Voice Post: 2012 PMC Friday: Sturbridge

[ornoth]

The following is a transcription of a phone post that originally appeared in my main journal, here.

Hey, it's late Friday evening on the eve before the Pan Mass Challenge kicks off.

I'm out in Sturbridge. We came out pretty early today, so we got to hang around the hotel, and there's a nice pond behind there, so we hung around there, saw some ducks, and just kind of took it easy for the afternoon, which is a pleasant change.

Also, at the same time my pre-ride emails generated about a dozen new donations, so I've passed one of my final goals of surpassing $9,000 raised this year, and also surpassed last year's fundraising total, as well. And I'm about $200 short of having raised $10,000 this year, which is more than I had raised at this point in the year ever before. So this has really been a great year and I very much appreciate all the donations and everyone's support, because it's really been a fabulous year for fundraising, even at this early date. There's always more donations that come in after the ride, but everyone's been very forthcoming and very supportive this year, and it's very much appreciated.

The only real other news as far as today's events was my buddy Jay, who was biking in from the New York border. He did the extra 95 miles for the 3-day ride going all the way from the Massachusetts border. And he actually destroyed his rear wheel less than an hour into the ride and got really lucky, got a replacement, and actually I was able to catch up with him and surprise him on his arrival in Sturbridge at the end of the day. So that was kind of rewarding.

Also things look really good for tomorrow. I think it's going to be a really sweaty day; it's going to be certainly in the upper 80s and very humid. So it's going to be very summery, with the potential for some showers at the end of the day; we'll see how that goes.

The only negative right now, and it's a very minor irritation, is I managed to re-infect myself with some of the poison ivy that I had maybe a month ago. It's just a couple small spots, but it's on my hands, so that's a little bit of an annoyance, but it's only a minor inconvenience.

Looking forward to a real nice ride tomorrow. We'll be taking it easy, and coverage will start at 5:30 in the morning when we leave Sturbridge, and I'll be checking in periodically throughout the day at each rest stop. Look forward to that! But so far everything's going well, and I'm very happy and very excited to have a great ride tomorrow. So I will talk to you then! I hope you'll enjoy the updates. Thanks!