Kraken Kronicles

Here is Joe crossing the finish line. That is Jim Crowley not far behind.

Here is the team posing for a photo after the race.

A note from JOE:

Friends,
First I want to take the time to thank all of you for your donations and support as my team and I trained for the Philly 2007 LiveSTRONG Challenge! I am just simply astonished by the amount of people who rose up and donated- Some of you I've never met.

Maybe even more humbling is the number of my donors who actually THANKED me for putting this team together and riding for the cause. I am very honored to be part of the LAF ARMY, and pledge to keep fighting until, as Lance says, "America is smoke free, and cancer is eliminated on the cellular level."

The 2007 Philly Challenge was a very emotional and inspirational cumulative series of events. So much happened: All the speeches at dinner and the post event party, All the sweat on the streets, All the tears of joy on the cheeks, All the smiles as we met new friends, and laughed with old friends and, of course, the sweet memories of the fallen. "The Already Balders" all finished the 40 mile ride, with me coming in last of our group at about 4 hours. It was perhaps the single hardest thing I ever did physically, second only to actually fighting the disease. I am very proud of my team, they really rallied and pushed me to finish, and I'm proud of all of you for your support and confidence in me. "The Already Balders" came away a very energized group of 8 guys, (we are not all bald) and I proudly tell you that we vow to double the team size and quadruple the goal for 2008!

Our team goal was $5,500.00, and thanks to YOU we sailed right past that number and topped out at an astonishing $ 6,480.00!! That is a huge number for a first time team! We want to grow on that energy, and we want you to consider joining us next year, maybe the 10 or 40 mile bike ride, or the 5K run/walk.

Thanks to all your donations, I qualified for the award ceremony dinner with Lance Saturday night. There I was able to meet a young Testicular Cancer patient who has been on various chemo treatments for over a year now, and is fighting with everything he's got. He and I have spoken several times over the past year, and he was actually infused on Saturday morning with an experimental chemo up at Sloan-Kettering, then he and his brother took the train to the dinner. He was so excited when he met with Lance, there was not a dry eye around. He is only 21 years old.

I can tell you that on the ride the hills were tough, which they were, and there should have been AC inside the gym, and I rode a mountain bike instead of a road bike... but none of that compares to this kid's challenge, and riding for him got me through the final stages. Thank you Danny, for giving me strength.

A fun thing happened for our team, we created custom bicycle jerseys for the ride. We had the team logo on the front, and each riders nickname on the back. (The team name and logo has a story behind it, I'll save that for another email). The LAF announced a jersey contest, so we entered my jersey, and out of 280 teams we were finalists, and came in second at the award ceremony! I feel we made a huge impact for a first time team, and I couldn't be happier.

Labels: Cancer, Family

# posted by Obernai : 11:22 PM