Friday, April 03, 2009
Biking to Uganda
With the dislocation I won't be able to enjoy springtime on my bicycle for a while, especially since, as we know, I tend to fall on my left shoulder far too often. Last night, however, I got to ride outside - on a stationary bike in support of Building Tomorrow's Bike to Uganda Fundraiser. The organization works to raise "awareness and funds to build and support educational infrastructure projects for vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa." For the bike fundraiser, anyone can sign up to ride for an hour or more on stationary bikes set up on the university lawn near the Rotunda, and sponsors donate money for each mile ridden. The goal is to collectively ride 7,354 miles and raise $40,000. As an added bonus, we are apparently racing VA Tech to see which school can reach their goal first.
Last year I didn't find out about the event until I saw people riding on one of the last days, and the same thing might have happened this year if one of the Hydra girls hadn't emailed everyone about it. She was able to recruit a number of frisbee girls and guys, including some of my favorite winter league teammates, and we all had a good time pedaling away on the fog covered Lawn. It was a highly entertaining ride, though it would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't been sick. Yup, the universe decided that going through thesis crunch time with an injured arm wasn't annoying enough, so it saddled me with a monster of a sore throat too. I wasn't, however, the only one wearing a sling - one of the frisbee guys had injured his shoulder at a tournament the same weekend but came out to ride as well.
I didn't keep track of how far I rode - very unlike me, I know - but most of the time when I looked down at the speedometer I was pleasantly surprised to be going around 20 mph. My legs never got tired but breathing got very difficult, so I was actually glad that the organizers decided to pack things up a little early. I wanted to support them more by buying a Bike to Uganda t-shirt, and since they only had large sizes left (of course) I got one for Kyle, who was really disappointed that the event didn't coincide with one of his visits. They threw in a free UVA shirt in my size and entered me in a raffle, which was exciting; I don't have any idea what I could win, but I'm not going to turn down a raffle. (Unless it's that colonoscopy raffle that I keep seeing advertised - what is going on there?) Anyway, I'm very glad that I dragged my sick and injured body out in the misting rain to ride a bit of the way to Uganda. Major kudos to Building Tomorrow; I really hope they reach their goals and I encourage everyone to support them however you can.
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| posted at: 18:26 |
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