Here we go!

We're less than 36 hours away from the Philly LIVESTRONG Challenge. It goes without saying that I am nervous. However, I am also super excited. At this point, I just want to get the show on the road. Of course, I have also been freaking myself out by repeatedly looking at the ride's elevation profile and reading blog posts from people who did the ride last year or are freaking out about doing it this year. I've made Alyssa tell me to stop every time she notices me looking at those sites, but I sneak peeks. I'm bad.

We're leaving Frederick tomorrow around noon and should get to packet pickup at the LIVESTRONG Village around 3pm. Thanks to you all, Alyssa and I raised enough money to be invited to attend the pre-Challenge dinner tomorrow night, so we'll hit that up at 6:30pm. After the dinner, we'll head back to our hotel room and get to bed so we can get up super early on Sunday morning. The 100 mile ride is supposed to be released at 7:30am, so we're going to leave our hotel no later than 5:30am. I know that sounds crazy considering our hotel is just a few miles from the start, but last year we were 10 miles from the venue and it took us nearly an hour to get there from our hotel because traffic was so bad. We're hoping to avoid the stress of thinking we're going to be late this year.

For those who are interested, I intend to post about our exploits in real time on Facebook and Twitter. If you aren't on Facebook, you can follow me on Twitter. There are rest stops every 10 miles or so on the course and I hope to post when we stop to refuel and rest.

I'm guessing I won't be posting here again until after the Challenge, so check back on Monday. I probably won't have a full recap up at that point, but I'll at least post to let you know that I'm not stranded on the side of the road in rural Pennsyvlania. (But, like I said, if you want to know what's up with us as it's happening, keep up with us on Twitter.)

I hope we can make you all proud.

P.S. Thanks to you all, we managed to bust our team fundraising goal wide open! We are floored by your generosity. Thank you so much.