Riding 100 Miles......Raising Money

After much research I have decided that I am going to be doing a Biking Fundraiser.

The Audi Best Buddies Challenge.

I will be riding 100 miles to the cape on May 30th. My minimum goal is $2,750. If you can sponsor me for any amount I would greatly appreciate it (seriously, $5.00 is just fine). It will go to a very good cause. It will be going to helping intellectually challenged people all over the world integrate into the professional world. For certain amounts donated, there are gifts for you.

I think that this is not only a great opportunity for me to ride my bike but do it for a good cause. I promise you that if we can collect this amount of money I will have the trip on video for your viewing enjoyment. So please, donate, send this link to your friends and family, and keep reading about the adventures.

To Donate and find out more information click on this link HERE.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 3.5 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 15min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 42 hrs 25 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 306.81 Miles

More the Merrier

Day 31 – 3/26/09

Experiencing something new with another person is always exciting. I am so glad that many of my friends have started biking (some for the first time is YEARS, some EVER). My friend Jesse told me several months ago that he really wanted to bike with me. So after some searching we got him a bike and today, March 26th 2009, we set off on our first adventure. We traveled to the Jamaica ponds to get on the bike path so he could warm up and get used to the bike. He was great. I could not believe that he has not ridden a bike for years, because he was fallowing me and hitting the road almost better than I was when I first started up again. After circling the ponds a couple of times Jesse pointed out that the arboretum was near by. We looked at my bike map and set off on our route. Now call me crazy but I had no idea what an arboretum was and how beautiful and calming a place it is. For those of you as lost as myself, they are places where different trees from all over the world grow together in one location. You can read about the different trees and just walk (or in our case ride) on beautiful paths without the disturbances of cars, just you and nature. Jesse and I will be traveling on many more adventures in the future and I hope that others will join us. Because it is always nice to experience something new with another person and the more is to be merrier.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) :15.67 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 3hr 15min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 42 hrs 10 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 303.31 Miles

Riding With Friends

Day 30 – 3/23/09

My play, “Dark Play or Stories for Boys” Ended on a very good note. Through the entire 5-week run the thing that amazed me the most was the different types of people that would come to the shows every week. We had college students, high school students, longtime theatergoers, and first time theatergoers. It was really nice being able to talk to all of them and see all there different responses to the same play. Riding on my bike to the last show I road along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. It was a nice ride. I was able to watch the city of Boston go by as I passed through Charlestown and into Chelsea. It was overall a great ride except for the huge potholes on the back roads once I was in Chelsea. They swallowed my bike, but I survived to tell the story.
After the show I road to the cast party in Watertown. I wont say much but lets just say I am glad I have gotten good at climbing hills.

On Monday I was able to go on a ride with my friend Thomas Patrick Dunn (yes he’s Irish). It was great. I fallowed his lead south of Jamaica Plain. I learned a lot about the area. Such things as…There are so many flipping hills! Something that I did notice was that I was doing pretty well on hills but when it came to flats Tom would kick my ass. I was very interested in why he was going so much faster than me on flats? I had the road bike, I have been training my ass off, Whats Up? I was looking at his gears and he continually stays on the highest set of gears. So I thought maybe because he bikes so much on that high gear it builds up his muscles in such a way that he can go fast on flat ground. I asked him about it and he said that he is always trying to get from one place to another really fast. And most of the places he tries to go are not that far away and not really up a hill. So I think that that is what it was. His muscles have adapted to short sprints where I am training my body to go long distances at a constant speed. (Oh the cool things that our bodies do.)

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 36.62 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 4hr 15min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 38 hrs 55 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 287.64 Miles

Sentimentality of Whats to Come

Day 29 – 3/22/09

This entry is a pre-ride blog. I am going to be biking to my theatre (Apollinaire Theatre) in Chelsea and then to Watertown then to my home sweet home.

Tomorrow is the last show for my play “Dark Play or Stories for Boys” It has been a fantastic 5-week run and we have had so many great people come and see it. I am a bit sad to be stopping this show but I am also excited to see what will be happening next. I have loved working with all the people (cast and crew) it has been a great ride. I think by riding to and from the theatre will be a nice combination of the things that are going on in my life and then a good send off to the play (Don’t be a hater I am a sentimental person). I am excited to see the different view of arriving at the theatre from a bike instead of by car or bus. It just simply changes perspective and make me appreciate the environment a little bit more. The show will go very well tomorrow and will be a great cast party afterwards.

Its really nice writing a pre-ride entry because it gets me excited for what is to come. I am having fun planning my Cross-country trip and am excited for what is to come of this blog. I just want to let you all know that I have some pretty cool things in store for all of you that read this. Lets just say, I really like multi media.

Fear the Wind

Day 28 – 3/19/09

I was talking about fears with Lara yesterday and one that she brought up was her fear of natural disasters. Which I am sure for many that is a fear. That is the sort of thing that you cannot control or prevent at all. The volcano eruption can only be watched and examined and guessed at when it will happen. The tornados can only be predicted by watching the weather. So this fear is a completely valid fear because of the lack of control, as opposed to fear of wood, Xylophobia…(if you are afraid of wood I am sorry to bring it up).

This subject made me think of the things that I will bike into as I travel across the country. I am sure that there will be lots of wind and ran and probably some snow, along with other things that I am going to have to work with as I come to it. Today the rain fell on my helmet as I was biking home and it made me interested in certain precautions that I should take. So I was looking up some information about wind and I ran into a great article. “Cycling into the Wind” it was on the BBC webpage. Here is the first paragraph and then you can click on the link to read the rest. It’s a well-written fun to read article.

“The headwind is the natural enemy of the cyclist. However, it will also be an unavoidable fact of your cycling life and you might as well learn to cope. Think of the wind as a bully - do you recall how a larger kid could simply put their hand on your forehead and keep you at arm's length while you punched away at the empty space between you with tears of frustration streaming down your cheeks? Cycling into the wind is often like that, but it needn't always be. Let's start with some basics.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE

I think part of my prep for my trip is to get better at “surviving in the wild!” I will be posting more info on that as I run into it.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 3.4 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 14 min

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 34 hrs 4 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 251.02 Miles

Push Yourself

Day 27 – 3/18/09




Sometime you just have to push your self. On my way back from Lowell I biked down to Bedford then took the minuteman trail all the way into Alewife T-stop. On the minuteman path a biker on a road bike passed me and I tried my best to keep up with him. Each time I found that I was falling behind I was able to keep pushing myself. It was nice to have a person that kept me focused on pushing harder (even if they didn’t know that they were helping me). I was able to keep up with the guy all the way to Lexington then he either pushed way ahead or turned off the path. I was proud.

My experience with my new bike has been fantastic. I have been able to go faster and push harder without getting tired of being on the bike. The ride is so smooth that I just never want to stop (which is good considering I am going to be going across the country).

As far as things I saw on my trip today, I got some help from some very nice women at the “Mobil On the Run” and I road by a pasture with some beautiful horses and I had some time so I stopped and petted the horses and fed them some grass. It was really nice to be interacting with animals. I don’t get allot of that in the city so to be able to pull off the side of the rode, grab some grass and have a horse eat from my hand, it really makes me feel as though humans are not the only things on this earth and we all are connected in some way. Once I hit Bedford I took a small road through some forest areas then periodically there were some high tech buildings tucked away in the back roads. I felt as though I had entered into the valley of Bio Chemical companies. I am not sure if the one I got a photo of is biochemical but this was the one that really intrigued me.

UPDATE:
I am going to be going to Hawaii (the big island) in May and will be doing many bike trips around there. I will be constantly updating the blog with photos of the beautiful island. I am currently hoping that I will be able to get a nicer camera so that I can get you all some better quality work.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 27.2 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 4 hr

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 33 hrs 50 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 247.62 Miles

Minuteman Bike Path

Day 26 – 3/17/09

The Minuteman trail is a bike trail that runs from Arlington to Bedford. It takes bikers and walkers and skaters off of high traffic roads and puts them onto a beautiful, enjoyable pathway. I was able to finally use that path. I was heading to Lexington to get in a ride. Lara was going to pick me up there. I focused on trying to keep a higher mph and that was made easier because of the minuteman bike path. I averaged around 11 miles an hour. That is the best I have done so far.

TOTAL DISTANCE FOR DAY (TDD) : 11.65 miles
TOTAL TIME FOR THE DAY (TTD) : 1 hr

TOTAL TIME TRAINING: 29 hrs 50 min
TOTAL DISTANCE TRAVELED: 220.42 Miles