January has been a success

January is almost over and for training its been a great month.  I started biking the first week of January, the last 2 weeks of January I biked every day to work doing 150km.  I am definitely getting stronger in the legs and faster in my biking (I think).  I have been biking from Souldice park to down town (8.4km each way), I have been wanting to tackle the hills in Cochrane but they are still quite daunting and after biking all week I think its good to let my legs recuperate. 

So my goal for February barring the expected and dreaded winter blast is to start biking from COP to downtown.  http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ab/calgary/392126470803483132 is a link to my planned route.  It will be just under 14 km each way so I'll be doing 140km a week, nearly doubling my distance and adding a small hill into my training.  First week I want to just do the extended route once, but as the month progresses its my intention to add 1 extra day of the longer route each week, until I am doing the longer route as my standard route.  As an added bonus the new route will burn about 700 Calories, not as great as running but that's okay. 

Sadly my running has been languishing, I have really not put a lot of effort into my running, so I've decided that starting next week any day I don't bike the extended distance I will run at lunch instead.  Now this is also contingent on no winter storms, blizzards, or getting side swiped with a flu. 

I am still very pumped about my bike ride trip this summer and think I will be in very good form to accomplish it.  There is fund raiser for Cancer this spring in Alberta called "The Ride to Conquer Cancer" which Cenovus is participating in, its 200km over 2 days and I think this could be a great practice form me as well as help raise awareness for Cancer. Now this event is not specifically for Prostate Cancer, but I think its still a great event to raise money and awareness for Cancer.

Sign up today on The Ride to Conquer Cancer Website:
http://ab10.conquercancer.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_now

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.