33 Days to Go!

Hello All!

It's been a little while since our last installment of "Luke offers up half-witted blabberings in exchange for donations to charity." About 6 months, in fact... we seem to be working ourselves into a semiannual thing, don't we?

Once again, I'll be riding in the Hill Country Ride for AIDS... which is a bit of a misnomer, since it's sort of a ride against AIDS, or at least against some of the affects thereof. So just to clarify: in no way do I support, condone or encourage the activities of any retrovirus. In fact, I'll go so far to say that retroviruses suck. Hard. Thus the ride in support of those who are fighting the good fight against HIV and AIDS. And thus the raising of funds to support said cause. And thus this post... and back we come.

(Quick Disclaimer: I'm in a bit of a weird mood--I just got back from Argonne National Lab in Chicago where I watched X-rays bombard my sample for 4 days straight... so putting my "normal world" hat back on has been a bit of a stretch. If I start typing in straight 1's and 0's you'll know why...)

This year's ride is a bit of a different animal than last year's. Last year, I asked you all to undertake this new thing with me--something I'd never done before. Something that was a new physical and mental challenge for me, as well as a good cause for those we could help together. In the Fall, I upped the ante a bit with the distance (or tried to at least...).

Now, cycling is now a full-blown graduate-student-sized-bank-account-busting hobby, and I don't expect the distance we'll be riding to be terribly difficult (it'll be a good workout, for sure, but I have no doubts that I'll finish).

But while the ride is no longer this big new challenge, it is still important. Someone living with HIV and AIDS is no less affected this year than they were last year--indeed, with current levels of non-profit revenues very low because of the recession, they may be more affected this year than they were last year.

I've never been a big fan of the groups and organizations that fundraise through guilt-trips, so I hope that's not what that last paragraph came across as. Rather, I'm just hoping that we can take this plunge again together--and help some people despite that we've done it before.

And I still promise many embarrassing pictures of my too-large tuckus in my too-small spandex shorts. So you've got that going for you. Which is nice.

As before, you can follow our progress at the blog: http://chafingforacause.blogspot.com

For the Web 2.0 among you, I can be followed @lukechafes on Twitter. (These tweets should also show up on the right hand side of the blog, if i did everything with that right.)

And finally... my donation page is here, for those of you I haven't scared away with my previous tuckus pictures: http://www.hillcountryride.org/goto/lukegmarshall. You can find all our teams' donation pages by clicking the tab above!

Thank you all so much for your support! The ride's in 33 days, so I've gotta hit some asphalt!

Ride happy,

Luke

Hill Country Ride Kick Off

Over the last two weeks us Chaffers have been coming back together after the long harsh Austin winter. Last weekend Luke and I were able to eek out about 45 miles that included the dreaded Red Bud Trail climb.

Today Andrew and I participated in a Hill Country Ride for AIDS Training Ride. The HCR Training Rides are one of the reasons I fell in love with HCR. They are always rollicking rides that come complete with queue sheets, SAG Wagons, and sometimes bananas!


Each ride begins with a safety reminder, an overview of the route, and the ride leaders for each length identify themselves.

Fast riders line up front, and then each group follows its leader.

We were doing an out and back on the bicycle-friendly Parmer Lane today.

Andrew and I foolishly line up with the "fast riders."

We decided in advance that we would take on the longest route offered, 30 miles, 15 out, and 15 back. Parmer Lane is in Andrew's neck of the woods and he's a regular bike commuter on its wide shoulders.

I show our riding stats as:

28.51 total miles
Averaging 15.9 MPH
27.3 Max Speed
Total ride time (not counting waiting at some of the famous Central Texas highway red lights) being 1 hour 47 minutes

We managed to make a little time for funny faces.

By the time we made it back, most of the participants were long gone.

Here's a picture of Francie.