Obliteride: Kick Off to Fundraising

It's nearly May, 2014 which means I have just over 3 months to prepare for Obliteride 2014, 101 days to be exact. 101 days to ride my bike as far as the eye can see. 101 days to raise $4000. Let's do this! (donate)

This will be my first year participating in this event. You may already know this because I announced my participation via social media at the beginning of the year. I then went into virtual hibernation to wait out the Seattle rain. Well, the sun has arrived (for this week at least), and it's time to get outside and ride bikes!

As many of you are well aware, I have on a few previous occasions shaved my head to raise funds to fight children's cancer via St. Baldrick's (a wonderful, wonderful cause), but this year, I barely have any hair and I wanted to switch things up a bit. I heard about Obliteride at a few different cycling events last year, so I've been pondering it for some time. Riding Obliteride couples two of my major goals for the year: ride my bike many many miles and contribute to a great cause. (donate)

I've decided this year that I'd like to make donating a little more fun and perhaps a bit competitive. I want you to really FEEL like your money is going somewhere; that is beside to a great cause, 100% to funding cancer research. To boot, I've come up with two different fundraising strategies; it'll be a choose your own adventure thing.

#1 Just Give Me The Money

This, as the title implies, is the simple, semi-traditional approach to fundraising. You can donate any amount you desire, no strings attached. You'll receive my personal gratitude, a tax receipt, and the satisfaction that you're helping to obliterate cancer. (donate)

#2 The Mileage Rate Plan

This is my favorite! You pledge some amount you're willing to pay me per mile between now and the end of the event on August 10, 2014. I'll ride my bike lots and lots, multiply the number of miles I ride by the amount you pledged, and collect the funds from you. I'll keep you updated with personal emails, graphs, and ride reports over the next three months and you'll feel like the weight of your hard earned pennies (heavier than dollar bills, y'all) is pushing my bike pedals round and round. Instead of a one-day, feel-good event, you're signing up for 3 months of pure pedal pushing inspiration! (donate)

Each person who signs up to donate via option 2 will be able to set a rate and a maximum donation value (so that my ambitious legs don't break your bank). Every week I'll let you know how many miles I rode and how close I am to collecting on your promises. (donate)

As a preview I have the following events (and miles) already on my calendar:
Bike and Brews - 40 miles
Bike and Brews, El Norte - 48 miles
Flying Wheels Century - 100 miles
Seattle To Portland - 204 miles
Obliteride - 150 miles

That's already 542 miles between here and August 10th, and as you can imagine, that's not all the riding I'll be doing. In addition, I've got the commuter challenge, potentially track racing, and many gorgeous weekends ahead of me. :)

So how far do you think I can ride my bike? Are you willing to contribute your hard earned pennies to the cause?  (donate)

*If you chose option 2, please let me know via comment here, facebook, or email. I'm going to create a spreadsheet to track all the all important numbers*

*For you lovely folks that have already backed my cause, send me a message and we'll sort out a way to loop you into the fun! There will be a few other wonderful opportunities over the next three months.*

Day 128: May!

May is off to a fantastic start! I've heard depressing reports from other areas of contry about rain, snow and other bothersome weather. That is not the case here in beautiful Seattle. Hear that friends?! IT DOES NOT ALWAYS RAIN IN SEATTLE. As a matter of fact, I think we had some country wide record highs here recently. It makes for some of the best bike riding weather; which is great becasue May is Bike Month. More on that later.

I know I've been a pretty lack luster blog poster lately. Any number of excuses exist if you'd like to know them, ask anybody who has started a blog and slowly tapered off the posting, but I'd rather not invest time in restating said excues.

As a trade off, I give you a quick recap of April:

Socially, I told you about how I was looking for a part time job or a volunteer opportunity to help me reach outside my little engineering turtle shell. SUCCESS! As a few of you may know, I've been slowly sliding into the tutoring pool. I've posted my contact information and areas of expertise on a few different listing sites and I've been greedily amassing old text books. (#nerd) During the month of May, I helped a high school senior prepare for the AP Calculus exam, and I helped a high school freshman with her algebra homework. I cannot sum up the feeling of accomplishment tutoring gives me; not only do I get to do math homework with a purpose, BUT I get to help others with knowledge explosions. (credit: emoore) Ultimately, the social goal claimed the monthly title!

Intellectually, I told you I would finish creating a COMPASS math prep notebook for Candis. I did not achieve this goal. Frankly, I forgot about setting this goal. I need to revaluate the needs of my client and move forward with it at a later date.

Spiritually, I wrote the future me an email. I can't tell you what it was about because I wrote to me, not you. I hope you'll forgive me; I really should write to you more.

Physically, I had a very very lofty goal for April of riding my bike 350 miles. While I did get out and ride last month, I did not achieve anywhere near 350 miles. My total milage was 116 miles. I blame the rain, because sometimes it rains.

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So onward I continue on my quest to live a purposeful life. I'm learning that sometimes I set goals that are too far out of my reach, but also that I can't get hung up on my failures. So brushing myself off after a few let downs, I've set some goals for May as well.

Physical
The physical goal is once again the highlighted goal of the month. May is bike month, and the local bike club, Cascade Cycling, is sponsoring a commuter challenge. Your's truely is all signed up and two commutes in. BOOM! Thankfully my company has  shower at work and several coworks also participating to help with the motivation. My goal for May is commute to work at least 10 times.

Intellectual
As my tutoring buisiness has started to take off, I'm realizing that I need more than a couple text books and this brain of mine. I think it will be helpful to have some notebooks with worksheets and examples onhand for when students, particularly students over the summer, need material to work through as we discuss the subject of their choice. I'm going to try and group the COMPASS math test notebook in here as well since I forgot about it last month. My intellectual goal for May is to build a Calculus Review Notebook.

Social
My dad always says, "Never eat lunch alone." I haven't always followed this guidance, but when I have my days seem lighter and I feel more connected to the people around me. A few of the guys at work have been nice enough to invite me along for lunch or just out in the sunshine to eat the lunch I brought. No matter how much I want to balance my budget or read my book, I need to talk to people. So, continuing in this theme, my social goal for May is to minimize the number of times I eat lunch alone.

Spiritual
I recently purchased a copy of Start by  Jon Acuff. I just love his writing style. This month, I'm going to read that book cover to cover and do the included exercises. I'll try to post a blog of my thoughts on the book later.

Thanks for catching up with me!
Love,
Lydia

Day 91: Spring sprung some new goals!

Oh my goodness, thank goodness, it's finally April! If you read the post from earlier today, you understand the great significance of this statement. It's most definitely spring time and I am feeling as youthful and jumpy as a spring rabbit, espeically those that avoided being eaten. You don't eat rabbit? hmm. I did once.

With the dawning of a new month, a clean slate lays before me. Before the opportunity escapes me, I'm going to quickly scribble all over it! Guess what? I'm still a kid at heart. So per the intentional living plan, I've got some goals to share with you, but I haven't yet determined which will steal the theme-y colored light for the month. (what color is theme-y? I'm over lime.)

Social
Socially this month, I planned on trying to find another volunteer organization to meet new people. If this last weekend is any indication of the beautiful weather approaching, I want nothing more than to be outside in the sunshine. Today, I registered with Habitat for Humanity, but it looks like they've got most weekend construction days booked (go figure). I'm also considering a part time job, bike classes, woodworking classes, something social. I'll keep looking. That's my goal there: I'll keep looking for new groups with new friends. Don't take that so personally old friends; I love you old friends.

Intellectual
My intellectual goal this month is to finish writing the COMPASS math test study guide I started for Candis. If you're not familiar, COMPASS is a math, reading, writing test loosely based upon the ACTs that is used to determine a person's subject placement at community colleges. I'm also using this as a testing ground for a future self-employment plan that has been brewing for a while.

Spiritual
This month I will write to the future me about what I'm trying to do this year, about what's going through my head, about my dreams, about my fears. I'm going to use www.futureme.org for this process. I will write at least one letter to be delivered one year from the date I send it. I think this exercise will be quite self-reflective and perhaps a year from now I'll have forgotten about it and past me will offer future me some wonderful insights into our psyche.

Physical
This month I will ride my bike at least 350 miles. Boom! Writing that was sure easy, now for the implementation. I'm playing along with my big brother's training for ride the rockies, only I'm not going to impose any specefic climbing requirements and I have a seemingly unlimited amount of oxygen available at sea level. I'll save the details for future posts. If you're wondering, yes, he is fact cray-cray. Also, yes, I do live with a teenager, that is the proper vernacular, but vernacular is not.

So that's it, spring has sprung and I'm to a running start!
Love,
Lydia

Day 63-90: March, the lost month

As I am sure you are aware, I posted nearly nothing in March. I posted something quite important early in the month; I threw a picture of me and my adorable niece up on day 63 to let you know I was distracted and didn't have much to say. As truthful as I was being, saying I was distracted, that post was a cop out.  I thought about that post, or that lack of a full post for much of the month of March:

• I thought about saying St. Baldricks was just so awesome and I haven't recovered. (False, while St. B's was awesome, life went on and my hair is quickly returning) 
• I thought about how I hadn't updated you on February's goals.
• I thought about how March had already begun and I hadn't announced any goals (or even set any goals for that matter.
• I thought about saying I'm sorry, and then I talked myself out of that.
• I thought about how I was just like the New Year Resolutioners, "It's March and I've given up."
• I thought mostly about failure.

In all honesty, as the month progressed any thought of my blog turned into a self-imposed fear induced paralysis of cognitive ability.

Obviously March wasn't entirely so horrific, but I would be blatantly lying to you if I said, "Ah shoot I was just so busy living life intentionally that I didn't have time to write." March was a pretty decent bike riding, book reading, and ambition planning month. I may not have posted a blog, but lots of thoughts (read: blog fuel) have been brewing in my head. For now, if you'll allow it, I'd like to declare March the lost month. I'm just going to get on with it and no longer allow March to hold me down.

Now that it's April, as soon as I push publish, the lost month is off my shoulders.

A quick follow up on February:

Spiritual
I have a board posted in my closet to use to status goals, but I'm not to "blame" for that success. Candis hung it up there for me one day.

Intellectual
I did not working portion of my home built desk... until this past weekend. (Yeah March!)

Physical
I survived my first organized bike ride! I learned some lessons on how to do that better in the future, and I promptly signed up for two more plus some classes.

Social 
As the theme category for February, Social was a big winner, so big it did spill over into March. I surpassed my goal to raise $2,000 for St. Baldricks by raising $3000! I was the highest individual fundraiser in all of Seattle and I made some great contacts within the organization. I plan to either take over the existing Seattle event, or start my own next year. For those familiar with the event in Chicago, it's a whole new ball game out here in the PNW. Thank you everyone for your love and support!

Days 59-63: Distracted

Sorry everyone. As you can see I had a 14lb distraction the last couple of days. I owe you a recap of February and some goals for March. Coming soon!

Day 42-54: Answers

I sat down with someone very important to me, myself, and I conducted an interview.

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What are you doing?

I'm shaving my head to raise money for children's cancer research! This will be my third time.

Oh really?! When?

Yes. Really! Saturday, March 9th, 2013. You could come watch, if you are free that day.

Where would one go to watch such a spectacle?

Fado Irish Pub, Seattle, Washington. You could also donate money, here: 

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/lydiabenger

Now, for the tough question, Why?

I knew you'd ask that question. Of course I knew because you're me and I know what I'm thinking... sometimes.

I prepared for this question. I prepared for a damn long time. 12 days actually.

Most of my readers, I imagine, already know why I shaved my head the first time in March 2008 and again in March 2009. After that I embarked on my bigforkadventure and took a swing at growing up. I listened to those voices in my head that told me it was time to grow up, time to be an adult,  Now it's been 4 years since the wind whipped across my bald head, and I've got plenty of hair to show for it. I've got 4 years worth of long, luxurious, golden, blonde hair.

Consider, of course, the Numbers 
Every 3 minutes, globally, a child is diagnosed with cancer.
In the United States (where some of the better healthcare is available), 1 in 5 will not survive.
And of those that survive, 2 out of 3 will suffer long term effects from treatment.

I decided in January, that St. Baldrick's would be one of my major accomplishments this year, so I've been kicking the idea around in my head for a bit. Initially, I have to admit, my involvement was somewhat selfish. I missed it; I missed being involved in something greater than me, something that matters. I wanted to feel that feeling of doing "great work" again. I couldn't accept that, shaving my head to make me feel good about me. I burrowed into my thoughts (which is why it has taken me most of February to write this blog). I asked myself over and over again, Why? I read old posts from years past. I read the speeches I gave before the events in 2008 and 2009. 

Despite all this internal searching, the answer didn't come until I talked to others. 

Talking to Candis

I told Candis I was really struggling to write this out. She pulled my nose out of my laptop, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Well then, just tell me why. Why are you doing this?" I told her about Lizzie from Kearney, Nebraska. I told her about how my freshman year of college I read this heart wrenching blog mostly by Lizzie's mom that told her family's story of love and loss during Lizzie's battle with cancer. Their story, while unique to them, has too many themes common among families battling cancer. Buried in all their pain was this quote from Lizzie:

 "My goal in life is to impact and change as many people's lives as I can. I want as many people as possible to know how important it is to enjoy life as much as possible. I feel like I'm supposed to help people to see how important it is to enjoy what you have when you have it. I love helping people, and I think the more people, who can enjoy their lives the better the world will be. I believe that you never know when things can change, so you need to enjoy things while you have them. Carpe diem, or seize the day!"

I said to Candis, "Lizzie's the reason I did it the first time. When I think about reading that the first time, quoting it again at my event in 2008, and reading it again now, I think, 'Here is a 14 year old who gets it; she gets life.' I mean 2013 for me is about living life intentionally, and that's the spirit I get from Lizzie when I read what she wrote."

To that Candis said, "See. There's your reason."

Talking to Coworkers

Armed with a self printed St. Baldrick's business card, I approached coworkers and asked for their hard earned money, and another answer to why stumbled out my mouth.  

I slowly talked to individual coworkers about shaving my head for St. Baldricks. I started with the safe ones, the guys and gals I felt most comfortable around. I moved on to sitting in the lunch room just waiting for the opportune moment to tell somebody about my cause. Next was the VP of engineering, followed by a sit down in the office of the company president. Finally, at the prodding of a few individuals, I said the following at the weekly staff meeting:

I'm shaving my head on Saturday, March 9^th in solidarity with children fighting cancer.

I'm doing this, also, to raise money to fund childhood cancer research.

My goal is to raise a minimum of 2000 dollars.

I will personally match 10 percent of all donations before the event.

Fine Print: My maximum contribution is 500, as I have to pay my rent.

St. Baldricks is an organization I whole-heartedly support.

I've been involved with them since late 2007.

I've spent the last 4 years growing my hair out, and in 17 days

I will shave my head for the 3^rd time.

As a marine engineer, I don't expect to cure any cancer.

But since cancer affects us all, I want to help any way I can.

Hair and Money I have.

Both I can give.

Will you help?  

The take away from talking with my coworkers, both individually and in mass, is found in the last portion of my spiel. My working life does not take on my larger purpose in life. I have a responsibility to impact the world in a positive, giving way. St. Baldricks helps me fulfill this responsibility, this need.

Okay, okay, okay, could you maybe summarize all that rambling? Why are you shaving your head?

I have a desire, a responsibility even, to intentionally impact the world for the better.

Don't you?

http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/lydiabenger

Day 40: A Quote

"Take control of your life by simply realizing that it is worth the trouble to become the person you're meant to be."

Simple. Now get it done.

Short, quick post this morning from my mobile telephone device. I'm off for a chilly bike ride!