And the winner is...

Adam Beck! Congrats, Adam! The selection criteria of the Scott & BR Cycling Challenge were finally revealed this morning on the radio: the winner would be the person the judges felt would be best able to lead next year's group of contestants. Adam's the man for sure...Trek ride leader, cancer survivor, and all-around great guy--just like last year's winner!! I couldn't have tried any harder, but no way could I win against that! Oh well. I still get to do the ride along with six of my Team xx1090 buds and I'm going to savor every moment. =)

Thanks, Brian for this pic of the crew in the xx1090 studio:

Scott Kaplan, Mark, Alex, Mike (last year's winner and this year's fearless leader), Adam (Winner!), me, Brian, Joe and BR. Rob Millum couldn't make it, but will also join us on the ride. Yeeeeeehaw!!

Winner Announced Tomorrow! And some final thoughts...

The time has finally come! The winner of the Scott & BR Cycling Challenge will be announced tomorrow around 6:45 a.m. on xx1090 AM Sports Radio. Tune in or listen online here.

Win or lose, I'm truly grateful for the many opportunities this contest has afforded me.

While I'd been a CAF supporter and known about the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge for years, I would never have believed it possible to achieve the $10K minimum fundraising requirement to participate. The contest removed that initial intimidation and allowed me to meet some wonderful people I now count as friends, to get even more excited about doing the actual ride from San Francisco to San Diego, and to be inspired by some amazing people--some who benefit from--some who raise money for--(and some both)--the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Teamwork among the Scott & BR contestants has been phenomenal--inspiring and effective. Each of us has worked hard and made many sacrifices to make it this far and I'm proud that we have been able to raise over $50K as a group. I myself am just shy of the $10K mark and feel sure that I will reach my $10K goal by the start of the ride on Oct. 17. And none of this would have happened without the contest!

The contest has also forced me to reconsider some pre-conceived notions about myself and to step out of my comfort zone in many, MANY areas. Knowing I was supporting something much bigger than myself allowed me to think "big," to overcome my aversion to asking for money, asking for help, accepting help. I was able to overcome my Facebook-a-phobia. I learned to blog. I spoke to large groups of people. I learned to not take rejection personally, and the pleasure of unexpected kindness and generosity. I learned that hard work and discipline are still rewarded and that sometimes the whole really IS greater than the sum of its parts. I was reminded of the joy of giving and the strange phenomenon where you get back what you give and then some. I learned that I AM strong...and not just physically. I can honestly say that I'm a better person as a result of this experience.

To this point, I've had experiences and gained friendships I'll treasure for a lifetime. A wonderful cake. The ride from San Francisco to San Diego will be the icing. I can't wait! And knowing that all of this supports folks with physical challenges getting back on track to an active lifestyle makes it all the sweeter...the cherry on top.

Sincere thanks to my teammates and friends: Adam, Alex, Brian, Joe, Rob M., Rob L., Mark, Pat, Ofelia, and Efrain; to our fearless leader Mike H. who has gone above and beyond time and again in helping us and CAF out in a variety of capacities; to all the folks from CAF...especially Vikki (please forgive me for all I've put you through!); to my mom, family and friends for your exceptional support throughout this journey; and last, but certainly not least, to Scott and BR and xx1090 for making the contest possible and for using the airwaves to spread the word about CAF and the good work they do.

Until tomorrow...over and out.

Revelation, Robbery, Rendezvous, Race and Ride in Review

Life has been hectic!

Revelation
Last Wednesday, I left work feeling great! Doing the math on the Scott & BR Cycling Challenge contestants' fundraising efforts led me to the conclusion that with just a little more work, SEVEN of the finalists would be able to do the QMDC ride from San Francisco to San Diego. Amazing! The updated numbers show the extra work has paid off, so seven of us--Adam, Alex, Brian, Rob M., Brian, Joe, Mark and myself will ALL get to do the ride and I couldn't be happier about that.

Robbery
My mood took a dive when I reached my car only to find the passenger-side window smashed and my GPS, bluetooth headset and--worst of all--my gym bag--all missing! Varmints!!! Arghh! With the L.A. Triathlon coming up on Sunday, I only had a couple days to replace things and the days ahead were booked solid. I managed to get what I needed in time so it all worked out but...talk about bad timing!

Rendezvous
Thursday was the ride leaders' fundraising event: Rendezvous in the Ranch. I was lucky enough to have the winning bid on an original watercolor depicting the QMDC riders in Big Sur. I know it will be a wonderful memento of the trip that I'm so looking forward to. I also got to meet and talk to Floyd Llandis, who also happened to be helping out at the registration table. How cool is that?! A very fun evening with great food and great friends!

Race
I missed my first QMDC training ride this past Sunday because I was racing in the L.A. Triathlon. Since I've been training with the QMDC group, I've neglected my swim and run training. I also decided to use my road bike (vs. time trial bike) because I figured it would be a lot more comfortable on the 123-mile ride home. Point is, I wasn't expecting fabulous results.

The morning of the race, we rode to the start in the dark. By the time we got there, the racks were already overflowing. We managed to squeeze in then went to check out the surf. Holy moly and some beans, that surf was HUGE. On my way back in from my warm up swim, I got tumbled several times and that made me pretty nervous. As my friend and I were standing there commiserating, a guy asked us how many times we'd been out. We didn't really understand what he meant at first, but it turns out he had tried to make it out past the surf through several wave starts and so far had not made it. Fear.

But, when the bullhorn blew, like lemmings, all of us in the all-age, all-female wave start took off for the water and somehow managed to find all the buoys and swim around them and make it back to land in one piece. Off with the wetsuit and on to the bike....

The bike is usually my weakest event of the three and, as usual, I got passed by quite a few folks flying past on their fancy, schmancy tri bikes with race wheels and carbon fiber everything. And then I noticed that my front tire was flat. Are you serious?! Guess I should consider myself lucky...this was the first time I'd ever gotten a flat during a race. It was only really mushy, though, not totally flat. So, I figured it was worth a shot to just try to fill it with air instead of changing out the tube. Amazingly it held enough air to get me through the rest of the bike leg. Yippeee!

The run had been my biggest area of concern, but it went WAY better than expected. I felt good immediately off the bike...which is just weird....and ran strong the whole way through (even up the killer hill you get to climb and descend not once, but twice! ).

All in all, a very fun race! Came in 11 out of 28 in my age group. All things considered, a great outcome!



Ride
The next morning, we got up early to start the 123-mile journey home. We'd gotten a ride out there by persuading our non-racing friend and founder of http://www.finishline-multisport.com/ to be our Sherpa. He'd lugged most of our stuff back to San Diego for us (thanks, Kevin!), but we still had our stuff from the evening before and didn't really want to carry it on the bikes. So, we made a quick trip to the U.S. Postal Service and were super lucky to run into a non-conformist government worker who--after a round of charades through the window--was nice enough to give us some priority mail boxes so we could ship our stuff back to ourselves. (I can hardly wait to get it: Ohhhh, a package for me?! )

We rode along the coast as much as possible and it was really beautiful. Aside from some wind, the weather was perfect. Too bad my friend Elaine got stung by a bee. Her whole lip swelled up and she started getting dizzy. Not good. We stopped and rested awhile. She felt better (but still looked funny) and we just took it slow and made our way down the coast while making fun of her and reminding her that many women pay big bucks to get the bee-stung-lips look. She really appreciated that and told us so. =)

And This Just In
And that brings me close to current. I've just learned that the final seven contestants from the Scott & BR Cycling Challenge will all be in the xx1090 studio tomorrow around 6:30 a.m. for the big announcement....who is going to win this thing? Adam, Alex, or yours truly? More on that later...