3 Days To Go

For the past couple months things have been building and building as the 30th gets closer.  It's so hard to believe that it's only three days away and still so much to do.  For the past few weeks when I get off work at night I come home and start my second job of planning the trip.  The fundraising aspect been incredibly rewarding this year but has also been a ton of work.  I have enjoyed every minute of it from making the posters to dropping them off by hand to each of the local shops.  I sent a packet up to Traverse City Michigan for my cousin to distribute around town and I think there are even some posters floating around in Colorado that my mom put up at the USA Pro Challenge.  So all in all the fundraising aspect is in great shape.

However, all that has taken away a little from the insane amount of preparing needed just to complete the ride.  Every hours worth of nutrition is planned in advance and mailed ahead to the stopping points.  I will carry two days worth of nutrition with me on the bike and rely on my drops for the upcoming days.  Packages will go out this week to Harbor Springs and Holland.  I'm all done with that preparation and here is what it looks like.

I'll take energy gels, bars and some snacks to get me through the day on the bike.  You may not know this but the body can only process a limited amount of calories per hour which means that on a typical day I will be loosing way more calories than I take in.  It's like running your car out of gas and only putting enough in to make it the next 10 miles before stopping to refuel again.  

The body generally has enough calories on hand to workout at a high level for about an hour.  After that you need to refuel or you run out of gas.  For this trip that's a scary thought when you are out in the middle of nowhere miles from any people.  So the nutrition planning is the most crucial part of the plan.

Outside of that the route is done with the exception of a few tweaks.  The "Queen Stage" of this years ride will be Day 7 from Traverse City to Ludington.  To avoid some of the major highways I revised the route from last year to go up through Sleeping Bear Dunes Park which added a great deal of climbing to the day.  Here is the elevation profile and map.

The climb out of Traverse is a doozy and one that I'll never forget... I call it the Alpe D'Huez of the north!  And by gosh it feels like it.

Minus the route and nutrition the bike is in the shop getting a final tune up and then it's all systems go for Friday.

I'm still working hard to get more donations before I leave and trying to make one last push to get as close as I can to my goal.

Knowing that for all this work we can are sending over 40 bikes is an amazing feeling and I'm unbelievably happy to do it.  These kids lives will literally be changed forever.