Adventures For the Cure | Blog/News

Date: 9/26/06

Here is the trailer for the AFC Documentary that PhillyK put together!!

Enjoy!



-Pattt

Date: 9/26/06

Last night Adam, Jesse, and I gave a speech at the first meeting of the Howard County Type 1 Support Group. The group is for children with type 1 diabetes and their parents. It was so good for those parents to see how much Adam has accomplished and that having diabetes has only brought good things to his life. They can see how happy and uninhibited his life is and know that their kids can do everything he can. They don't have to be limited because they have diabetes!!

If you would like to know more about the Howard County Type 1 Support Group you can email Paula Bisacre at Paulaannbiz@aol.com.

I also want to thank Heather and weekly for comming to the meeting with us last night to support us and help us setup for the talk :)

-Pattt

Date: 9/22/06

This morning Adam and I met with Shawn McIntosh, who is our good friend who works at the Baltimore Chapter of ADA. She told us the Greg Lemond is now on board with ADA as an official represenative and that she has been tasked to come up with a 'Wish List' of things that she could use his star power for. One of the top five things on her list is to have Greg Lemond do a voice over, narrarate, or be a part of our documentary in any way possible. This would be hugeeeee!!

For those of you who don't know Greg Lemond is one of the greatest cyclists of all time, right up there with Lance Armstrong. Here is his official website. He also has his own brand of bikes. Actually, my first road bike ever was a Lemond!!

-Pattt

Here is PhillyK's rough draft of a trailer for the AFC Documentary!



-Pattt

Date: 9/12/06

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$20,00.00 for Kupenda (Wednesday night we will have exact numbers)
Donation from Richard Kirkley
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$10,150.00 for American Diabetes Association
Donation from Joshua Kulp
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

At the Mid Maryland Triathlon Club meeting last night we decided that we will be holding a silent auction for our spare AFC Jerseys.


So here is the deal:

1. They are used jerseys. We traveled through the country with 2 jerseys each for the bikers and 1 jersey each for the drivers. The biker's jerseys have been through a lot but they are in excellent condition thanks to my MomMom who sewed them and washed them to almost as white as new :)

2. Sizes: 3 Large and 1 Medium

3. This will be a silent auction so if you are interested in winning one of these jerseys you have to send me an email at pblair12@gmail.com. Tell me what size you want and how much money you will donate to Kupenda and/or ADA for the jersey. The people with the highest bids will win.

4. The auction ends on December 9th, which happens to be the day of the Mid Maryland Triathlon Club's holiday party. Note: You do not have to be a member of MMTC or be present at the party to win. If you live far away we will mail you your jersey :)

Thanks for playing!

Date: 9/12/06

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$20,00.00 for Kupenda (Wednesday night we will have exact numbers)
Donation from Dave Chaffee (hugeee donation! thanks so much)
Donation from Mid Maryland Triathlon Club
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$10,150.00 for
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

Last night we gave a talk at our Mid Maryland Triathlon Club!. I love this club! They have supported us so much on the trip. Like everyone on that club is just amazing! I love those people :)


We were even able to show a trailer for our Documentary that PhillyK is working on. I hope to have the trailer on this site ASAP, so that everyone can see it!



Also!!! Thanks to some final donations we got yesterday we have succeeded in hitting our goal of $20,000.00 for Kupenda!!! We will have the exact amount counted on Wednesday night when we meet with Cindy Bauer, president of Kupenda.


-Pattt

Date: 9/10/06
Mileage: 0!! 0!! 0!! our ride is over :)

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$17,650.00 for Kupenda (estimated total... waiting for the exact numbers)
Donation from my Aunt Pat
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$10,150.00 for
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

Tomorrow night (Monday 9/11) we are giving a talk about our adventure, lessons learned, and future plans of AFC at our monthly triathlon meeting held by the Mid Maryland Triathlon Club!! Our club has been extremely supportive of our entire trip. They sent us care packages, came to our fun fundraising events, and helped us with words and prayers of encouragement. They are amazing! We cannot wait to hang out with all our friends there tomorrow night

The meeting will be at Princeton Sports in Columbia MD starting at 8:15pm.

Also, PhillyK put together a trailer of the documentary of our trip that we will be showing at the meeting!

-Pattt

Date: 9/3/06
Mileage: 30

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$17,600.00 for Kupenda (estimated total... waiting for the exact numbers)
Donation from Mr. and Mrs. Matthews
Donation from Tara Witmer
Donation from GregShenanigans (owner of Shenanigans)
Donation from Jeanie
Donations from tons of others who supported us at Ocean City
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$10,150.00 for
Donations from tons of people who supported us at Ocean City
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

The day of the AFC finishing ride!!!


At 9:00am we met in Berlin (which is about 7 miles outside of Ocean City) with about 60 or so of our close friends and family for the final AFC Finishing Ride. Heather, Weezal, and Cindy did so much work to get this whole ride together and we really appreciated it! Carly, DeeDee, Lauren, Laura, Lance, Val, Annie, MommaD, PapaD and Janine also deserve a big thanks for waking up super early that morning to help with the setup and registration for the event.


We gave out our Final Ride T-Shirts, DrinkMoreWater provided the bottled water, and Dunkin Donuts provided some bagels!

Before the ride began we had a short ceremony and talk. We had some amazing surprises!! Jim Cangialosi and Kim Loman from MiniMed were there and they brought with them the new MiniMed Paradigm which is their new 'Realtime Insulin Pump and Glucose Monitoring System'. It is an amazing devise which reads your blood sugar levels once every 5 seconds! This is amazing! It will change the lives of all diabetics.


Tess, the type 1 diabetic who road with Adam in Iowa for a 40 mile day, was also there and she was the one who made a surprise appearance to present the new pump to Adam at the ceremony! Her whole family drove all the way from Georgia just to come to the ride and hang out with us! She rode on a tandem with Adam for the last 30 miles of our ride.

After the ride we all went to lunch and then took a break on the beach. Adam also took some time out of the day to fulfill his promise to MamaD that he would finally shave his beard!!


The final party was at Shenanigan's Irish Pub. We sold some T-Shirts, ADA wrist bands, gave two speeches for everyone at the bar in the middle of songs from the Irish Band that was playing that night, and just had a great time! We cannot thank Sheningans and it's owner, Greg, enough for all they have done for us.


Side Note:
Shenanigan's has the best beer I have ever had. I once asked Greg 'why is your beer so much better than everyone else's?' he told me it had something to do with the way he keeps the beer fresh and rotating the kegs or something. Whatever the reason, the point of the story is that before AFC ever got started Adam and I went to Shenanigan's and had two of the best Boddington's Beers we have ever had (it was the beginning of summer 2005). Later that summer we decided that we would bike from Catonsville to Ocean City to have a beer and then bike back the next day (320 miles total). All for a beer. We thought about it and we decided that since 320 miles was such an extremely far distance for a 2 day bike ride we might be able to get people to sponsor us and donate to American Diabetes Association because of our efforts!


So... The moral of the story... If not for amazing Shenanigan's and their amazing owner Greg and their amazing beer... AFC would not exist :)





-Pattt

Date: 9/2/06
Mileage: 60

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$16,600.00 for Kupenda (estimated total... waiting for the exact numbers)
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$10,150.00 for
Donation thanks to Rusty Allwein Donation thanks to Karen Moy
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

Oh yes!!!
The final day of packing up the car, getting on the bikes in the rain, heat, cold, wind, hurricanes! The final day on the road away from all our friends and family.

We stayed at the Matthew's house in Cambridge the night before. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were incredible hosts! They hosted me last year on the night before my UltraDistance Triathlon (which took place in Cambridge). We were discussing with Mr. Matthews our future plans for AFC, which include the possibility of becomming a non-profit organization. He was very intrested in helping us achieve that goal! Who knows where that will take AFC!


We found the Matthews through thier son Jason, who works for DrinkMoreWater (a sponsor of AFC). He was going to go biking with us into Ocean City but the bad weather kept him away. He has to be extra careful not to get sick because he is getting MARRIED very very soon!! CONGRATS JASON!


The hurricane had pretty much passed entirely, the weather was a million times better than yesterday. Mike Z and Adam's brother Alex (Adam's brother) both joined us heading out from Cambridge! I was extremely happy because both Mike Z and Alex (aka baby sugar) were riding fixed gear bikes! That made 5 fixies total! Soooo happy!


At lunch Alex switched with Mike Caputi (our roomate also know as Weezal) so that Alex drove their car and Weezal biked into Ocean City with us.


Seeing that Ocean City sign brought us total unrestrained joy!!! wweeeeeeeeeeeeee!


We finally arrived at Shenanigan's Irish Pub where the owner, Greg, had 2 hotel rooms waiting for us.

-Pattt

Date: 9/1/06
Mileage: 85

Funds Raised:
(Donate Here)

$15,834.00 for Kupenda
$20,000 is the goal for Kupenda. That is the amount needed to build a boarding facility so that 30+ children, who have disabilities, will get to go to school!!! It is a chance to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives!!!

$9,622.00 for
Donation thanks to Margherita Angelini
Battling diabetes is something that is close to our hearts since Adam has Type I Diabetes. AFC's mission at it's core is to raise awareness, show other diabetics that anything is possible, and to do anything to combat diabetes!

Today we woke up in our own beds in Catonsville! It was so fun hanging out with all of our friends last night. I could not stop smiling the whole time we were hanging out. Every Thursday night all of our friends get together for House Church (like a Bible study) and it worked out perfectly that we were in town on a Thursday!

We left our house at 9:30am. Mike Z (a good friend from 'The Morning Ride' which is a bike club/group in our area) biked with us all the way to Cambridge and he will be biking with us tomorrow all the way to Ocean City! Even better! He bike the whole thing on a fixie!!!!! So happy about that :)

On our way to Cambridge we all visited my MomMom's house! My parents and sister were all there and we had an amazing brunch feast! My sister made the most amazing pudding ever (even as good as Heather's banana pudding.. and she makes incredible banana pudding). It was great to see my family after not seeing them for 3.5 months! I really missed them.


After we biked over the Bay Bridge Hurricane Ernesto really started to kick in! The winds were measured at 21 mph with 30 mph gusts. Luckily there was a lot of miles that we had the wind at our backs so it was not extremely bad. It was still very stressful to bike in such conditions.

We were greated with a super warm welcome at the Matthews house in Cambridge MD. Jason Matthews and his parents live here. Jason is responsible for our DrinkMoreWater sponsorship. His family also let me stay at their house on the night before my UltraDistance Triathlon that I did last year! They cooked us a huge dinner which we really needed after a hard day of biking.

Tomorrow we bike to Ocean City!!! The trip is almost over!!!

-Pattt