Hunting for a cure

They call it a ride with 3,000 of your best friends. Cute. If I had to pick a tag line, it would be "Burn enough calories to down a guilt-free cheeseburger and chocolate mousse" or "Pedal long enough and you will start to dream about it" or "An excuse to wear jerseys with butt jokes". Notice there were no comments in there about torture, wanting to die, or my legs falling off. Blame it on a combination of a better bike and a better attitude (not necessarily better training, but maybe), but I felt pretty good down the stretch this year at the Bike MS. Now, pretty good still means that squatting for the next few days is off-limits, but I can walk.

This year I rode with the team that Dad has been on for the last few years--Milin' 4 Myelin. It's a small team (15?) who doesn't take training or fundraising very seriously (almost half the team hadn't hit the required $400 mark before the ride, and at least 2 people hadn't been on their bikes at all this summer), but they have fun and they have good attitudes. And we had sweet jerseys and a fun team tent. And one heck of a massage therapist.

The support along the route is amazing--cow bells and orange shirts and music and more snacks and Gatorade than you could possibly put down (although like I said, we burned a lot of calories). And talk about real American heroes--the guy single-handedly manning the 9th rest stop (a tent and truck along the side of the road) right when I was running out of Gatorade--that guy deserves a medal. I would not have made it without him. The energy of the ride was palpable, and even though they weren't my closest friends, there was a certain camaraderie among the 3,000 riders and the hundreds of volunteers. After all, our efforts are for a great cause in support of some amazing people. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Our jerseys--Hunting for a cure