Well folks, hello again & Happy New Year. We received so much positive feedback regarding last year's PMC blog, that we are starting earlier this year (i.e., more than a few weeks before the actual event like we did last year).
We've just signed up for our third year of involvement with the Pan Mass Challenge (PMC). For PMC 2006, we participated in a one-day Sturbridge to Wellesley route (which was not well supported and was subsequently cancelled in later years). Last year, we did a 2-day, 192-mile route, from which we are still kind of recovering from - as you may recall, Karen suffered from a strained shoulder muscle (or something), which is still acting as if it's strained (hurray for Icy Hot!). For 2008, after discovering last year how much work it takes to train for and raise funds for the entire 2-day event, we've decided to back off for a year and return to the one-day event. We have some other stuff going on this year, and I don't think we have the time and resources to throw behind another 2-day event. Not right now.
If it sounds like we're making excuses, we are a little bit. We know how very important the PMC is, and feel bad not being able to go all-out every year. But instead of getting burned out, we've decided to just back off a little bit. I'd rather remain involved every year at SOME level than participate sporadically. We are very committed to the Pan Mass Challenge and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the PMC is the highlight of our summer. You'll never ride with a better group of people, or for a better cause.
Not that this year will be easy. As the fundraising minimums increase, even the shorter one-day routes require a significant amount of work to reach our fundraising goals. We have set Team Iwamoto's 2008 PMC fundraising goal at $3,000, although the minimum required donation for both of us is $2,600. Last year, we ended up donating $3,500 to ourselves in order to reach the minimum donation level - and we simply can't afford to make that large of a donation as well as spending all of our time training each year. I wish we could. If we could, we would.
So. It's now January. PMC weekend this year is August 2-3. We'll be doing a one day loop from Wellesley to Wellesley. We've just paid our $170 a piece to register. There is snow on the ground, and we've recently taken up cross country skiing. After all the eating & carrying on that is associated with the holiday season, it's good to be thinking ahead to the summer, and our cycling goals. There are several century rides in our area that we are looking into doing in addition to the PMC, and we hope to break our 2006 mileage total of 1,200 miles. Karen even went for a rare winter bike ride last week (a first while living in New England).
2008 is off to a good start. We've made our comittment early, and we've been active. Physically, this year's PMC shouldn't be too challenging, physically, although we may try to do the whole thing round trip from our house, which would work out to be slightly more than a century (100 miles) total for our PMC ride. AND riding directly from our house would be a much more green option - no driving to and from the start/finish line.
Stay tuned. I'll be back with fundraising links, training updates, route links, and other assorted PMC & biking related tidbits. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you & yours have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2008.
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