Thursday, May 17, 2007

Day 103: Uh Oh, Livestrong Challenge

Update: 214.6 lbs, 43.6 lbs so far, 38 lb Goal Reached Day 74. - 6.4 lbs to NEW 50 lb goal.

Well, yesterday I went and did something that may prove to be a really dumb decision. I signed up for the 70 mile portion of the Portland Livestrong Challenge, with Nick and another friend. This morning the reality of a 70 mile ride in the not too distant future is starting to sink in.

70 miles. That's like riding to Lincoln City, or way past Portland, or past Eugene. That's gonna be a big haul. So far, my furthest ride is 24 miles, this past Saturday. It wasn't too bad, so if I figure just three times that, it doesn't seem horrible. My best time on my 12 mile loop is an average speed of 15.6 mph, and my time on my 24 mile loop was 14.6 mph, so if we could even keep a 15 mph average for the ride, we're talking 4.7 hours of riding. Whew. (That's not whoohoo, either.)

The ride is the weekend of September 29, so that's 4 months of time to train, and reallly I've only been on a bike for about 2 months, with only the past couple weeks on a real (loaner) road bike of any kind. I'm looking forward to getting my bike soon, and putting in some training time to build up for it. Gonna have to do some serious riding to build up the butt, back, leg, shoulder and arm strength, but I think it's going to be doable. I was considering the 40 mile portion, but I let Nick push my manly limits when he said "yeah, but come September, you're going to be thinking we should have done the 70 miler." Ok, I'm in!

So for those who don't know, the Livestrong Challenge is part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, that raises funds and awareness for cancer patients and research. Part of the ride process for Nick and I is that we are required to raise a minimum of $250 to participate, and if you'd like to get in on the action with a few buckaroos, you can do so. (EDIT* Once again Nick is raising the bar [no pun intended] and we're upping our goals to $2500. )I'm going to post both of our links because a lot of readers also know Nick. Here are the links:

http://portland07.livestrong.org/nwduffer


and

http://portland07.livestrong.org/nlo


We'd love to raise even more since it's such a great organization, but whatever comes down will be great! I'm really looking forward to all the benefits of the 'training' that we'll need to do in order to get ready for the ride! Anyone else want to ride along? Just let me know...I'll get you the link to sign up for the ride!

Hasta!

3 comments:

Michael said...

Dude you can do it.

When I went to bootcamp, I'd never ran more than 2 miles at once in my entire life. And I even "trained" to prepare for bootcamp before I left. Then, on my first day there, after a midnight check in, and not getting to bed til 3:00AM and getting woke up at 4:00 the very first thing we did was go on a 5 mile run.

I did it without stopping. And it was a pretty good clip too.

Had someone asked me if I could do that 2 days prior I would have said no, no way.

Point is: Ever since that day.. and this is with all seriousness and sincerity.. anytime I've come cross something that I think I can't do.. I just look back to that day, and remember that I did something that I didn't think I could do.

As cheesy as it sounds, it really is true that if it doesn't kill you, then you can do it. Time is on your side. Just keep pedaling.

Anonymous said...

Uh... Hey Michael, you comparing this bike ride of ours to the first day at boot camp isnt helping here. We trying to make this a positive thing...enouraging words are what we need here...c'mon...

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