Sea to Sea Bike Tour: Busy, Busy, Busy

So much going on. Can you be so busy with biking that your too busy to bike? When they say finish up your fundraising by April so you can concentrate on cycling, I'm learning why they say that. I've been riding daily which gets difficult with the weather and pulls from life. You definitely have to prioritize things. Hard to do when you want to do everything and there's so much else to do.

May long weekend is open the cottage weekend. Up we go to put docks and boats in the water. Lots of chores to do. But there's no biking I can do. So I decide to go for a run. My knees start to hurt, so I go for a nice refreshing swim. The ice just came out a few weeks earlier. Good for the knees but not enough of a workout so I grab a kayak and paddle out. I'm going at a pretty good clip and think, now I'm getting some good exercise. I'm about a half mile from being back to the cottage when a boat with two conservation officers stop me. Apparently you need to be wearing a life jacket when you're in a kayak. Who knew? $250 dollar fine he tells me. Well I wasn't going down that easy. If I was going to pay they were going to hear it. So I let them have it. I explained to them in my best long winded approach all about sea to sea and my training. I had a captive audience. They said they never don't give tickets for this and that they would have to follow me back. After 1/2 mile of praying and paddling I returned to the dock. When they knew I was safe they told me to donate the fine money to the cause! How awesome is that? Life jacket on and out I went again.

As I've been cycling the kms are slowly going up. Some days seem harder than others. It's not easy to bike when its cold and rainy out. My knees don't like the cold, but I keep going and now I'm up to 40+ kms per day.

Do you ever have it when the Lord knocks on your heart and says you should do this? I will, later I respond. Then He knocks again, and later I say again. I talk to my wife about it, and she says now is later. So I pick up the phone and I call Katie Ryzebol. She's also riding the full ride and lives only 15 minutes away. After a good talk we made plans for her to join me the next Sunday as we speak at a neighbouring church about our sea to sea journeys. It was great to tell people about this great cause and our personal stories. Both our stories are similar even with the 20 year age gap. Both of us started in December with new bikes and no experience. What were we thinking?

Last Monday I was involved in a golf marathon to help raise money for the local Christian elementary school, HMDCS. I golfed 140 holes between 7 am-4:30 pm. Well I hurt in places on my legs I didn't think could hurt, again, what was I thinking? The next day I didn't feel like moving and was hobbling around. That night I thought to myself, I should really bike, so out I went and to my surprise I felt okay. Apparently you use different muscles golfing than biking.

This past Saturday was a sea to sea fundraising baseball tournament. We had 9 teams, lots of food, fun and great baseball. Thanks to all the people who came out and played and supported. Great to see so many people come. What an awesome day! Special thanks to Joe for coming out and cooking all the delicious food. John for the bases, Brian for he generator, trailer and other supplies. Grace and Elaine (sisters in law) for helping out with the food service and for being available to help my wife wherever needed. Of course I give the rest of the credit to my awesome wife for organizing and pulling off this busy and eventful day. The Lord truly blessed the day with great weather. The experts were calling for rain, thunder and lightening every hour in the morning and rain again in the late afternoon. We did get rain, a light shower for about 45 minutes and then the sun came out and it was HOT!! We were able to raise another $2600 for sea to sea. Thank the Lord!