Ultimate Cycling Challenge

Well, on Friday night (prior to the fever setting in!), I participated in the Ultimate Cycling Challenge in Holland. I participated for two different teams; Velo City Cycles and JDRF Ride. I did two hours for each team, giving me 4 straight hours on the trainer.

Now, there is no mileage requirement...so, I could have just about coasted for the 4 hours. But, I figured that so long as I was going to be on the bike anyway I might as well try to get a long-ish workout from the deal. So, the sweating began shortly after we started (at 8PM), and I managed to keep a pretty solid sweat going for the 4 hours. I managed to pedal just shy of 60 miles during those 4 hours...so, I was pretty happy with that effort. That is the longest single bike trip (indoor or outdoor) I have made to date.

Anyway...as for the experience of UCC. It was a blast. I had the chance to do a series of fun things...
1. Spend 4 hours on my bike sweating and making my butt hurt.
2. Spend a 4 hours hanging out with MC...always a fun experience.
3. Spend an hour with Carmen...again, always a fun experience.
4. Listen to a live band. They were pretty good...John Wang and the Test Pilots (I think).
5. Raise some loot to benefit the Lance Armstrong foundation (Livestrong)
6. Spend 2 hours staring at Edward's (read, Skip) backside. Thanks Skip!
7. Win some swag...I got one of those big ol' bottles of HEED (valued at $30ish I think)
8. Watch the Livestrong Manifesto...which was motivating to put it mildly. Nothing helps ease the pain of exercise like hearing testimonials from cancer survivors. Makes a some sweat ans sore muscles seem pretty lame.
9. Spend an hour with Jeff...always a fun experience.
10. Watch a whole bunch of other people sweat...some of which were actually in worse physical condition than me (hard to believe? I know! It's true though).

Anyway...it was a ton of fun and I'm really glad I did it. The last 45 minutes or so were pretty rough. I was trying to keep the pace up, but things were definitely starting to slip at that point. This tells me how far I have to go before I am going to be able to finish that JDRF ride in Death Valley. I've definitely got some work to do.