jimsjournal

Chad and Dad 2003 -- 10/18/03

Those of you who have been hanging around here for a year may recall an entry last year about how my brother and his son were going to ride their bicycles on a hundred mile ride across Death Valley as a fund-raising effort for JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation).

Well, they're going to do it again this year!.

Last year they raised more than seventy-five hundred dollars (the event raised one million dollars!) and they hope to beat last year's results.

This is a picture of them at the start of last year's ride. Yes, I've seen the full set of pictures and, trust me, they do not look quite so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the conclusion of the ride.

If you want proof that riding bikes is good for you, just take a look at those two. This picture is one year old. Chad was thirty then (pushing 31, his birthday is in January) and Charlie was fifty-six. Charlie has a description of some of his recent training on his site, kind of a running log, adds a new paragraph or two every once in a while. (Yeah, go ahead and read it now -- just scroll down to Training Log 2003 -- don't worry, I'll wait right here for you to come back.)

Yeah, Charlie is able to describe things in an amusing way. And, yes, I am very proud of my baby brother. (Baby brother? Sure... After all, I can still remember being told not to make noise when playing because "The baby is sleeping." and even though he may be fifty-seven, I'm sixty, so I'm still three years ahead.)

If you weren't a visitor to my site around this time last year you may not know that Chad is diabetic. Has been for almost thirty years -- he celebrated his 2nd birthday in the hospital where he was recovering from a diabetic coma. I don't think he's slowed down since then (except, perhaps, when in a cast) -- he became a bmx bike racer as a kid (at one point as a teenager was one of the top-ranked riders in New York State) and has gone on to other forms of bike racing (and has also competed in distance running events and in triathlons) and is an enthusiastic mountain bike racer. (His mother thinks he's perhaps a little too enthusiastic.) My brother and I have both been into running for the past two decades (actually, he had run a couple seasons of cross-country in high school) but he is much faster than me (that slow 10k time he complained about on his site is only about two minutes or so slower than my best 10k time from more than a dozen years ago) and he has run several marathons (whereas the longest event I've done is the half-marathon). He's been doing a lot of training and feels that he's in really good shape for the Death Valley ride, better shape than last year and his cardiologist has given his okay.

You may have noticed on that page, over in the left margin, a link that said Ride to Cure Diabetes Pledge Form. Yeah, you could click on the link on his page or you could click on the link I just gave -- that will give you a form you could print and fill out and mail in (along with a check would be nice). I know some of you gave last year and I want to thank you for that. I hope some of you will pledge this year. (Okay, I'll shut up now before this begins to sound like public radio pledge week.)

The ride takes place one week from this coming Monday -- Oct. 27th -- and, like last year, they are going to do the Century Challenge -- 105 miles.

To list of entries for 2003

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