Ride to Conquer Cancer

Friday night I was a little apprehensive having never done anything like this before.  In fact before this year the longest ride I ever done was a 60km ride 25 years ago that nearly killed me. So Saturday morning I was up bright n early at 5am and headed off to Spruce Meadows for the ride. 

Some cool stats - 1,888 riders who raised over 8.3 million dollars for cancer research here in Alberta. 

Here is a picture of the start of the event during the opening ceremonies.

Just before the ride started I did bump into 2 other team mates aka "Crazy Cranks" who I peddled with for a few minutes at the beginning of the ride, but soon I took off and peddled at my own pace.  The ride went through Okatoks where the first rest point was, since I wasn't trying to kill myself I stopped and grabbed a piece of fruit and more water then carried on.  The second stop was in High River, and I did the same short break as it was about an hour since the last stop.  The 3rd stop was in Nanton and I thought I was doing incredibly well, I had been averaging about 28km/h which is a great pace for me, I hadn't been pushing myself and at the Nanton 75km point I thought that it was going great. Nanton was the lunch break point where I grabbed a great box lunch then I hid in the shade and ate. 

As I was departing I saw a guy with a spare car tire painted and strapped to his bike.  He told me that he joined the ride 2 weeks ago and needed a creative way to raise the donations.  So he told everyone that he would add 1 kg for every $100 raised.  So he had a 24kg tire strapped to his bike for the ride.  I'm not sure if he completed the ride  as I never noticed the bike after that but I did enjoy meeting him and the other very amusing and creative people on the ride who had great costumes or interesting bikes.

Here is a pic of a guy cooling off literally as he sits on the ice packs keeping the water chilled.  Next is the spare tire and then a picture of a group of guys in hot pink shorts doing the ride.

I had overheard a couple interesting conversations at the Nanton beak, the first was that those riders who made it to camp at Chain Lakes before 12:30 were going to do an "after burn"  which I was told was a short 70km extra ride.  I just shook my head at that and thought if that was true they must be totally nuts!   I also heard someone mention there was some hills ahead, so I took it easy leaving Nanton just in case.  Unfortunately that was my last facebook entry on the trip as I didn't turn my phone off properly and the battery died.

So from Nanton the ride became interesting, you know when it looks like you are going downhill but you really going up?  Well that is how it was from Nanton on.  And I figured this isn't so bad, I can handle the last 20km of this...  well at about the 80 km mark there was a sharp turn and I noticed a sign saying 28km to Chain Lakes which I thought "couldn't be" I'm almost done!  I noticed that my legs were starting to get tired out and then the hill began...

The hill was a 6% grade that didn't end, it just kept on going and going and going.  Every time you thought it was over you would go around a bend and see that there was more.  I kept on thinking to myself, why am I doing this? I must be very crazy!  Do I really want to do a trip to Vancouver when this ride was nearly killing me? To understand the hill, imagine Glen Eagles hill but 5 times as long.

And finally after 12km of agonizing hill there was an unexpected pit stop, but not the camp I had so desired and expected.  I gladly stopped and took a much needed break where I found out that the ride to camp was actually 115km and that I had another 20km to go.   But they reassured me that after the short hill I could see before me and a couple rolling hills it became easy.  Well those "rolling hills" were quite mountainous and went on for another 10km.  The last 5 km was more downhill but with a nasty head wind that made it feel as if you were going down a gentle grade not the steep hill it was.  I felt robbed of enjoying the down's after all the sweat that went into the up's.

Finally after numerous short breaks on all those hills, I made it to camp at 3:30, only 6 hours after leaving Spruce Meadows.  Actual biking time was 4:45 min which I was is VERY impressed with as it was better than my hoped for goal of 5 hours for 100km.  After grabbing my bags I had a very very desired shower and a nap which made me feel almost human and refreshed. 

And 4 hours after arriving at camp I signed up for the ride next year.

During supper I actually met up with most of the Crazy Crank team, and heard about their rides.  Most of them took a little longer than me to get in, with the longest I heard being 9 hours.  I know that bikes were still coming in at 8pm, which I think is about when they went out and did a sweep to pick up anyone who was still on the road biking.  I'm not sure how many there might have been to collect.  One of my team had actually made it in by 1pm, which I was very impressed with.  I know I had passed a lot of bikes on the first 80k of the ride, and many passed me on the last 35k, but he must have been smoking along.  There was a lady who was 7 months pregnant that I heard made it the first 60k of the ride.  I was very impressed that she made it so far,  that would have been really a challenge for her. 

Supper was really yummy, with mostly vegetables but you had the option of chicken or veggie entre.  I had the chicken and it was very yummy along with a free beer.  Someone said that beers make a great recovery drink which I decided I liked the idea of so from now on I think it will be my choice of recovery drinks :-). 

I tried going to sleep at 9, but I think it was well after 11 before I truly fell asleep with all the chatter and then snoring around me.  I did sleep pretty good, and woke up at 5 am, not sore!  This really shocked me as I figured I’d be a hurting puppy this morning.  But I was pretty limber and no body parts were complaining. 

Here is a picture of camp and of me on day #2

Today’s ride was pretty good, we did NOT go back the way we had come the day prior which I thank my lucky stars! The ride back was up hwy 22 and then 22X to Spruce Meadows.  Just like the previous day the views were amazing.  The first stretch had a decent hill that really got the muscles loosened up and then for the most part it was rolling hills.  The nice thing about them is that for every up I got a chance to go down, and I made a personal best speed of 67 km/h on one hill.  Others had hit 80 km/h, but I thought that 67 km/h was pretty scary. I did get burnt today even though I had lathered up with sun block, but not too horribly.

The ride into Spruce Meadows was surreal.  They called off your name as you came in and a crowd cheered you on. In fact there was people all along the route that cheered and that really made me feel like I was making a difference.  Next year I will try and plan to have my friends’ n family there at the end as it was like a bit of a party.  They had a great burger feast, music and would be nice to share that with them.

So the return trip was 4 hours of biking time over a 5 hour period.  This is directly in line with what I had hoped to do for my Vancouver trip.  So I’m very pleased with my performance, and that today I still had a little energy left in my legs even at the end.

In 5 weeks I start my next crazy adventure which I hope to share daily... as long as I keep my phone charged.  


Its important to remember that 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer in their life.  Count the men you know, and know that every 6th one is it, not the kind of game you want to be picked for.  Please Please share my story by bringing awareness of prostate cancer to those you know and help me raise money to fight this debilitating disease.  

Please support Prostate Cancer Research as 1 in 6 men will get it in their life. Click the image or the link below.


http://www.conquercancer.ca/site/TR?px=2361639&pg=personal&fr_id=1372

6 weeks to go

With 6 weeks till my ride to Vancouver, I will know next weekend how close I am to being in condition to biking 1,200 km.  Next weekend is the Ride to Conquer Cancer, and I have now met my donation requirement of $2,500.  I took a look at the top fund raisers and was astonished to see that there were quite a few that had earned up to $60,000.  I found raising $2,500 to be a challenge and would have no idea who to raise even $10,000 let alone 60!

I have been training most days, but have slipped from my goal for daily rides.  I had planned on biking from Calaway Park to downtown every week day about mid May.  It is now near end of June and I have ridden from Calaway to downtown, but it has been rather sporadic.  I do need to bump up my riding a little and with school ending it will mean that my Monday / Wednesday evenings will have a little more leeway to them.  Currently I need to be home to take my daughter to soccer M & W so that limits my rides somewhat. Most days I ride from COP, which makes for a nice ride.  Here are the distances of the rides I do.

Daily rides to Downtown

• Shouldice – 15km
• COP – 30km
• Calaway Park – 50km

I have decided that I have to take the main route to Vancouver from Calgary through Golden, Kamloops then to Vancouver.  I had been interested in taking a southern route, but it adds 3-4 days to the trip, would be much hillier and a lot hotter (40C).  So I’m opting for a more northerly route. The only part that is still to be decided is if I should go through Case or Whistler as both routes seem about the same distance.

The other part of my plan that has changed is that initially I was going to have a road crew to take care of the daily logistics.  Currently it looks like I will be packing my gear as well, so this will impact my rides making them longer if I want to maintain 100km a day. With 6 weeks left I now need to start planning what I need to bring along for this ride, as well as minimizing what I take as well. I’ll try and note what I’m packing or planning on packing in my next post.

I had expected that with the biking and running that over the winter I would have lost weight.  There are 2 ways to make your ride easier, you can by very expensive bikes and gear that are very light, or you can lose weight. I had opted for the weight loss as a 10 lb loss in body mass would be a big increase in my ride.  Alas I’ve gained a little over the winter which has me puzzled but also accepting that I won’t be as physically fit as I had hoped to be for my Vancouver trip.

Well it’s Saturday, and sunny out, and I hear the trails calling my name.

My Goals for the trip

Biking to Vancouver from Calgary will be a great personal challenge for me to accomplish; but many people struggle with even bigger challenges. I wanted to use my ride to bring light to one of these challenges that doesn't get the lime light it deserves.

A couple years ago I randomly met a fellow in a check out line and I mentioned "oh its breast cancer month". (Hard not to notice with the entire grocery store decked out in pink). And he told me how little money is raised for Prostrate Cancer compared to Breast Cancer. This passing comment of his as he departed the line has actually disturbed me greatly as no one talks about prostrate cancer, but you go to Facebook and all the ladies are posting their bra colour on their statuses as part of bringing awareness to that worthy cause.

If you go to Google and do a search for "Breast Cancer" it returns 40 million hits compared to doing a search for "Prostate Cancer" only returns 10 Million hits.

Here are some Canadian stats comparing both diseases.

Stat	Men	Ladies
Diagnosed this year	22,000	22,000
Most common Cancer	Prostrate	Breast
Odds of being diagnosed	1 in 8	1 in 9
Death from	1 in 27	1 in 27
Google Search	10 Million	40 Million

Do these statistics surprise you? They sure surprised me, before that passing comment in the check out line I was blissfully unaware at how overlooked Prostrate Cancer is. I had the impression that breast cancer was far more common and far more deadly than prostate cancer.

I have decided that I am going to make Prostate Cancer a awareness a goal of my ride. I am going to shed light and bring awareness to this devastating cancer that should be just as well known as Breast Cancer.

There was a dream

I think back to my childhood to the many trips we made into BC from Alberta and have very fond memories of seeing cyclists who were doing the trip via bike. I would say "I want to do that when I grow up".

I was always a kid on my bike, I would cycle everywhere in FortMcMurray as a kid. In Jr High I had on many occasions biked from BeaconHill to school in Thickwood, which I am sure was an oddity for most people as I never ever saw another bike whist I treked off to school or home. Now it could have been the hills at either and as they give cars a challenge.

We moved to Sherwoord Park when I was in gr 10 and I biked all over Sherwoord Park and on one occasion in the middle of summer, on a rather hot day I rode accross Edmonton and back.

Well I grew up many years ago and still bike frequently, but have never ever even attempted to realize my dream.

Over my 20's I became robust 300lb guy and it was only near the end of my 20's that I brought that down to a respectable 230lb. Which at that time with a new baby daughter a road trip never fit into my life.

Last summer I started jogging, I was back up to 250 lb, and the jogging nearly daily was really make me feel good, to feel energized, and one day in August I was sharing how as a kid I used to dream about biking to Vancouver. The next day I told her I was going to do it next year.

So my goal is to bike from Calgary to Vancouver the first 2 weeks of August 2010.