2007 LiveStrong Challenge - August 26, 2007

by Steve Perks

Took the three hour thirty minute ride down on Saturday afternoon after spending the previous seven days at The Running School. The Expo and packet pick-up was at the Livestrong Village set up on the campus of Montgomery County Community College (17,000 students). There were lots of free giveaways and even more information on the programs that the Lance Armstrong Foundation has in its fight against cancer. Amazing stuff.

hat night there was a dinner for the top fund-raisers. Since Chris Wimmers, Kieran Stack and I had raised enough money to get tickets to the dinner, and Kieran wasn't going, we were able to put enough tickets together for Chris, his wife Jenn, his brother Matt (who was also riding) and three of his kids (two of whom were running the 5K) to attend the dinner. Lance spoke about the history of the Livestrong Foundation at the beginning of the speeches and then finished up the evening with a short talk on the direction the Foundation is headed. Got back from the dinner about 9:30 and met Kieran who came in from his sister-in-law's house to stay at the hotel so we could get an early 5AM wake-up to head to the community college for the ride.

At about 7:45AM the cyclists began their rides, beginning with the faster 100 mile riders and working down to the 10 mile riders and then the 5K run/walkers. In all there were over 1600 run/walkers and 1780 cyclists. T

The ride was incredibly organized, there were multiple signs for each intersection letting you know even before you got to an intersection which way you were going. Each intersection was manned, with all the major intersections having police controlling traffic. We did not have to stop for a stop sign or stop light for 100 miles since we were waved through as the traffic was stopped. There were 8 rest stops along the way with food, drink, porta-johns, medical tent and a bicycle repair tent. Throughout the ride there were roving vehicles to help fix bike problems or administer aid to anyone who had taken a spill. One of the members of our team hit a big pothole and blew both tires. The repair vehicle was nearby and he had both tubes replaced and he was back on the road in less than 10 minutes.

Lance was out on the ride and Mike Sankier, one of our group members, got lucky enough to ride with him for a portion of the ride. The ride itself was on hilly lightly traveled roads with over 8000' of climbing. A number of the steeper climbs had quite a few cyclists walking their bikes up the hill. Kieran and I rode together with him pulling away going up the hills and me careening down the other side to catch him. Lots of fun! At the finish line they had two chutes, one was for general participants and the other was for cancer survivors. As each survivor finished they were handed a beautiful yellow long-stemmed rose. Mine is in a vase in the kitchen.

As of today the 2007 Philadelphia Livestrong Challenge has raised 2.4 million dollars for the fight against cancer! It was an incredible experience and if everything goes well I'll be back next year.