Biking 26.2 with Donna

Donna is a local news talking head who has battled breast cancer...at least twice that I know of. maybe three times. She's fairly athletic, and last year organized a marathon that benefited breast cancer research at the Mayo Clinic. She called it 26,2 with Donna, and it was a huge success.

I don't run. Long ago my knees and I made a pact. If I agreed not to run as a regular form of exercise, they'd agree to continue to function as knees. If I were to run like I did in my 20's, they threatened replacement surgery...so I listened, and agreed. Therefore I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the 26.2 with Donna.

This year, however, quite by accident I found a related bike event. A few weeks ago while googling something else, I came upon Bike 26.2 with Donna. It was a bike event, riding 26.2 miles, benefiting the same cause....breast cancer research at Mayo. It was the marathon distance, but it was bicycling. The event was being held a little less than 10 miles from home.

The synapses started firing in the old Lumberyard brain. I mean...breast cancer research. Worthy cause. I mean, we're talkin' breasts here. Women have 'em. Men love 'em. Gotta save 'em. We wouldn't even have to pack up the car. We could ride from home to the event. Do their 26.2 miles. Then ride back home. Talked to the youngster. he was in. Talked to my neighbor, who rode the MS ride with us and his boys. They're in too.

The ride was yesterday. We got up and walked outside to a chilly 50º morning. It was sunny, but cold. The weatherman promised it'd get warm, but we weren't close to there yet. It wasn't too bad, until we started moving. Once we were doing 18 miles an hour, it was pretty chilly. We were wearing long sleeves under bike jerseys, but just bike shorts. It felt worst on the hands, which even with bike gloves were feeling a bit numb. Everyone was looking at me, and asking, "Whose idea was this?"

The nastiness lasted the whole 8 or 9 miles to the event. We got there about 7:45, and it didn't start until 8:30. That 45 minutes was my savior, because it warmed up quite a bit while we waited. I wasn't expecting a huge turnout. Like I said, I found it by accident, and it wasn't very well publicized. If I wasn't internet surfing one night, I never would have known about it. I was wrong though. I don't know who got the word out, but even if I wasn't in the information pipeline, a lot of people were. There were hundreds of people and cars all over the place.

The ride was beautiful. It was still cool, but not cold anymore, and it was sunny. We were riding out to the beach and along it. I really enjoyed it. It involved back and forth trips across a sizable bridge over the intracoastal waterway...a pretty good workout, and some nice scenery.

The youngster is at the point where he can kick my ass on a bike. So far he's polite enough not to. He held back and stayed with me so we could cross the finish line together. The line of the morning..."Lets ride in together, Dad. You know there will be cameras. Try not to look tired." Yeah. Thanks, buddy. I love you, too. Still, we weren't slouches. I'd say we finished in the top 50 to 75 people, and easily in the top 10% of the field. He was right, too. There were cameras, and they did catch us, but they won't let you download pictures...just link to them and buy prints.

Once we hit the finish line, we hung out for a while, checking out the booths and sponsor tents. I've never really tried protein drinks before, and now I can say...I'm not a big fan. That stuff's a bit chalky. The smoothie booth made for a good chaser to get that taste out of my mouth.

From there we took it kinda slow back home...finishing at about 44 miles on the morning and home by 11:00. It was a blast though.