Check-in and Course Change

Team Rigel is here in Beaverton, OR and we are very excited for our respective rides and walks tomorrow. The check-in for the event was today at the Tiger Woods Center on the Nike Campus. The registration area and expo were amazing and inspirational. There are thousands of participants and volunteers all here with a purpose to beat cancer down. Here are some photos from the check-in.

The tribute wall.


Tour de Dudster! Miss you Dad.




In honor of Ruth. Fight like hell!


Team Rigel


Oh yeah, the weather is predicted to be so bad the organizer's have called off the 100-mile route for safety reasons. It is supposed to be in the 30s on Bald Peak and driving rain. Instead we will be rolling the 70-mile route, which cuts out the big mountain climbs. Sara will have to wait until another day to do her 100-miles, but I can assure you she was ready to knock it out tomorrow.


Our next blog entry will be after the ride and post-ride party. Some pics of dinner with Lance to look forward to as well.

Thanks again to all our supporters for making this such a memorable experience. Together we are making a difference in the fight against cancer.

LIVESTRONG

Andy

No Rain Dance

The forecast for Beaverton, OR on Sunday is rain and lots of it. The weather will further add to the challenge of the 100-miles. We will do our best to battle the elements including use of fenders, rain gear, glasses. Whatever it takes to persevere in spite of Mother Nature's lack of cooperation.

If you know a "no rain" dance, please do it for us on Sunday. Also, if you find yourself curious on Sunday, you can check out an ODOT web cam on the highway near Beaverton to get an idea of what the weather is doing during our ride. Click Here to Launch the Web Cam.

Andy

$5,000

Today, Team Rigel successfully reached its goal of raising $5,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. When I first had the idea of organizing a team back in May, I picked $5,000 out of the air and thought it was probably not an attainable goal, but was something to shoot for nevertheless. Now, with less than a week to go until the event, I am humbled and inspired by the support of all the family, friends, and colleagues that made this far-fetched idea come to fruition. Thank you so very much.

For those that have not donated yet and would like to, there is still time. If you donate by the evening of Wednesday, September 26, your contribution will still count towards our individual and team objectives. Sara is very close to earning a ticket to the Fundraising Appreciation Dinner to be held on Saturday night before the ride. I bet she does it.

Thank you again and LIVESTRONG!

Andy

The Bell Lap

"One week to go! One week to go!"

I can hear it like I'm passing through the Start/Finish line of a bike race. It's the bell lap. This is the time when, no matter how hard it feels, no matter how much it hurts, you go all out to the finish.

So, we've got one week to go. I can hardly believe it's almost ride time. I never would have thought just 4 months ago that I would feel capable of riding these 100 miles. I still don't know if I can do it in the time allotted, but I'll finish, even if the party at the finish line is already over. My training has slacked a bit in recent weeks, due to the shorter days, colder and wetter weather (Fall just HIT us here in Seattle). I'm hoping for about 3 hours on the bike tomorrow, in between the Star-Crossed festivities.

This is the last week for collecting donations, and I'm already have more than $2000. I am so proud and lucky to have 43 individual donors who have honored, memorialized, and supported those that they love. I'd like to raise another $1000 to support the Foundation (and to get a ticket to dinner with Lance on Saturday night!). When I started, I thought I might be lucky to raise $500, and I was so pleased when I hit that goal so quickly. Then, I changed my goal to $1000, and more recently to $3000. I'm sure I'll be close by next weekend.

Tonight, it's 6:45 pm, almost dark, and raining. Let's hope tomorrow's ride brings better weather and maybe a bit of sunshine. It's time to push through the final lap.

My Trek Fitness 7.5 FX LiveStrong

Trek donates $25 from the sale of each of these LiveStrong models to the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research. I'm very pleased with it (thank you, Andy and Sara, for introducing me to it). It has an aluminum frame, a Bontrager carbon front fork, a Shimano crank and Shimano derailleurs. We've added to it Andy's Time Atac clipless pedals. Very nice ! I'm proud to ride it in memory of Frank Rigel and on behalf of the LiveStrong fundraiser ride in Portland, OR on September 30, 2007.

Helping Hands

I'd like to second Sara's thanks to Andy for being our TeamRigel technician as well as being the TeamRigel captain. I'd especially like to thank Andy for doing more than just putting on my derailleur last weekend ... I can see from the pictures that he is adjusting and checking the mechanics of my Trek LiveStrong bike. Way more than the 10 minutes he forecast ... going the extra mile, he did (Gollum). And it seems that my bike was cleaner when I got it back than when I left it with him -- thank you, Andy !!!

And I'd like to especially thank Marcia and Sara for helping Andy and me with our cycling, even though both of them have demanding full-time jobs, houses to maintain, meals to cook, and their own exercise programs to fit in somewhere. Marcia and Sara are there to help us get ready to go out on our rides, to pamper us when we get back (all sweaty and etc.), and to wash our cycling outfits again and again.

Helping hands, helping each other ... one of the important things that life is about.

Wideawake :: LIVESTRONG LIVE

Another great video from the LAF. Beautiful song with a perfect message. Enjoy!

Lance Armstrong Foundation Manifesto

This is why I ride.
Thank you for your support.

Henry's Progress Report

Until four months ago I concentrated almost solely on computer related work and hadn't had any significant exercise for years. My brother-in-law Frank Rigel had died of cancer a couple of months before that, and when his son Andy mentioned the LiveStrong fundraising ride in Portland, the time seemed ripe to do something worthwhile that combined fundraising for cancer research, and cycling, an activity Frank enjoyed and encouraged in his son (Andy is an Expert Class mountain bike racer who recently placed 3rd in the National Mountain Bike Series Finals).

So, I bought a bicycle and started riding.

Since then I've ridden three 100 mile rides, a 92 mile, a 76 mile, two 46 mile, and many of my usual 24 mile ride from Anacortes to Deception Pass and back via Mt. Erie.

Yesterday I rode my bike up Orcas Island's Mt. Constitution for the first time !!! I started from the little village of Eastsound, first going up Flaherty Hill (about 500' elevation increase in 1 mile), then up beautiful Mt. Constitution itself (about 1900' elevation increase in 4.7 miles). The scenery was of fir trees, a narrow road, steep dropoffs, and occasional pocket vistas of the water, nearby islands, and the ferries -- a very pleasant place to improve fitness. I wasn't fast, I tried to keep my heart rate below 140 bpm, to ensure that I would have the best chance of having enough strength to get to the top (I wear a heart rate monitor which transmits to my Garmin Edge 305 cycling computer). I reached the summit 1 hour and 50 minutes after leaving Eastsound. I was so excited I called Coach Andy and my wife Marcia to let them know "I'd done it"! After a few minutes rest I coasted back down the mountain -- Then I WAS fast.

Next time I ride Mt. Constitution I'll work at keeping the heart rate in the 140 - 145 bpm range, and get a little faster.

In the past 110 days I've improved my endurance and my speed, and increased my maximum heart rate from 157 (my theoretical maximum) to 166 beats per minute. I've ridden grades as steep as 24% for a short time, and now believe I can endure the 7,000' elevation gain in the 100 mile LiveStrong Challenge ride. My challenge now, during these next few weeks, is to improve my speed so that I can complete the 100 miles in the 8.5 hours allotted.

I owe a big THANKS !!! to all who've encouraged me along the way, with their help and with their donations to a worthy cause.

If you'd like to join our team by contributing, go to http://portland07.livestrong.org/teamrigel. We haven't achieved our team goal yet, so any contribution you make, even very small donations, to any of the team members, will be greatly appreciated.

But above all, I'd like to encourage you to find some exercise that you enjoy and wouldn't mind doing frequently and regularly -- cycling has made a big difference in my feelings of overall fitness and wellbeing.