Git along, leetle dogies!

[ornoth_cycling]

Well, PMC weekend is here. Are you ready?

I think I’m ready. It’s been an interesting spring, though.

Last fall I got a new road bike—a carbon fiber jobbie I’ve nicknamed “The Plastic Bullet”—and have really enjoyed it, having put 2200 miles on it since last October.

In the first five months of the year, I rode 1500 miles, which included my new 28 mile per day commute and the Boston Brevet Series 200k, a 125-mile ride that I’ve long wanted to do, and completed in eight and a half hours.

Unfortunately, in May and June Boston received record-shattering amounts of rainfall. That, combined with three weeks of travel for work, made it really difficult to train during the months leading up to this weekend.

That business travel also made it difficult to get started on my fundraising. Although I usually send my first letters out at the end of May, this year I waited until the Fourth of July. But despite that, my sponsors have really been very generous, and I’ve already fulfilled my my personal goal for 2006 of raising a record $4,000. That means that over the past six years I’ve raised over over $20,000 for cancer research, treatment, and prevention. I actually think I’ll break $5,000 this year, because I’ve got a dozen more sponsors who haven’t sent their donations in yet!

So if you’ve already sponsored me, let me say thank you once again for your amazing generosity, and the opportunity you’ve given me for doing something so meaningful.

And if you haven’t made a contribution yet, please consider doing so: if not now, then sometime soon (I can take contributions throughout August and September). My page on the PMC site is here— http://www.pmc.org/mypmc/profiles.asp?Section=story&eGiftID=OL0003 —and you can go directly to the donation page here: https://www.pmc.org/egifts/MakeADonation.asp?eGiftID=OL0003

There have been some changes to the route this year. Most notably, we’ll be on the Cape Cod Rail Trail more than we have in the past, as it is partway through being renovated. If you’re interested in looking at it, I’ve created an interactive map of the route using the Google Maps API. You can find it here: http://users.rcn.com/ornoth/pmcmap.html

As usual, New England Cable News will be covering the ride live all weekend. They’ll also have the opening ceremonies Friday evening, and a wrap-up show Sunday evening.

As I did last year, I’ll be phoning in end-of-day posts to my main LiveJournal. So you will be able to get the latest updates at http://ornoth.livejournal.com/

And, of course, shortly after the ride I’ll be posting photos and a writeup of how it went. But right now I’m ready to go, and it looks like it’s going to be an absolutely stella weekend! Even the weather looks to be ideal!

See ya out on the roads!