Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page. I am doing it again!!

As many of you know, last spring and summer I trained with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training for my first 100 mile "Century" bike ride. The ride was in early November on the beautiful FLAT roads of southern Georgia. It was a wonderful experience! One hundred miles is a long time on a bike, but with the flat roads, the help of my teammates, and, I hate to admit, all those hours of training on Atlanta-area HILLS, I was able to complete the century alongside the majority of my teammates.

All of us on the Atlanta Team In Training cycling team are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. When I started TNT, I admit it was primarily a way to pursue my own fitness goals. I very quickly realized that TNT is about way, WAY more than that as I met people who had survived cancer and those who had lost spouses, mothers, fathers, sisters, children, and friends to cancer. Riding a bike up a ridiculously steep hill in 95 degree heat is NOTHING compared to fighting cancer or losing a loved one to cancer. So, I am starting training again. I will be training for a longer ride, the Tour de Tucson (109 miles), at higher altitude, with more hills. And it still won't be anything like having cancer.

Last season the Atlanta cycling team alone raised over $60,000. This money not only supports blood cancer patients and their familes, but is a major source of funding for researchers whose efforts are applicable to other cancers as well. You can check out this link to see how your contribution is distributed:

http://www.teamintraining.org/firsttimehere/themissionandhistory/wherethemoneygoes/

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission. Do it for the cancer patients and the families and the researchers. They are the heros and the ones who really make a difference. I am riding FOR THEM now.

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your support!

Ruth

23 May 2009

No training ride for me today. :( I am out sick with a nasty cold - I may have to flunk the student who gave it to me! The weather does not look promising for this memorial day weekend, but I am hoping to recover and make up the ride on monday...

27 July 2009

Well, I have been training with the Team most weekends this summer, and I am glad to say that, in general, the riding is easier this time. The hills still hurt, but not quite as bad, or for as long. My big struggle this season has been with the heat - I just don't perform well when it is super hot. This will become more of a challenge as our mileage continues to increase throughout August and September!

As my fitness continues to increase I am still struck by the fact that, in some ways, my ability to work with TNT has been a gift given to me by all the people out there who are fighting cancer. Think about that - they are sick, but I get to ride. The great thing about TNT is that I get to give back, complete the circle, by raising funds to help with research and patient support. Really, it is the least I can do, you know? Please consider a donation, no matter how small. Every little bit makes a difference!

5 October 2009

I just donated $450 that shows up in my name - I forgot to change the name box on the donation. That money is the proceeds of a garage sale that my team mate Diane Borchers and I put together mostly from items from her house. As we worked on the sale we talked a lot about Diane's late husband David Borchers. It sounds like he was a great guy, and had I not been distracted by fiddling with a cranky web browser, I would have had that donation show up saying, "In Memory of David Borchers." So thank you Diane, and based on what I learned about Dave during the days we worked together, I am sorry I never got to meet him. I can imagine that that engineer and this artist would have found interesting things to talk about.