest badge of all, running 10 miles in a hot and stuffy hotel gym for the RunEMZ badge.

 I collected several other badges, for a total of 46.  This number included 4 double point badges and 2 triple point badges.

I wasn’t entirely sure how I would stack up against the other F3 athletes, but low and behold:

AND – here is what I won (it just arrived!):

I am loving my new 140.6 window cling!  RoadID, Hammer Nutrition, Patagonia socks!

Thank you FurtherFasterForever – what an awesome challenge!