Haitus from TNT

When I signed up for the next leg of my TNT journey, I couldn't believe how excited I was to re-up and get moving on my bike to help find a cure for blood cancers.

Little did I know that a new job opportunity was going to take me out of the game only 1 month into my training. So, for now, I am foregoing the privilege of working hard to help find a cure. But this is not to say I am done with it forever...just for now.

If you were going to donate to the cause on my behalf, please consider going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's page and finding out how else to get involved. Or send me a note and I can put you in touch with some of my fabulous teammates and you can donate on their behalf instead!

So for this season I'm out of the game...but next season I may be back in the saddle!

Ask questions, think about all we have to gain by finding a cure for blood diseases, and most importantly, get involved!

Kick-Off Meeting!

Last Saturday we had our Tahoe kick-off meeting!

Our Tucson team was small and intimate, but our Tahoe team looks to be incredible!

We haven't started the training yet, but it was great to see some familiar faces from Tucson, and get introduced to the great number of new teammates for our upcoming training season...

As always, I'll be posting here with training updates, fundraiser thoughts, and stories from the road and from my teammates.

Thanks for all the support, and PLEASE help me find a cure for blood cancers by following the link at the top of the page!

Final Training Ride - Tour of the Potomac

Well, on Saturday we had our final training ride. 85 miles, three states, three trails, 7 hours, a very welcome beer, and some lime Tostitos, we achieved victory, and had time for a team picture:
Literally over a river (we had to take a ferry at one point) and through the woods, it was a surprisingly grueling ride with a lot of long hills. The slopes were not too steep, but they just kept going on...and on...and on.

Nearly the whole team was there, as Coach Mark and Coach Ed threatened us with bodily harm if we didn't show up, which made it a great capstone ride for all of us. For 4 of us it was the longest distance we had ever ridden (me included).

If you had asked me at the beginning of this whether I thought I could do it, I would have said no. But thanks to the support of my Team, and thanks to the knowledge I was riding to raise money to cure blood cancers, I did it. We're having a fundraiser on Wednesday to try and meet my fundraising goal, but if you can't make it, I hope you will consider donating now to help save lives!

Here are some pictures from the road this weekend...only a week and a half until El Tour de Tucson and 109 miles!!!

80 Miles! I Can't Believe I Rode My Bike 80 Miles!!!

Well, we're getting close to the finish line...on Saturday the team rode out from Davidsonville, Maryland on a big 80 mile loop that took us all the way to the Chesapeake Bay and back. It was a crazy feeling to know you had 80 miles ahead of you when you start off in the morning, but it is also an amazing feeling to know that you've done it when you make it back to the car after 6 hours!

We had a great team meeting before we started out, as several people met extraordinary fundraising goals. I am humbled by their dedication to the cause and only hope that I can meet my goals and help find a cure for blood cancers, especially after hearing stories of friends and family suffering from the diseases as we ride along the beautiful fall roads. So please think about donating here to help people who really need our empathy and support. Otherwise, you can show up to our fundraiser on November 12th!

The ride went well, despite my sprained ankle. I am very glad I pushed through the ache and finished the ride, because for the first time I can really believe that I can finish the ride. It was quite a long ride with some interesting hills (interesting in a "lord that's a tall hill" kind of way):

We had some great scenery along the way


And then there was the rest stop on the bay...little did we know it would be followed by a brutal hill....

But we made it! And next week it's 85 miles...then two weeks later the big ride at 109 Miles!

The Dangers of Not Biking

Well, I have officially discovered the danger inherent in doing something other than biking when training for a long bike ride...

On Friday I went hiking with a friend and turned over my ankle, and now have a mild sprain. I missed a beautiful 74mile bike ride on Sunday with the team because of it, but have been staying off the ankle in the hope that I can get back on the bike by Thursday and be there for our 80mile ride next Saturday.

Metric Century Completed! (that's 100km or 62miles)

The rides are getting longer, the recovery more difficult, but I can see the goal in the distance!

On Saturday we rode a beautiful ride that goes over 4 covered bridges and took us through the Gettysburg battlefield and through both Maryland and Pennsylvania!

Most of the team was there, and we all got started at 8:30am when it was a mere 42 degrees! Thanks to Maura, I didn't freeze, because she loaned me a windbreaker. And did I ever need the windbreaker! There were 20mph headwinds for at least 20 miles of this ride...it's never a good sign when you're pedaling as hard as you can on a flat stretch and you realize you're only going 9mph...

But it was all worth it because I did it with a great group of people, and saw some amazing scenery as we went. On those bad days, when all you want to do is ask the SAG support to just take you home, it's knowing I've got the support of my team and knowing that I'm doing it for a wonderful cause that makes it possible.

Here's some more pictures from this week's ride...I'll let them speak for themselves:

At the first SAG stop...it was still only in the 40s at this point

A house built in 1830

Doug and I in front of one of the covered bridges

Gettysburg Battlefield Park

Erika on the Road

Half Century!!!

This weekend we accomplished a huge milestone - our first team half century ride (yes...that is 50 miles in one day!) It was a stunningly beautiful Saturday morning in Manassas, Virginia, where the leaves were just starting to turn, it started off at around 47-degrees, but ended up in the low 70s by the time we were finished.

After our ride in Napa, I was seriously hurting for the first 10 miles of the ride, as we did some nasty up and down hills as you can see on the elevations on this course map:



But the coolest thing about Team in Training, is that there is always someone to help out when you need it. When I was aching, struggling to breathe, and wishing I could just stop, Ann and Rachel were right there, egging me on, staying back with me on the hills and helping me get through it. Then later in the ride when someone else had a broken brake on her bike, our team captain Kelly was right there with tools to help out.


This principle of helping out is why Team in Training is so great, and follows with what the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is all about - that we can, together and only together, find a cure for blood cancers. Because it is an endurance event, you have to work together and everyone has to pitch in to help out. I hope you will join me by donating now, and helping all of us reach the finish line...a cure!

In the meantime, here are some other pictures from the ride:

Training Update

It is amazing how much time studying, training, and doing everything else life requires of us takes. So that is my pitiful excuse for not posting in a while. 3 weeks ago our weekend training ride was canceled due to a tropical storm coming through, 2 weeks ago it was raining and lightning on Saturday so the training ride was postponed to Sunday, and then I was sick on Sunday, and last week Doug and I were in California for family visits, a wedding, and finally...a truly challenging half-century (yes...that's 50 miles).

Now that all the travel and craziness has ebbed, I will be back to giving everyone who has been so generous in helping me find a cure for blood cancers updates on how things are going. The big news is that thanks to you, I have raised $1,805, more than 35% of my goal. However, there is still a long way to go, and I need you to reach out to all your friends and tell them about the great work the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is doing to help find a cure for blood cancer!

I thought I'd share some stories from the road. We were out in California for a week, and really needed to get some training in. So we managed to get both cross-training and our long ride in over the course of the week. I have to say, the cross-training was much more exciting than the usual go to the gym type of thing. We hiked in Yosemite for our cross-training! Here's a picture from about 9,000ft at the top of Cathedral Pass:

Just in case folks were wondering, we stayed in Curry Village overnight so that we were able to see both sides (Tuolumne Meadows and Yosemite Valley), and get in some hiking on the Yosemite Valley side before most of the tourists. The scary thing is we were staying in the tent cabins that this week were hit by avalanches...but fortunately we were there last week before the avalanches happened. But waking up nice and early allowed us to get this great shot from Sentinel Dome of Half Dome:

But the real training happened on Monday, where we stayed in Sonoma, rented bikes in Napa, and with the help of the nice folks at the bike shop found a route to ride a 50-mile training ride. And there's where the fun began. First of all...never rent bikes when you've been training for endurance rides - we were both miserable very quickly, as we were not used to the geometry of the bikes. Second of all...make sure you know what the terrain is going to be before you set out on a loop. We started on our loop, and after about 10 miles of climbing (I mean ALL climbing for 10 miles), we realized between the bikes and the hills, there was just no way we would be able to do our 50. We made it to this gorgeous lake before we turned back though:

But we didn't give up! Instead of doing the loop, we rode back to the Silverado Trail and rode out until we hit mile 32 on our odometers before riding back:

And the best part...we finished! And we got a great shot of us in front of some beautiful vines...

Meet the Coaches

Well we had a fun ride on Saturday, with a team picnic to follow. It was a great time riding up Beach Drive, with a detour over a hill that nearly put me on my back. Training has been a challenge for sure, mainly finding the time for the longer rides to get some serious saddle-time. But for me, the biggest challenge has been the hills. On Saturday, our ride had a 200-foot rise in it. Challenges are the name of the game in what I'm trying to do here, from fundraising, to distance, to learning new skills, to hills. I'm finding that I get through it by remembering how much greater the challenges are that LLS' beneficiaries are dealing with, and by having a great team behind me.

We've got two team coaches, Ed Cosgrove and Mark Frieden.
Both are TNT alumni and have dedicated themselves to this cause many times over. But the best part is they clearly love to help others get involved and succeed, both for the cause and for themselves. When I was struggling up the hill, Mark was right there egging me on and making sure I didn't give up. I admit I had to stop for a few seconds about 3/4 of the way up, but I made it all the way to the top!

Next time hopefully the hill will be a little easier, and I finally got clip-ins on my bike so I'm hoping it will make every mile that much more efficient...once I stop falling over that is!

The First Of Many Early Wakeup Calls...

On Saturday, August 23rd, at 7:30AM, Doug and I left the house on our bikes for our first ever Team in Training group ride (which ended up being about 28 miles!), beginning our quest towards our first century ride, and helping raise money to fight blood cancers.

Clearly, this is a picture from before we started any serious riding....

There is a great park in Washington, DC, right next to the Potomac River, called Hains Point. It is often used by exceptionally good riders for time trail training, as it is a flat 2-mile loop with two wide lanes. We added an extra 6 miles each way by riding our bikes down to Hains Point through Rock Creek Park (an easy downhill on the way from Adams Morgan, but a somewhat torturous uphill on the way back) and the goal was 5 laps around the park, which we accomplished. Here's a map of our ride:

We were far from the elite, but the first meet-up with our group was a great time. We will be spending a lot of time "in the saddle" with these folks, all of whom are involved in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for their own reasons. Some have friends or family members that are fighting cancer, others just want to do something challenging and support a great cause while doing it. I've discovered you can get to know people pretty quickly when you're riding along for 20+ miles at 15 miles-per-hour chatting!

But in the end, it is all about having something in common: a committment to riding for a great cause, and feeling like you are truly making a difference.