The Giretto - harder than I ever imagined

It's 4:30 in the morning on Saturday and I can't sleep - jet lag - so I thought I'd update my readers on the Giretto.

One thing I've learned is that it is unrealistic to think you can ride 100 hard miles a day in a foreign country, AND eat and get enough rest and sleep and other logistics AND try to write blog posts. That's crazy thinking.

It's not that I minimized the difficulty of the challenge of riding the first 5 stages of the Giro d'Italia. I knew it would be very challenging. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to do that and do everything else. Eating was a very big challenge at times, in quality, quantity and timing, both during our ride and afterwards. The pro riders in a stage race have others who do everything for them - they don't have to think about anything else. Our greatest challenges, even beyond the miles we were pedaling were getting enough sleep and eating quickly after each stage. We were not very successful at those things.

I am preparing a series of posts on my Cycling in Europe blog, describing stages 3, 4 and 5, as well as some of the difficulties that we encountered, including a visit to the hospital in a small town in Italy by yours truly at 2:00 in the morning after stage 4. No, I didn't crash on my bike (thank God), but my body did "crash" and I overdid it. I will be analyzing how things went from bad to worse, and how to avoid this kind of problem in the future. Hopefully others can learn from my mistake. Make sure to go there and read the other blog (I'll let you know when I've posted).

On this blog I plan to write on how Spinning helped prepare me for this epic ride, especially the mental aspect. Everything I've preached to my students I used last week while cycling in Italy. 

Spinning helped me through the Giretto!

And so did music. I'll also let you know what music I played on my iPod. There were times that I even thought I wouldn't have made it without the music!

As of this writing, United has still not found my bicycle, which didn't arrive with me in Denver. I am grateful that it was not misplaced on the way out to Italy, but it is now over 24 hours and they usually locate things by now, and I'm getting a bit nervous. So cross your fingers for me!

The Giretto has begun! Greetings from Italy

Buon Giorno tutti!

Greetings from the Adriatic coast of Italy. We completed Stage 2 of the Giretto today, a truly fantastic ride on a beautiful day - a quintessential cycling day of perfection. It's very late here (midnight) and we have a long early day tomorrow so I'm going to keep this very short. We've had difficulty finding internet service in the little time we have devoted to being able to blog. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have it so I can post more pics and even videos.

But, please check out my Cycling in Europe blog where I've described Stage 1, the Team Time Trial, and an amazing coincidental happenstance as we were getting off the ferry.

I am hoping to inspire you, all of my readers, through my journey in Italy on this challenging event, to set a goal for yourselves, one that is a little out of your reach. In fact, one that you never thought you could complete. Then JUST DO IT! Do what you know must be done to accomplish it, then DO IT! Because you know what? I know you can.

...and if I've inspired you at all, if you have enjoyed any of my profiles (there's been well over 10,000 downloads of my profiles!), if you've learned anything from me on the pages of this blog...then I'm hoping you'll be inspired to make a little donation to our efforts here in Italy at the Giretto. Every single one of us have been or will be affected by cancer - either personally or someone we care about, so this is a great time to "pay it forward".

As I've mentioned before, I know times are tough for everyone right now, so I'm not asking for much. If all my readers gave just $5 or $10, then we'd far surpass our goal and show the Livestrong organization that we are a force to reckon with! (Our plans are to take the Giretto and make it a yearly significant event for Livestrong).

If you would like to make a small donation, please click here. At the very least, go and read my motivation for doing an event like this!

I also want to thank those of you who have generously supported me. Mille Gratzie.

Check back soon. And follow me on Twitter - we're sending great LIVE updates and pics of our rides and the race.

Ciao amici!