Sent from my iPhone
July, 2009
29
Jul 09
I wonder why my iPhone says AT&T M-Cell. What the he’ll is M-Cell? Maybe a data network that works?
26
Jul 09
Letter to Red Ribbon Ride Donors
Dear Friends & Family,
It has been one week now since I completed my 5th Red Ribbon Ride. It was a wonderful, but challenging, four days. This year we had unseasonable cool weather and a lot of wind. We began on Day 1 at 7:00 AM from Mall of America with our destination being Lake City. On Day One there is an option do a Century Ride which is a 100 miles in one day. My group and I decided that we should do it. When we got to Lake City we shuttled back to Red Wing and then rode the last stretch one more time. We Averaged 18.8 MPH on our century which is really good. We did have the wind in our favor most of the day though. It was pretty challenging on the body, however, I am very happy to be able to say I have done a century. Day 2 and Day 3 were approx. 75 miles each. These were the more challenging days because of the wind and cool temperatures. Luckily, with some great teamwork, we worked together to get through this by taking turns leading and drafting off each other. Day 4, the last day, was rather easy as it was only 45 miles. We had really nice weather as well.
This year was an exceptional year because of the people I rode with. I would like to give a huge thanks to Joe Ede and Wendy Reed for making such a great ride. I rode every mile with them. I have known Joe now since I started doing the Red Ribbon Ride five years ago. I remember the day, over 5 years ago, when I went to an orientation and didn’t know anyone. I also didn’t know if I wanted to do this ride yet, but wanted to learn more. Joe went out of his way to get me involved, meet people and prepare for my first ride. We have been friends ever since. Joe has done 37 AIDS Rides since 1997 and has raised close to $100,000 for AIDS service organizations and AIDS vaccine research. He is a true inspiration. Wendy I met last year. She is the captain of Team Target. Last year was the first year for Team Target. I have been fortunate enough to be on the team for two years now. In just two years, Wendy has grown this team to one of the top teams that participate in the Red Ribbon Ride. Our team raised over $42,000. We are pretty much tied with Team OZ right now with donations still coming in. Wendy has spent a lot of time organizing the team and working with executives from Target to grow their participation in the ride. Both these extraordinary people made the ride this year, well, extraordinary!
Speaking of extraordinary, i’d like give a shout out to you, the ones that enable me to do these rides by donating. Together we raised $1750. This is $250 more than the minimum needed to ride. This is approx. $5.99 per mile. Believe me, this number runs through me head when every mile into the wind is a struggle. For some reason knowing this number makes it not so bad. This year was different than previous years when it comes to fundraising. In previous years I had mostly repeat donors. This year I am happy to say that out of 27 donations, 18 were from people that donated to this ride for the first time. I again received tremendous help from the company I proudly work for, W3i. What is even more amazing is the help that I got from the employees at W3i. 10 donations came from them. The amazing thing about this is that I didn’t even ask directly. My co-workers saw my tweets and Facebook postings about the ride and helped me out. I am happy to say I work with a great bunch of people and I hope I can return the favor for them.
So, what’s next for me? Well, earlier this year I signed up for the Minnesota AIDS Trek which is a 2 day/160 mile ride from the cities to Duluth in September. That will be all the charity rides for this year then. Now that I have done the Red Ribbon Ride for 5 years, I am going to challenge myself further to help others by doing an additional ride next year. It is called the Alaska Ride. It is a 500 mile bike ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage. The really cool thing about this ride is that I get to pick the beneficiary. I will be working in the next one to two months to select a beneficiary. I am also going to attempt to find corporate sponsorship for this ride because of the amount of funds that need to be raised. If you have any suggestions for either, please send your ideas and/or connections my way.
Thank you again for joining me in the fight against HIV/AIDS. I will continue riding until we see the end of this disease.
Michael
