So yesterday I made my attempt at the 100 Miles of Nowhere. Unfortunately, I had some bike issues at mile 55 or so, so I was not able to complete it. To add insult, my GPS died on me as well, so I wouldn't have been able to track mileage anyway.
It was a .24 mile loop around my office at work.....over and over and over. I lost count of laps at around 105, but I know I did at least twice that many.
Time to give credit where credit is due: My wife is the most awesome person ever. She came out to watch and support me, and made a "Way to Go Tommy" sign to hold up as I went by. She was also in charge of feeding me, refilling my water, and selling water balloons.
Water balloons, you ask? My fundraising idea was to let anyone who made a donation (of any amount) throw a water balloon at me as I went by. I would just like to say that for a fat guy, I am rather hard to hit. Also, it's best to not underfill the balloons, many of them bounced off me instead of properly breaking. Next year if there is a repeat, I will make sure the balloons get thrown while I go UPhill, that way people can be more accurate. Gotta make sure they get their money's worth.
Also, I am incredibly impressed by the generosity of my coworkers. I didn't really expect to get many donations for the ride, and I only told people about it on Thursday, but I managed to raise over $320 for Livestrong. I will have to wait until Monday to get the cash donations in , but $175 was given online. That's pretty awesome.
My wife also took some pics, of which this is one:
And here is what my GPS track looks like:
All told, I'm not happy that I failed to complete the ride....but I am reall impressed with the support I got and highly pleased with the amount of donations my coworkers gave. I can't truly call it a failure when I accomplished this much fundraising. Hopefully my coworkers who donated aren't too disappointed.
...now I need a new bike computer solution. This is especially distressing since I used the one I had for light navigation duties too. Maybe I can find a mount for the phone that I don't think is terrible, but that is not very good for navigating along predetermined paths. Oh well, time for that later.
2 comments:
Tommy, you rock, I am proud of you for this cool fundraiser. Next time, since the route is contained in a small area, you could have a backup bike in case of mechanical failure, and someone tallying laps in case of GPS failure.
Rock on brother
Thanks! I'd actuallyp lanned to bring a spare bike and have Erin count my laps, but I ended up leaving late and she didn't get there until I'd already done quite a few--75, I believe (which ended up being 17.something miles).
I would just like to say that riding a .24 mile loop for 55 miles is not nearly as much fun as it sounds.
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