Date: 5/29/2015
Time: 10.15pm
Weather: Hot and sunny
Location: Church of Love and Faith Rochester (lol I think I just made up the name haha)
Today is a short ride day but a long day. We did only 26 miles from Palmyra to Rochester. We could've got everything done by yesterday and have a full event day today though hmm. We had yogurt and pumpkin granola, I think, for breakfast this morning. This is like 80% better than oatmeal. Love those crunchy granola. <3
I rode with Diego and Angelica today, just the three of us. We were the first group to roll out, and we were going so fast. Our max speed was 24 mph, averaging at 15.5 mph. Ashley's group rode past us along the way cause Diego was trying to teach me to shift fown on a traffic light but failed. That was the time they rode past us. We then tried to go super fast to catch up with them. Lol. But along the way we stopped by CVS cause Diego wanted to get shades, and I grabbed Arizona too. We were actually just chilling and chatting on our way there until we saw Ashley's group at the trail. There was a reroute for the trail. Diego asked Angelica and I to follow him to take the reroute path , while Ashley's group took some other paths. Eventually we reached this stayover first yay! This is the first time I'm in the first group to arrive at stayover! #achievement
I really like to ride in a group with people who can push me to go beyond my limit. I like to go fast but I'm not that strong yet. I need (crazy or ADHD) people like Diego and Angelica to push me so I can get stronger and better. Thanks guys! #sincerelythanksOKAY <3
We rolled out at 7.20am and arrived at 9.30am. 25 miles in 1 hour and 10 minutes, that is a pretty good pace. As soon as other groups started to roll in, we had burrito for brunch (kudos to the Chipotle restaurant that donated burritos to us!) #thankful We chilled until 11am then we were divide into 2 groups. One group headed to American Cancer Society hope lodge, and another headed to Gilda's. We spent few hours there conducting portraits and all of us gathered at Damon Runyon Research Center in the University of Rochester campus.
I was in the hope lodge group, the people we talked to were all very optimistic and supportive. They love what we are doing. There was this couple that we conducted portrait with-the husband is having colon cancer. The couple has been married for 54 years, if I'm not mistaken, but they are still so sweet. When signing the consent form, the husband asked the wife to sign for him cause the form says "18 and below, you need a guardian to sign". Another thing the wife said was, " We are always friends, it's not easy to spend so much time with someone for so many years, yet you still have a lot to talk about everyday. The husband's reply to that was, "Yeah we are friends, just that I always talk, and she never listen. In other meaning, she's smart."
I love conducting portraits. If only I'm better at talking to people, I'd totally killin this role haha. The best thing about portraits is that you get to hear stories-funny, sad, inspiring, and meaningful ones. It brings all of us back to our emotional sides and reminds us of why we're doing this ride. We're not professional cyclists, getting sores, hurts, nunbs, everyday, yet we are killing it miles by miles, days by days. It's impressive to see how we've bike for 6 days, from Manhattan to Rochester, rolling into Niagara Falls tomorrow. Many have said that even by driving that would take me 3 days.
We had dinner at 6pm just now and we're pretty much free to explore the town after dinner. I followed the girls to do laundry at a shop 1 or 2 miles away from this church. Somehow there was this guy, Mike and his wife were there too doing laundry-the squirrel broke into his wardrobe and messed up eevrything. Mike said he saw us on highway 31 with the exact same jersey and wonder what we were doing. Sarah started explaining to him about us, and handed him our I4k card. He mentioned that he just lost his dad to cancer last January (if I remember correctly). I then talked to Mike about the Portraits Project and asked if he likes to share his story with us. He agreed but he thought it was gonna be a super serious one, so he said he'd like to talk to us tomorrow morning. Unfortunately we'll be out by 6am tomorrow and he said he will email us. Then I thought it'd be a waste if we didn't get a portrait from him. So I explained to him how the portrait works-just a short interview. Andrew called Ashley immediately and we had Sean there in 10 minutes. That was how we got another portrait in a laundry room! 14 portraits collected in 6 days! Kudos to team 2015! Isn't it amazing that he saw us on the highway earlier and saw us again in the city at night, and what the odds are that a squirrel broke into his wardrobe that he met us in the laundry room. This has been a really amazing journey.
Rochester has been a beautiful city with lots of stuffs to do. Mike recommended us a location, like a hospice center that his dad had treatment at. I figured that it'd be good if team 2016 get to visit that place since Mike mentioned that they would love to have us there.
Okay time to go to bed. Gotta be up by 4.30am tomorrow and get pumped up for Niagara Falls tomorrow! It's gonna be a long 86 mile ride tomorrow! Good night!
Much love.
#seeyousoonNiagaraFalls
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