Weekly Fundraising and Training Update!

We had a very exciting week for Bike MS training and fundraising! We had our first official donor giveaway, organized a night of fundraising and awareness, and got some great training rides in. Details after the break...

Fundraising Update

On the fundraising front, there's a lot to talk about! First, I'd like to congratulate my friend, and frequent running partner Paul Bolick, who won the first donor incentive prize of the year - Paul will be choosing either free Tabata classes or a session with my personal trainer Jimmi Stanton at A2O Fitness! I have one more prize from A2O Fitness to give away, and I am happy to offer it to one lucky donor this week (the week of May 27th.) This prize could not have gone to a better person. Paul has been a great supporter of Bike MS the past two years, and also a great supporter of my personal fitness journey the past few years.

Me and Paul, Race to Robie Creek 2011

Thank you and congratulations, Paul! And thank you so much to Jennifer Ludington from A2O fitness for the generous donor prizes!

More exciting fundraising news - Wiseguy Pizza Pie in downtown Boise will be hosting a Bike MS fundraiser on Monday, June 3rd! A percentage of their profits from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm that evening will be donated to my Bike MS campaign. I am very excited for this, and I hope it turns out to be a great evening for both Wiseguy Pizza and for my fundraising efforts. I wrote an article about this event over the weekend, more details can be found here. I hope to see you there on the 3rd!

Megan Nettleton and I will also be on-hand at Meet Me Monday the evening of June 3rd, hosting a community table to talk about upcoming cycling events from the MS Society - including, of course, Bike MS: Harmon's Best Dam Bike ride on June 29th and 30th. Meet Me Monday is located right next door to Wiseguy Pizza Pie, so I'm hoping the Meet Me Monday crowd will pack Wiseguy to help support the cause.

Last but not least, my old pal and former co-worker Dave Slocum has organized a charity golf scramble on Saturday, June 1st at the Boise Ranch Golf Course. We're expecting at least 12 golfers with a suggested minimum donation of $50 from each participant. The invite list is currently a group of friends and former co-workers and it should be a great time. I'm hoping we can turn this into an annual event, and grow it year over year. Thanks so much for putting this together, Dave!

Training Update

There's also quite a bit to talk about on the training front! As I mentioned in my previous article about A2O fitness, I've been lifting weights twice a week at A2O with a personal trainer, Jimmi Stanton. I had two more sessions with Jimmi last week. We've been focusing on "functional strength" and core exercises, and I'm convinced these sessions are going to help me withstand the long, 100 mile days on the bike that I have coming up in June.

I also got in three great rides this weekend, and you can see details about all of these rides on my "Strava" widget on the right-hand side of this blog. I've written about Strava before, it's the web site that I use to log all of my bike rides. On Sunday, I had an opportunity to get in a 60 mile ride with my friend and Team WinCo captain Greg Goins. We had a beautiful ride out to Middleton, ID and back. Greg introduced me to the "Three Sisters" on Can-Ada road - a series of three short, steep hills - the first hill having some sections with 15 to 18% gradients - real leg-burners. We also got a great warm shower from an afternoon thunderstorm at mile 58. And, as rides with my teammates often do, we ended up at 10 Barrel Brewing for a cold one. Great afternoon all around!

Today (Memorial Day), I took the opportunity to do some cross-training and climbing work on my mountain bike with my good friend, Rami. Rami and I are doing the Wild Rockies "Ride to Idaho City" on June 15 and 16 -  a two-day, fully supported mountain bike ride from Boise to Idaho City (45 miles each way) with dinner and camping in Idaho City the evening of the 15th.

Me and Rami, Wild Rockies Ride to Idaho City, June 2011

We did some training for that ride today - starting at Fort Boise and riding some single track trails (Mountain Cove, Bucktail, Shane's Loop) before popping out on Rocky Canyon Road and climbing up to Adalpe Summit. From there, we descended to Robie Creek state park, and then we turned around and headed back up the summit. We hit more single-track on the way down (Shane's Loop and Bucktail) before ending the ride back at Fort Boise. When all was said and done, we'd gone 27 miles with about 4,300 feet of elevation gain - which is about 1,000 more than the ride to Bogus Basin. It was a beautiful day today, and that ride was a great workout - and a lot of fun.

Mountain biking is great cross-training - it works slightly different muscles, and often involves steeper climbing and more anaerobic activity (shorter bursts of high-intensity pedaling) than road cycling. I love road cycling, but throwing in the occasional mountain bike ride helps change things up, and will also serve me well on the hills we'll have to climb at Bike MS.

What's coming up this week? More riding! I have a full slate of rides booked for June, with tough rides (century rides, or long-distance mountain biking) planned 4 out of the 5 Saturdays that month - including Bike MS on June 29th and 30th. I'll be writing more about the June rides in an article later this week.

Thanks everyone for making last week a very busy one for fundraising and training. We're just over a month away from Bike MS, so expect to see more activities and updates here as we make our big fundraising push! As always, please feel free to leave a comment or question!