Me: I don’t think I’m going to do the ride next weekend. It’s a lot of driving to ride my bike 20 miles.
K.: Ok, if you don’t want to.
Me: And I’d only be doing the 20 mile ride, not a longer one.
K.: Ok.
Me: And we’re going home the weekend after for my next race and so we should be here.
K.: If you want to do the ride you should do it. If not stay here.
Me: I don’t think I’m going to do it.
later
Me: Lance is going to be there!
K.: What?
Me: Lance is going to be there!
K.: What? (mumbles indistinctly and closes the sliding door)
I stop and try to decide if I should rush to the back door naked to tell K. in person. Decide that it’s better to get dressed. Get dressed in a hurry.
Me: Lance is going to be there!
K.: Where?
Me: At the ride next Sunday. Do you think if I went I might see him?
K.: Definitely possible.
Me: I need to raise $250 in the next 6 days in order to ride. Do you think I can do that?
K.: Um, sure.
Me: I know that it’s weird that I want to go and see him.
K.: It’s not weird.
It is weird. Partially because I have a very yin/yang thing with Lance: admire him as an athlete, love the work he does with his LiveStrong foundation, on a personal level, well it’s unlikely that we’ll ever meet so I guess I don’t have to worry about it. Plus I feel weird going out of my way to potentially get a glimpse of a professional athlete/celebrity. Not the way I roll. But then again I really want to see him. And I’m still smarting over the whole “28 jersey” fiasco and how I was in the car when they went on sale and then they sold out and I didn’t even have a shot at one and I really want one even though I generally don’t care about things where the quantities are extremely limited and you have to jump through hoops just to own something and the big fuss is half of the business of owning it and now people are making money off of them on eBay and I won’t buy one that way because those people are the dregs of the universe and I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Oh fine, I’ll go potentially see him. Because he’ll be practically in my back yard and it would be a shame not to go potentially see him. Right?
Lots of people raise money as they run or race in in triathlons or bike for various causes. The Leukemia and Lymphoma society has a very active program to get people to raise money as they train for triathlons. For various reasons I am not drawn to working with LLS and so I’ve been poking around for another program. My favorite triathlon supports Susan G. Komen/breast cancer and I’ve got an increased risk for that due to a serious family history but in the end I see a lot of money being funneled into breast cancer research from a lot of very active programs and so wasn’t quite drawn to jump in.
Then one day I was poking around the internets as I sometimes do and ended up on LiveStrong. I love their mission and their services for people dealing with cancer right now. At LiveStrong they strive to “inspire and empower people affected by cancer. We believe that unity is strength, knowledge is power and attitude is everything.” If you know someone newly diagnosed one of the first places I would send them is LiveStrong. And it turns out that they have a program for cyclists and runners and triathletes similar to LLS and that one of the rides they sponsor happens to be in Philadelphia.* This got me all bubbly and excited and I decided that as intimidated as I was to try and raise money I was going to set an ambitious fundraising goal for the ride in August 2011.
And then they announced today on FB that Lance would be at the Philly ride next weekend.
So, the deal is that you have to raise $250 in donations just to participate in the ride. People form teams and there is this donation scale thing and if you raise enough money you get invited to a special event and it’s all very complicated. But it boils down to:
I am raising at least $250 in the next 7 days (with a goal of $500) to be donated to the LiveStrong foundation.
I am riding in memory of my mother Lois (melanoma), my grandmother Jessie (breast cancer), and V.’s mother Denise (breast cancer). I’ll be happy to add your relative or friend to the list—just leave a note in the comments.
If you’d like to contribute, please click on the link below to go to my LiveStrong page:
If you donate to my ride I will send you (or your child/ren) a LiveStrong wristband and potentially an additional gift just from me if I get around to making them.
And dude? Let’s all Live Strong.
*Well, sort of. More like the far Western suburbs of Philadelphia, while I live miles to the East. But they call it Philadelphia on the Web site so there you are.
(Photo courtesy of LiveStrong.org.)