Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Race to Any Place

This past weekend was the Eighth Annual Race to Any Place, it is the largest stationary bike race in Western Pennsylvania, and an important team fund-raising event benefiting the Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Before I knew I was going to have surgery on my ankle, I volunteered to be the Captain of the Team in Training Alumni bike. Each bike has to raise a minimun of $500, and there are over 80 bikes (I'm not sure exactly how many, but A LOT!). Hopefully you'll get the idea from this picture...
This was one of the coolest events that I've ever seen! They hold it in this huge office building in downtown Pittsburgh, they basically take over the ENTIRE lobby with spin bikes and teams. It is a six-hour relay race, comprised of twenty-four 15 minute heats. Each rider must complete a minimum of a 15-minute heat, and teams may only change riders as new heats are announced. Here is our team cheering on Tracy! She and I did the Marine Corps Marathon together (not like "together"...she was much faster than me!)!
They keep track of how far each team bikes and give out prizes for the top distances. While we didn't win any prizes, we still biked 169 miles! Wooooo hooooo! And, our team only had 6 people (you could have up to 12) so some people did 3, 4, or even 5 heats!
My friend Char was in town from Maryland to visit me (and she is a TNT Tri Alumni), so she was my "stand in"!
It was a great event and it raised over $100,000 for the LLS!!!!! How cool is that???
In other news, I got my kitty's bloodwork back and it didn't show anything! Yay! He has been totally fine since his episode, so hopefully it will stay that way! Thanks for all of your messages about him!

13 comments:

Kelly said...

Glad to hear the kitty's still okay. That seems like an awesome event. Way to go TNT!

Aron said...

oh how fun!!!! that looks like a blast :)

yay for the kitty being ok!

Marlene said...

Wow, what an amazing event! it must have been great to be a part of it,even if you couldn't ride.

Glad to hear kitty is okay!

Run Mommy said...

What a fun event! Nice to do something else that is not always about runnning. GReat work!

Megan said...

That was nice of Char! What else did you girls do - I want to see the shopping and carrying on at the local pubs!

The Laminator said...

Oh, that sounds like so much fun. I'm sure it was real cool to just be spectating and sideline reporting!

And what a relief that kitty is okay. Now we just have to get you all fixed up and we'll be good to go!

Marci said...

That sounds like an awesome event to participate in!

I Run for Fun said...

Sounds like a great event.

So glad your kitty's perfectly fine.

SuperDave said...

What a cool event! I wish we had something like that here where I live.

Marathon Maritza said...

Wow, awesome event! I've never heard of anything like this before!

And I'm so happy to hear your cat is okay :)

TNTcoach Ken said...

Awesome looking event and congrats on the fund raising.

X-Country2 said...

What a cool event! Although I don't think I'd want someone standing over my shoulder "cheering me on". :o)

Anonymous said...

what a cool event for a good cause. awesome job!

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