I had the fun privilege of participating in an event designed to raise over $200,000 to help feed poor children in Haiti and Guatemala. Through a friend from church, I was connected with radio personality Kevin Avery (@fit_kev) from the Fish 104.7 in Atlanta. The event was called the Haiti 100 because the cyclist would be riding 100 miles at the (@amsupdates).
I had to raised $251 to qualify to ride. I was able to do so in about 3 days on GoFundMe.com as were 13 other riders. It was not intended to be a big ride, in fact, the Speedway folks did not want it to be a big ride. This was the first time they ever let cyclist ride on the track.
It was really neat riding on the track. My farthest distance riding this year so far had been 52 miles. So I was really excited about the prospect of riding 100 at the track. The good thing about riding on the track was there were NO HILLS! That made the task a bit easier.
I ended up riding 80.5 miles. The lead pack of 5 cyclists, finished at a very fast pace and it would’ve taken me about hour and 10 minutes to complete the 100. I said at the beginning that I would stop when the first group finished as I did not want anyone to stick around waiting on me. Even with 80 miles, I was very proud of my effort. I average 17 or 18 miles an hours for EVERY non break lap. I was quite pleased with that effort.
Something that was pretty cool was starting the race with a pace car. The car took us on a lap to get started then pulled over. Click to see video of the PACE CAR. Below is a video made by Aaron Meyers (@aarondmeyers), one of the riders.
It turns out that the ride alone raised over $24,000 and the whole initiative raise over $200,000 to feed poor children. That was the best part of the whole event.
The Umenum 