For Real This Time

Rider Profile: http://www.pelotonia.org/ride/riders_profile.jsp?MemberID=4993

For those nearest and dearest to me, you read my initial blog entries back in the fall when I initially made the grand sweeping pledge to ride in Pelotonia ‘10. You may have noticed there have not been any updates since. For the rest of you, let me catch you up …

After volunteering in Athens last year for Pelotonia ’09, I was so inspired I vowed to ride this year. I bought a new road bike and some cute bike clothes, but at the first sign of difficulty (i.e. the first second I got on and couldn’t master the clip pedals), my beautiful bike was relegated to the garage where it sat for the better part of seven months until a few weeks ago.

With the glorious spring weather in full force and my body itching to get outside, I filled up the tires and psyched myself up for a ride with Amanda on the Olentangy Bike Trail. I guess I finally realized, while I was sitting around scared of the bike and scared of not being able to reach my initial goal of 100 miles, cancer continued to touch and affect everyone around me.

During this time I blamed work and everything else in my life for not giving me enough time to ride, my college roommate and one of my dearest friends watched her dad battle (and beat!) cancer, our Big Ten Rookie of the Year goalkeeper Matt Lampson celebrated two years of being cancer free, an old high school teammate was diagnosed with leukemia and I recognized the 10-year anniversary of the event that sent me down this path to begin with.

I guess I just got tired of being scared. Plus I needed to cross off another entry from my Pre-30 Bucket List (#7 – Train for Something), but we’ll get into that more later I am sure. In the meantime, please look at my sponsor page and consider donating to my cause. I have signed up to ride 43 miles August 21 (my parents’ 34th anniversary – woot woot) and will consider increasing that to 75 as I see how the next few weeks ago.