Tour de Cure Event Day – A Personal Story

What a wonderful day to ride!

Thank you all for making the 2018 Tour de Cure Orlando great!  You did an amazing job assisting me in raising $1,230 for the American Diabetes Association.  This was a tough year to ask for donations considering all the major tragedies that happened throughout the nation. This is why I really appreciate you for what you do!

You were part of Orlando’s TeamOne’s efforts which raised over $22,750. TeamOne 2018 consisted of 18 individual riders, 2 runners, and 1 virtual rider. Considering everything everyone was going through this year, I’m humbled and grateful for the donations we have received thus far because every penny counts. I have an ADA Tour de Cure shirt sticker for display on my cubicle in honor of every donor. You can see these in the image of yellow jerseys to the right that displays the names of my friends who donated and assisted in my climb to being a Champion for Diabetes. Every team member made it to Champion.

On Sunday, March 25th, I participated in the American Diabetes Association Lake Nona Tour de Cure 52 mile ride. The temperature started in the high 60’s. Today was advertised to be a beautifully mild day with the notorious Florida wind not being a problem at only 4 – 10 mph with 15-mile gusts.

The 52, 63, and 102-mile rides started first at 7:30 am. The 10 and 25-mile riders followed at 8:30 am.

I was riding the 52-mile course and it started in TeamOne fashion, all together in a group, as we crossed the starting line. It started off as a chilly morning 57 degrees but Mother Nature was warming the morning up nicely. One the sun appeared and the light breeze began to blow at an average 4 – 8 mph provided much more warmth, which kept the temperature at an average of 77 degrees which was great for riding.

We passed the first rest stop at the 9 miles marker at about 20 mph, as it has become a standard for this group. This only meant that now we are committed to making it to the second rest stop at the 17.5-mile marker. We approached the second stop at 17.8 mph and only stopped for 10 minutes. The third stop was only 13 miles away which we approached at 19.1 mph and again only rested for 10 minutes. We took off with only one more rest stop which was 12 miles away. We approached the last and final rest stop at 18.3 mph for another 10 min break.

When we left the last rest knowing we were on the home stretch with only a 10 miles remaining. Today, we finished the strongest we have ever finished by charging down Lake Nona Blvd and up the overpass while fighting the now 11 mph headwind with a sense of accomplishment.

Our fourth year running, this ride was a great ride. It was one of the smoothest rides to date. We rode once again as a team, in a line, and it looked great to see the “SAIC” jerseys all lined up moving past everyone for the fourth year, but not 6 riders like last year. We were ten riders strong on the 52-mile course. We also picked up 4 of the 25-mile riders as well on the overpass. A sight to see as 14 of us riding together across the finish line. A perfect day without incident!!! 🙂

I believe that “A person’s true wealth, is measured by the good they do in this world!” … for this, you should feel wealthy and very good about yourself!

Images of the day can be seen on the team story page: https://teamonecycle.com/2018/03/lake-nona-fl-ada-tour-de-cure-12/

Stats for the day