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Sunday, August 31, 2008

Wonderland!

I took the girls to Wonderland. They managed to last most of the day... The highlight was the water park; they went down the little water slide a hundred times!

The girls loved the taxi jam little coaster at Wonderland.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

TFK Fundraising Update

I heard the unofficial word from Louisa on Tour for Kids fundraising efforts (though it is open until September 15th):

$700K – rider donations
$200K - in sponsorship monies
$50K - 3rd party Tour For Kids supporting fundraisers

And the Ride for Karen (Rideforkaren.com), September 7th event will likely raise $250-300K, which will bring the Tour For Kids total to hopefully around $1.2M.

Awesome!




Sunday, August 17, 2008

TFK Day 4: 201km

Day 4 was harder than I had thought. We woke up to an awesome breakfast (again catered by Aramark), and a bit more of leisurely pace as we weren't due to depart until 8:30 as opposed to our usual 7:30 departure.

The morning's dedication was tearful. A middle aged woman who had ridden 100km the day before on a tandem bike got up onto a table and spoke to all of the full stage riders about her ordeal. I'm sure I've got some facts wrong, but you'll get the gist. Her son was diagnosed with a brain tumour when he was 3 or 4. Despite numerous challenges and disabilities, he excelled at life, getting Ontario's "volunteer of the year" award when he was 12. He was hit with cancer again when he was 13, then lymphoma when we was 18, and then finally another brain tumour when he was 22 which took his life. The story was heartbreaking... and then she told us about her daughter. Her daughter sounded like her son - an all around good person. She went to Western where she was studying to be a genetics counselor. She had been experiencing a number of headaches during the school year, and then almost without warning, she too passed away with a brain tumour. To have this happen to your family twice must have been devastating, but this woman was so positive and so warm... it was heartbreaking.



Today's message was also about volunteerism and how important it was to volunteer to help out with this cause. The Tour for Kids gives 100% of the funds raised to the camps it supports. This means there are a ton of volunteers behind the scenes donating their time and services to make this event happen.

I often see TV commercials for the Ride to Cure Cancer for the Princess Margaret Foundation. It seems that their strategy is to spend a ton of money and gain a lot of awareness - don't get me wrong, there's certainly validity in this approach. Yet, I feel the Tour for Kids and the approach they take with donations and being a volunteer led organization fits with how I would approach the problem of helping kids with cancer.

The plan for day 3 was to head West (against the wind!) to Mississauga along this route (or check this out).



I think we were expecting a nice easy ride for the last day. We were wrong. There were a few factors working against us: it was windy - maybe 20km/h headwind; we got stuck in a small group (sometimes as small as 6 people); and it was way hillier that we'd thought.

The first 100km up to the rest break had quite a few rollers. Given it was day 4, we were absolutely bagged by the time we got there. Unfortunately, we overheard someone describing the next 40km as very hilly... damn it!

As bad as the conditions were, I was having a good day. I kept thinking of meeting Beth and the kids at the end, and that kept me going. I was doing a lot of the work on that last day. After lunch, it was pretty much Rob and I taking turns at the front and pulling our little group home.

At 195km, we grouped up with a couple hundred other riders at the Esso station on Hurontario just south of 401. The idea was to get a police escort down to Square One and ride as a big group for a good PR moment. After getting a few refreshments, we were off. That final 5km was a breeze!

It was awesome to have my family there when we arrived. As you can see Robbie was already eating an early dinner and the nephews had put together some great banners!



Kelly wasn't smiling much on the 4th day she'd had a tough day and her back was bothering her, but she was sure happy at the end...





Here's the support team!



An even better surprise was to have our fallen teammate, Rolf, there to great us. Rolf had taken a bad spill on the Ride for Heart on the DVP - he'd broken his hip and had a tremendously bad time in the hospital. Rolf has vowed to ride next year:



My trusty steed - rebuilt wheel from my accident and all. No mechanicals over 845km - thank you!



Abby's banner:



When Robin finally let go of my leg, she was putting on some moves...



And here's my awesome team. We rode with each other the whole way - helping each other out when one of us was struggling. Waiting when we had a problem. What a great team!



However, the pictures I didn't get were from my fundraising team. I had 47 donations from individuals, couples, families and companies raising $5,705! I also had one very special contributor, "Slippery" Steve Taylor, my brother-in-law that helped... ok he did all of it... with my fundraising video (posted here). Thanks very much to all my sponsors:

Nigel C, Tom S, Denyse & Art T, Krista W, Steve B, Barb T, Beth T, Andy & Natasha R, Bob B, Chris S, Chris & Joce C, Dave & Karen H, Jody & Ron R, Ross R, Scott & Tara L, Stephen B, Sue & Jeff G, Gord B, Kelly L, Ryan & Jill F, Zubair T, Alex F, Sharis G, Greg J, Ivan K, Eileen & Dave B, Rostislav S, Jimbo H, Costa & Christina A, Pat & Jeri M, David M, Carey & Katie L, Frank & Donna R, Maha A, Angie R, Jen & Steve R, Alan E, Bruce C, Sonia & Greig B, Tanya & Dave W, Ross & Jill T, Alex S, Paul T, Jaimie P, Stephen T, Rich & Laura T, Lynden R, Marc S and Rob & Shannon K!

If you would like to find out how you can get involved, either as a rider (there are weekend only editions that ride 100km/day) or as a volunteer, please let me know and I will get you some information.

Finally, for those that are interested, here's a summary of elevations from Day 4 from my Garmin. The green lines were water breaks and lunch.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

TFK Day 3: 216km

I had brought my camera along on the trip, thinking I would be snapping tons of cool pictures and "documenting" the whole thing. It turns out, the whole thing kind of flew by - we were constantly busy - cycling, eating, drinking, sleeping. Not too much time for R&R.

The plan for day 3 was to head South to Peterborough along this route (or check this out).



After the morning dedication, Jeff Rushton, the main founder of Tour for Kids and a guy with tons of energy, warned us that there was a bit of climb starting about 2 km after leaving Camp Northlands. My legs were fairly sore at this point, but still not too bad. Although I had skipped getting a massage the night before and I really hadn't stretched much (idiot), I was feeling pretty good. 10 minutes later, I was feeling like shit.

The hills coming out of Camp Northlands, under the conditions that we were in, were pretty brutal. 10-12%, long climbs followed by severe rollers for what seemed like 50km. By the time we go to the lunch stop, we were all pretty tired. However, we were told that the road from there to Peterborough was pretty much down hill.

We joked throughout the tour about "riding into form". When you watch the Tour de France, you often hear that some riders were planning on "riding into form" during the tour... ie, peaking during week 3 of the tour and using the first 2 weeks essentially as training - it sounds bizarre that they could actually do that, but it's true. So I joked with the team that due to my lack of riding pre-tour, I was riding into form, and hoping to peak in the third week (which didn't really help in a four day event!). That being said, Rob really began to ride strong during the second half of day 3. He pretty much pulled our entire group the last 50km and was really riding well.

We arrived at Trent at about 4:30pm. The organization of the Tour for Kids is second to none - we arrive at Trent, get our pictures snapped, we're handed a recovery drink and a key to our dorm room. Our bags are waiting for us after we stow our bikes in the indoor racks. Everything works like clockwork - which no doubt takes a lot of work behind the scenes by the awesome volunteers.



Dinner was awesome that night and so were the couple of beers that went with it. The catering was provided by Aramark. At night, for the third night in a row, we had a presentation by one of the camps we're supporting: Camp Trillium. Camp Trillium really focused on support for the children afflicted and recovering from cancer, but also the families of those children. We heard amazing stories from campers and counselors, and it sounded like it was an ordinary camp... but that was the point, wasn't it - to give these kids and families a chance to feel normal again.



Here's a summary of elevations from Day 3 from my Garmin. The green lines were water breaks and lunch.

Friday, August 15, 2008

TFK Day 2: 202km

Day 2 was a *$#@ing blur~! :-)

We were told it was hilly, but you really don't listen to people when they tell you these things.

That said, it was hilly! We rolled relatively early after the morning dedication. Every morning, there was a dedication to one or two individuals who had suffered in some way with childhood cancer. The dedication by a young girl, cancer survivor, on day 2 really nailed home the point of how much cancer affects the family, and in turn how much that causes the person with cancer to feel guilty. The camps this ride supports not only helps the cancer sufferers, but also their family. They help families deal with the change that is necessary when one of their own is stricken with this brutal disease.

My legs were a little sore after the first day, but not too bad. Actually, my neck, back and chest were feeling pretty good and I was excited to get going.

Our route (or check this out) for the day entailed doing a 100km loop back to Bracebridge Golf Course for lunch, and then heading East to Camp Northlands for the night.

The first 100km loop was pretty painful. Lots of rollers... the whole day really. Up and down, up and down. The problem with rollers when riding in a big group is that I descend quicker than most (size matters! :0)) but I'd be hammering my brakes just to slow down enough to maintain pace with the group. Which made climbing up hills even worse - I couldn't maintain my momentum and really had to work to get up some of the hills.

Kelly's husband Paul met us with his parents and kids at the lunch stop. Lunch stops may sound like leisurely breaks at a sit down lunch, but they were really 10-15 minute stops where we tried to shovel food down our throats even though we often didn't feel like eating. It was nice to see Paul, it reminded us to smile! We'd been pretty grumpy all morning.



Camp Northlands is a kids camp that generously lets Tour for Kids use their facilities every year.





We stayed in camp cabins - 12 to a cabin. We had gotten caught in some rain an hour before arriving and were lucky enough to get in a cabin with a guy who had a shoe dryer! It was going all night to dry out our twelve pairs of shoes.





Here's a summary of elevations from Day 2 from my Garmin. The green lines were water breaks and lunch.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

TFK Day 1: 227km

And here we.... go.

Beth drove and we picked Kelly up at 6:00am. We were told to be there for registration at 6:30am, and we're early birds so we arrived when we were told.



It was a tad early! Anyway, I guess that's a rookie mistake as we didn't end up leaving until about 9:00am! We sure looked fresh and ready to go!





After registering (which took 30 seconds), we sat down to our second breakfast of the day with our team: Kelly Greene, Paul Rosenberg (Kelly's travelling chiropractor!), Rob Givens and myself - team "Chain Reaction". Also in this picture is "Cat", who we rode with on Days 1 and 4.



There was some entertainment followed by speeches from the organizers who level set everybody and reminded us what we were really there for: helping kids with cancer. It was pretty emotional, and it reminded me that recovering from an accident like I did was nothing even close to what these kids go through on a daily basis - and most of the kids go through cancer treatment and recovery (if they're lucky) for 3-7 years! Wow. It was inspiring.



Since I had agreed to be a marshall, I was assigned a pace group to stay with. Marshalling entailed helping people stay in a group, helping with mechanicals like flat tires and also carrying a first aid kid and emergency numbers. On day, I was assigned to the 2nd fastest group (the fast guys didn't have marshalls!).



Here was the route for today. Basically, straight up to Barrie for lunch at 110km, and then up through Orillia to Bracebridge. The destination was a KOA campground there.



The pace was pretty quick, but the route was relatively flat, and we had a big group so it was fairly easy going. My neck was bothering me a bit, but the adrenalin kept it at bay (oh, and a few Advil). I later found that the real difference between pace groups is that the faster pace groups seemed to be the types of people who would drop anyone. Several times people dropped water bottles and were forced to chase back up to the pack. It was pretty cutthroat.

We arrived at about 5:00pm and hustled into the campground to get a massage and some dinner. We weren't that hungry, surprisingly, and had to really force the food and water down, knowing we would need it the next day. My computer said I'd burned through about 12,000 calories, but I felt pretty good.





This may look like we were ready to set up our tents and camp for the night, but we were actually waiting for the hotel shuttle! We felt a little snobby, but we had booked a hotel for the night in hopes that we would have a nice relaxing night and so we wouldn't have to worry about setting up tents etc.



The hotel may not look it based on the picture below... but to us, it was like staying in a five-star hotel. A room to yourself, hot shower, nice bed - after 227km in the saddle, it was awesome.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Ride #3: Store Ride

I'm back! Sort of... I decided to do the store ride, though keeping it easy. It was nice to see all of the guys on the first part of the ride. When we got to Mississauga, Paul R and a couple of other people joined me and we rode straight up to Streetsville and didn't stop. We just wanted a nice easy ride... though I did miss the sprints! After the ride I felt pretty good. My neck was still sore while riding, and my back and chest ached a little, but considering where I was four weeks ago, I'm happy.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Second Ride

We went to my parent's house in Oakville today with the kids. I brought my bike and managed to get in a 50km continuous ride. There was definitely some pain (neck mostly - it's like I'd never ridden a road bike before). On the ride, I met and rode with a guy who was also just getting back on his bike. He had fallen the previous autumn by the ridiculous poles on the bike path by the Boulevard Club and suffered a pretty serious concussion. He was just getting back into cycling now... I reminded myself how lucky I had been.

Friday, August 8, 2008

First Ride

I had my first ride today. I did a light ride to the beaches and back. I could still hold around 30km/h fairly easily, but I needed to down an extra strength gel Advil within 20 minutes of leaving, as the pain in my chest and neck were getting to me.

I got stuck in a rainstorm on the way back and stopped in Queen's Quay to wait it out. Things are not working in my favour at the moment! Luckily, Beth has been quite the caregiver, and Abby and Robin... well, especially Abby are sensitive to the fact that I can't move around and wrestle with them like I usually do! I still get the occasional head butt in the chest from Rob, but that's to be expected.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Rehab

I the past few weeks, I've been trying everything possible to recover... herbal supplements, ART, physio, massage (not that kind Murray!), rest etc. I'm determined to ride the whole Tour for Kids. Last Thursday, I got back on my bike for the first time - ok, it was attached to my trainer downstairs, but I was able to do about 30 minutes for very light pedaling. The worst part while in the position is my neck, followed by my back and chest. I still have a lot of pain breathing, but as I exercise, it seems to get a little better.

Saturday, I was able to do 45 minutes on the trainer, with some harder efforts. My legs feel pretty strong, but I'm worried about the endurance dropping off. Before my accident, I was able to do 200km, even 240km without too much effort and with my legs feeling pretty good after. Now, I'm not so sure...

Today, I'm in Kansas City on Business - I plan on going to the gym three times to get some 1 hour rides with more intensity on the reciprocal stationary bikes.

I can't believe the tour is next week...