Day 1: Kickoff

All of the training, fundraising, and orientation led to this day. We woke up at 5:15 and headed to the Golden Gate Bridge for kickoff. It was cold, wet, rainy, and windy. Basically everything that made cold weather colder than usual was happening. After meeting with our families and saying goodbye, we rode across the bridge in one big pace line. After the bridge ride, we split up into pace lines of three. Derek Dedeker, Michael Walton and I decided to ride together for the kickoff ride. It was awesome to be together with my chapter brothers for the first ride.

We first rode through a small town called Sausalito, and it took us a while to get through it because of bumpy roads and traffic light stops. From Sausalito we headed to Napa, which was no cakewalk. We covered more than 6,000 feet of elevation the whole ride. For a while I was hurting pretty badly on the hills. Typically, you try to stay within 6 inches of the man in front of you in your pace line so that you can draft off of him and it makes it easier to pedal. Well, Michael Walton is a machine, ladies and gentlemen. A machine. He goes up hills about as fast as I go down them. It was pretty hard to keep up on some hills, but he was always kind enough to look back and slow down for me. Derek helped me out a lot with motivation as well. If it wasn't for those guys, I would have stepped off of the bike a few times. 

About 3/4 of the way through the trip we were going up a pretty sustaining hill. I looked down for about 5 seconds and when I looked up my tire was extremely close to the grass. Having learned from my first big crash I went ahead and took my tire into the grass and tried to clip out. Unfortunately, I was going too slowly to clip out and land, and I fell over. Luckily, since I was going so slowly, it didn't hurt. However, there was a pretty minimal shoulder on the road and I fell into the lane of the road. A car was behind me, but luckily I got up in time for it to pass me. It was a little freaky, but I survived. I caught up to Derek and Michael and we finished the ride together. It was tough, but so worth the trouble. Every mile we had an amazing view, and riding through vineyards was awesome. I have never pushed myself harder than I did today. 

After the ride we had a friendship visit at a banquet at a local park. Each year, a few families get together and hold an awards banquet for a few area sports teams for people with disabilities. Awards are given out, and people get really excited about it. The Journey of Hope has been attending this friendship visit for 14 years now, so some of the athletes know who we are. At the banquet, I made a lot of new friends. We played volleyball, danced, and just chatted it up with the athletes. I met a guy named Ian that had Down syndrome. He was extremely kind and loved talking to me. We talked about sports and movies for a long time, and he was extremely excited about the trophy that he got for playing baseball. 

When it came time to leave it was sad, but great to know that today was such a success. I couldn't be prouder of myself and the guys around me. It's not easy, but it sure is rewarding. 

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