After chickening out two previous years this year I'm determined to enter in the MS Bike to the Beach. It's a grueling 150 mile two day ride that starts at Columbia SC and ends at beautiful Myrtle Beach.
Join 2,500 cyclists from across the region as they ride the southeast’s premier cycling event, the annual Start to Finish MS Breakaway to the Beach Bike Ride. This year, we are excited to announce a new, two-day, 150 mile course that begins and ends in beautiful Myrtle Beach, SC! This new and improved rally route offers cyclists the option of riding a 35 and 75 mile course each day, and a 100 mile course on Saturday. Fully supported rest stops are located every 6-10 miles, including food, drink and restrooms. This ride is fully supported by bike mechanics, mechanics, medical personnel, support wagons, police, route marshals, massage therapists and dedicated volunteers.
Since I'm serious about doing this event I've started training and have suckered in a friend of mine. He mistakenly agreed to doing the ride while drunk one evening and little did he know I would hold him to it! Seriously, he's excited to do the ride and we are a good pair because we push each other. Our training so far is one hour of biking and one hour of running every tuesday through friday. Damn I'm hurting. It's week two so I'm starting to get in the groove but the last few days we've really stepped things up.
Another good thing about doing this ride is that it's raising money for MS research. I have to get people to sponsor my ride so I might ask for donations closer to the event. You have been warned! I've got six months to train which should be lots of time to turn myself into Lance Armstrong...okay maybe not Lance...but someone that can actually attempt this ride. I see two major challenges ahead:
When I say intense heat I'm not kidding. The bike ride is in late September when temperatures here are still in the low to mid 30's. That's the main reason I've chickened out in the past. I thought the heat would kill me. It's now closing in on three years we've been here (wow) and I think I may finally start to be climatized (well as much as a Northerner can anyways) to the point where I can survive the ordeal. Here's to hoping anyways.
I'll keep you posted on our progress. Wish me luck!
We had a dilema recently. Should we get a kayak or should we get a new bike for Robbi. It was a tough choice but in the end we figured the bike was the best bet since Robbi's old bike wasn't doing so well. Maybe we will get kayak's next year.
After much research she ended up getting a sweet Gary Fisher Marlin GS. She wasn't sure how she liked the women's version since she's used to riding men's bikes but after a few rides she was sold...