I am completely, absolutely, 100% stoked to be racing in the 20th Race Across Oregon this year. I'm hitting the line next Friday evening - wearing the same Leopard Ladies jersey that I wore waaaay back in 1999. Just thinking about that makes me smile.
And - I'm lucky that way. Lucky that I have had a relatively injury-free 20 years, lucky that I found the love of my life, while still loving cycling, lucky that I've got an amazing crew to support me (again!), lucky to have happy, smiling grandkids - and when it comes right down to it, I'm even lucky that I can smile at all.
My amazing wrench for RAO, Geary McCabe, along with his equally amazing wife Lisa, are raising funds for Smile Train this year. Smile Train provides support and training for cleft palate repair in countries where it's far too common for children born with clefts to be ignored, abused, and - never smile. So I decided to hop on for the ride.
Please consider making a donation to Smile Train on Geary and Lisa's page, here: https://my.smiletrain.org/fundraiser/FlyingMonkeysSmileTrain
If you want to watch our progress, the race tracking site should go live sometime Friday evening: http://raceacrossoregon.com/live-tracking.html
We'll try to get photos up to my FB page - and feel free to follow #raceacrossoregon as well.