My Obliteride

Two weeks ago on Saturday, I got up at 5:30 am after a night of not-so-restful sleep. (We had thunder and lightning much of the night and I was a little anxious about the ride.) Unfortunately for Suzanna, she had to wake up two hours earlier since she was on the first volunteer Saturday shift for the event.

Even though I woke up at 5:30 and the ride didn’t start until a little before 8:00, I managed to fritter the time away so that when I finally left I had to ride like a mad-man to the start. And instead of taking the longer, flatter route, I rode the 5+ miles straight over the NE 65th Street hill to the start at Magnuson Park.

When I arrived, Suzanna was there at the start in her orange volunteer shirt. There were four different routes and we were each release in waves. First, the 180 mile riders, then the 100, then my group, the 50 mile riders, and after we were gone, the 25 milers.

 

The Route

With all due respect to the event organizers – they did a fantastic job in so many ways – whoever designed the routes must be a sadist. Check out the elevation chart: one huge hill after the next.

Now I understand that Seattle is hilly but I’ve lived and run and ridden all over this area during the past 30 years.That said, there are ways to avoid the hills and not to pound hills them into the participants of a ride.

Oh, and while I am mentioning it, one other issue was the bad signage. The course signage consisted of the occasional “Course” sign on a telephone pole and four different colored arrows on the pavement: one color for 25, another for 50 (blue), and two other colors for the 100 and 180 mile routes.

Suffice it to say, it was really easy to miss the arrows. I know that I and a number of other 50-milers managed to miss at least one turn and ended the race with only 41 miles on the bike odometer (and we really wanted to ride 50). I spoke with a number of other people riding various routes and many rode either too many miles or too few because of missed or extra turns in the route.

On the other hand, this is only the first year for the event; I’m sure they have heard their fair share of complaints about the hills and signage issues, and likely make things better next year.

 

The Money Raised for Cancer Research

Despite the hilly course and the other minor issues, It was an amazing event. After all, the point of the whole thing was to raise money for cancer research and thanks to my sponsors, we managed to raise over $3,100 (not including the matching corporate donations that should be coming in soon).

All totaled, the event has raised 1.5 million dollars for the live-saving research that happens at the place where I work: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. So far, that is. Money will continue to come in from late donations, matching donations, and riders who hadn’t met their minimum donation amount by race day (they have until October 1).

Aside: The Seattle Times wrote a nice article on the race. I’m even depicted in the starting line crowd in the second of two photos. For some reason, I wasn’t smiling at the moment the shutter went off. But I was happy inside!

I am so happy I got to be part of the first Obliteride; I plan to ride it again next year. In fact, Suzanna and I area talking about riding it together next year. And we likely will up the mileage and tackle one of the longer routes. But we have a little time to work out the details.

Thanks again everyone for your support!