Epilogue

Now that I'm back, I had time to jot down a few final thoughts and memories about my recent ride for Alyn Hospital.

It's a daunting thought that I was among the more normal people on the challenge ride. But being around a bunch of "unsual" people for five days was one of its charms.

A few examples:

Two guys paid extra so that they could room alone. Reason: so that they could bring their bikes into their rooms at night.

A 65 year old rider from Finland had done 39 century rides through Europe this summer before joining us on the ride.

One rider, from Bet Shemesh, rides 3 hours or more every day, six days a week. His only day of rest, appropriately, is the Sabbath.

But the best example of lunacy happened on Tuesday's climb of Maale Akrabim. Since I am relatively slow and was not confident of my ability to actually get to the top, I purposely started last (I ended up passing quite a few riders and a number of others ditched in the middle). I had mashed my way up about 2/3 of the hill when a rider from Chicago, came bombing down. He was yelling something as he passed me but I couldn't quite make it out. When I triumphantly made it to the top I found out that he had challenged some of the other riders that he would go down and up Maale Akrabim again if they would collectively contribute an extra $1000 to Alyn. Of course they took the bait. And, of course, he made it back up (not before me; that would have been incredibly humiliating).

All in all, I was very happy with both the ride and my riding. I struggled mightily the first day (for reasons that I still don't fully understand) but I did better the rest of the way. (In contrast, a number of riders blew themselves up the first day trying to follow the pace of the alpha dogs and struggled the rest of the way). I made it up every hill without having to stop or get off my bike. There are definately a couple of things I need to work on for next year (more weight work and more intense interval training) but, all-in-all, I'm pretty happy about how I rode.

The final adjusted stats: 26 hours on the bike, 345 miles, over 18,000 feet of climbing and about 13,000 calories burned. My average heart rate was 149.

The two highlights of my ride were, first, finally climbing Maale Akrabim, the steepest, most technical and most difficult climb I've ever done. It was exhilirating to make it to the top, especially since, the night before, exhausted by our 85 mile ride, I thought I had no chance. The second highlight was riding two days with Zev. What a great experience!

But, at the end of the day, the thought that sticks with me is how blessed Sara and I have been to have raised four healthy children and now to have the opportunity to raise a fifth. Seeing the profound, almost indescribable, challenges faced by the children of Alyn really brings that home. And seeing the unbelievable dedication of the professionals and staffers of Alyn makes me proud to be associated with such an amazing place.

I would be lying to say that I ride for the kids of Alyn. That's simply not the case. I ride because I love to ride, Israel is an amazing place to ride and we've had one or more of our kids living or studying there for most of the past ten years. But knowing that, with your help, my riding has raised about $140,000 over six years, makes every pedal stroke and every groan well worth it.