$2.4 Million

You'll remember that about a week ago I was really having some problems with shin splints. I decided to spend the last week resting and not running. Now, I will be honest and say that what I did do was not exactly restful. This past weekend, the National MS Society, Minnesota Chapter put on the Bike MS: C.H. Robinson Worldwide MS 150 Ride 2011. Big name, even bigger event. About 3,400 cyclists mounted their saddles in Proctor, MN (near Duluth) for a 150 mile journey back to the Twin Cities. 75 miles on Saturday, 75 miles on Sunday. We have an overnight in Hinckley, MN at the Grand Casino. So far we have about $2 million turned in from participants. Our goal is $2.4 million. Participants have until about mid-July to get all of their money in. I think we'll make it!

Team Cargill leads off the start of Bike MS: C.H. Robinson Worldwide MS 150 Ride 2011. Team Cargill has raised almost $233,000 as a team this year!

When we break for the night in Hinckley, all of the bikes get loaded into a bike corral where they are guarded by a security guard all night. 

This is about half of the bikes in our bike corral. The numbered rows go up to 50. At least I made signs for up to 50. It's possible that we had to hand write more. That's a lot of bikes!

So, with this big of an event going on, you can imagine that I wouldn't actually get to rest much. We load 8 26-foot trucks the week prior to the event. Then, we kick it off on Friday by loading all of those bikes onto 21 semi trucks, and the participants on chartered buses to take them up to the Duluth area. Saturday morning I was up at 3:30 a.m. to see the riders off and get them on the route by 6:30 a.m. A mere 3 years ago, I would have been going to bed at this time. That evening we had our grand party in Hinckley, complete with a catered meal from Buca di Beppo. They were great and gave us the meal at cost. Mmmmmm...Buca. Sunday the riders returned to Century College in White Bear lake for a grand finish. 

Needless to say, I had little sleep and was on my feet for pretty much all of the weekend. However, it was totally worth it to help these riders making this journey to help end MS. 

Today, I had a kickball game. Yes, I play on a kickball team. Nothing better than adults playing a game meant for a playground. It was the first time I'd done any sort of running since Tuesday and I have to say it was awesome. Despite the rough week and weekend, I had nearly zero leg pain. I'm pretty stoked to go on my short 3-mile run tomorrow and see how quickly I can complete it. The temps are supposed to be great but the forecast calls for scattered storms in the afternoon. Hopefully I there is a 25-30 minute window without storms to fit in this run. 

Lately, because of my extensive leg pain, it's been taking me about 28 minutes to run 3 miles. Pretty sad and lame. Tomorrow I'm shooting for closer to 26. I'd really like to drop that time down to about 24 minutes by August. I'll be running in the grass from here on to see if that helps soften the impact. Wish me luck!