16 days

16 days is all that is left for me to wait.

16 days until I embark on the journey of my lifetime.

16 days of high emotion as I review exactly what I have achieved in the last 11 months.

I will raise $3,500, helped recruit 5 other riders and build a team who have together raised $26,000 for Peter Mac.

12 months ago if you asked me what I wanted to achieve in the next year, I could not have even dreamt this. Am I proud – ABSOLUTLY!!! I could not be any prouder of myself for all of the hurdles that I have jumped to get here.

Along this road, I have met some of the most amazing people. People who I would never have ever met unless I put myself out there and just told my story. My story – My Reason to Ride. I have said it before and I’ll say it again – my sole reason is to raise money for Peter Mac. That is what got me out of bed during Winter and put in the hard training that was required. That is what pushed me out of my comfort zone and asked people for donations – something that makes me very uncomfortable. My reason also gave me the fuel to never give up.

Now I reach a point of reflection, my eyes well with tears. Tears for those I have touched. Tears for my Angels, and tears for the tough times my Fighters had. And tears for all the people that have sat at bedsides, living in hope that a difference could be made.

I digress for a moment:

Two weeks ago when my husband underwent a relatively simple procedure, I saw a side of myself that I never knew I had. I am always so busy putting on the tough girl super woman impersonation because that is who I am! But even Super Woman has her Kryponite. So many things happened on that day, but when I watch my husband walk away with the nurse to head into surgery, my heart just broke. How could I make sure he was going to be OK? What if something happened and I was not there? I had to put all my trust in the doctors to make sure my husband would be OK. While he was in surgery, I headed home to collect the kids so we could all be together when hubby got out of recovery. But one thing after another just seemed to go wrong and I slowly lost the tough girl and turned into something I had hidden from for so long – HUMAN!

It was this situation that made me realize how precious my family is to me. It made me realize just how precious life is and how much we take it for granted. It is this experience that I realized how many people actually sit in hospitals hoping for a difference. How many people have to sit waiting patiently and put all of their trust and hopes into the hands of our medical people. For a control freak like me – I would rather be the patient. But how many people sat like me stressed to the eyeballs and was told “I’m Sorry” ….

If what I am about to do in 16 days saves one person from hearing that, then that is the difference I have made!