Decision Time

Today I did the Austin Race for the Cure 5K with my friend H (we walked it). They were expecting 19,000 people, and from the looks of things, all 19,000 showed up. It was an incredible sea of people (and dogs) as far as the eye could see in front of and behind us. It filled me with the most amazing feeling of happiness, and I want to do more. I have been in a serious slump lately and it's time to make the decision to get out of it.

So what does this have to do with Lou Diamond Phillips you ask? I'm getting to that.

In April of 2004, my sister and I signed up, trained for and rode in the Hill Country Ride for AIDS. It's an amazing 120 mile, 2-day ride through the VERY hilly countryside. The money that is raised supports multiple agencies that provide vital care and services to thousands of people with HIV/AIDS 365 days a year.

We when we started training, riding 3 miles was hard for me, and the first time we did a 20 mile ride, I thought I was going to die. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look a it), when the ride rolled around, Austin was experiencing torrential rainstorms, so the first day got rained out. We ended up only riding about 60 miles. Lou Diamond Phillips rode the ride though, so that sort of made up for the wet weather. I snapped the photo above at our lunch pit stop. He never knew he had two stalkers sitting just a table away. The ride was amazing, and I have never had such a sense of accomplishment as I did crossing the finish line.

We signed up for the 2005 ride, but then I became really busy trying to plan a wedding. In addition, all the rainy weather kept us from training as much as we needed to (anyone in Austin remember the MONTH of rain we had in November?) So, I am determined to do it next year. I felt a little disappointed that I didn't get to actually "finish" the ride in 2004, and I want to prove to myself that I can do it.

So here it goes. I'm going to ride 120 miles in the 2006 Hill Country Ride for AIDS.

Get ready for a lot of posts about sore muscles (especially a REALLY sore ass that makes it hard to sit down), falling down, sunburns and getting really sick of power bars and gatorade. Oh yeah, I will be soliciting donations, too :) I think I raised somewhere around $800 in 2004, and I want to go over $1000 this year.

I guess I need to get on my bike! It has some serious cobwebs on it.