Seattle lives strong in 2010

Seattle LIVESTRONG Challenge -June 19th & 20th Image courtesy of www.livestrong.org

The LIVESTRONG Challenge Series is the signature fundraising event for LIVESTRONG. For the past thirteen years, the Series has raised over $60 million for the fight against cancer. In 2010, the LIVESTRONG Challenge Series will visit four cities across the U.S.: Seattle, WA; San Jose, CA; Philadelphia, PA; and Austin, TX.

In Seattle, on June 19-20, the LIVESTRONG Challenge took place at the foot of the space needle on the grounds of the Seattle Center. We sent : Austin, Lynne and Milo to join Karla and 6-other of their family, bringing the total to 10 McDonald’s walking in support of Karla’s brother who passed away in August of 2009 due to spinal cancer.

Karla says THANK YOU to everyone who helped make this possible and allowing the whole family to walk together in support. I hope to have more information and photos in the next newsletter.

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Seattle LIVESTRONG Challenge -play back
Story by, Jon Ragsdale; Rubicon-ORBEA's LIVESTRONG Events Manager

I think we need to tell Jon to smile more!

The LIVESTRONG Challenge 2010 this year was again held in Seattle, Washington. The ride started and ended at the Seattle Center in Downtown Seattle (home of the Key Arena, the Space Needle, and the Seattle Experience Music Project (along with a small amusement park). This is the 5th year of the event and the 5th time I have participated.? So far in 5 years I have raised over 5000 dollars for the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

The day started off in a rush as I woke up at 7:50 to my alarm going off. It had been going off since 5:50 and the wake up call for 5:45 never came in (I checked with the front desk on that) since the ride started at 7:00. So I had a quick bagel and banana for breakfast and went and checked out of the room. I made double sure it was OK to leave my car in the garage for the day and dashed over to the Seattle Center. I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch up to the riders since parts of the ride were done on the freeways and they were long since opened back up to cars. A sag wagon took me to the mile 25 rest stop and I would start my ride there.

About ten miles into my ride it started raining (this makes 4 out of 5 Challenges that it's rained, but the weather conditions were better than in the past. Besides, cancer doesn't quit when it's raining, we don't quit the fight against cancer when it rains). It was at this point that I was glad I didn't listen to the weather forecasts for the Seattle area (on Friday it said sunny and 70, and then Saturday night it said mostly cloudy with rain starting around 9 PM) and packed my cool weather riding gear and my rain jacket. So I put on my rain jacket and kept going on my way. The weather didn't seem to dampen the spirits of any of the riders, or those that were out on the road to help us along;

I rolled into Seattle Center around 2:00. I did the 75 miles in about 5 -hours including stops. Not a super fast pace, but it was definitely a safe pace with the slick roads.

Now to plan for LIVESTRONG 2011, that is unless I try and figure out how to swing doing LIVESTRONG in Austin in October. Anybody want to go? :)