HARRY'S WEEKLY JOURNAL. THIS SECTION CHANGES EVERY WEEK, SO KEEP CHECKING BACK.

It's Monday morning after the ride. I am still feeling tired despite the fact that I finally got a good nights sleep in my own bed.

First and most important, the Lone Star Ride Fighting AIDS 2002 was a tremendous succes!

The preliminary figures are that we raised over One Hundred Seventy Thousand Dollars! for the aids service sponsors, up about Thirty Thousand Dollars from last year.

I don't have the figures from the pledges sent in directly to the ride for us personally, so I don't yet know what you sent in the last 6 weeks of our fundraising, but if one email I recieved the day we left was right( I'm not sure it was) then you, our beloved friends and family gave over Three Thousand Dollars to help those living with AIDS! Your generosity will save lives and make living with this disease eaiser for thousands! Thank you all from bottom of our hearts!
The rider count was not as great as we had hoped, but 90 of us rode and all came back safe and sound. Over 200 crew did a great job. I have never felt so protected and well cared for in my life.
I have been on the crew before, but as a rider I got to see it from the other side.
Every time I turned around there was someone there offering me a drink or a chair to rest or just about anything. I felt like a king!

On a personal level, Dan and I both had problems.
The night before the ride I could not sleep. We turned in at 9pm but I guess it was nerves, I was still awake at midnight despite 3 otc sleeping pills. I got up and soaked in a hot bath and took 2 prescription pills and I finally got about 2-3 hours sleep before we had to get up at 4am.
We started out well and I was moving at good pace.
Some photographers took pictures of us along the route. I posted some of these today for you.

As I pulled out of the second pit stop I had to make a sharp 120 degree turn on to the roadway. There were people cheering me and not a very wide shoulder and a busy highway. Anyway, I cut too sharp and hit some gravel and fell over! I have a little scrape on my right leg.
I got up and continued on. There were lots of hills and I was tired, but I made them all.
At the next pit stop the medics were waiting for me and pounced. They washed and put ointment on my leg.

There are some killer hills between stop 2 and 3 and I made it over them ok except that I began to feel a little pain on the back side of my right knee. I don't know if I pulled or strained something or if I hurt something in my little fall.
I went through the third stop and headed for lunch by then my knee was hurting a lot on each push stroke. My speed fell off and it became on ordeal.
I fell to the rear of the ride and the caboose (the final support vehicle) began to follow me.
I had to stop on a couple of long pulls on hills and let my knee rest. Each time the caboose crew jumped out and ran to see if they could help.
By then I had resorted to spinning. (peddling fast in a low gear to lessen the load on my knee)

I was only going about 10 mph. I knew that the route after Lunch was described by riders last year as pure hell with all the hills so I decided to sag at lunch and get my knee cared for so I could ride the second day. I knew the hills could cause me to seriously injure myself if tried them. So I quit and the medical crew iced my knee,

Dan who had been with me at the start was waiting to check on me all the time and when I quit he said that his knee was hurting too.
I think he wanted to stay with me from concern.
We did have a great lunch and were transported by pit stop crews from one stop the next all the way to camp.
I was very dissapointed though, because I had only made about 50 miles. The only encouraging thing was that acording to my bike computer my average speed even after going slow for about 15 miles was still about 13 mph which means that I was doing very good before my problems.
The next morning after a miseable hot night ( the wind died and the tents were like ovens) in which I only got about 2-3 hours sleep we got up for the 2nd day. My right hip and lower back started hurting me because of the herniated disc in my lower back and I took 2 tylenol 3 pills in order to sleep.
Dan had a miserable night too, becuase of the heat.
But we packed up and got our bikes ready for another day on the road.
I had to ride about 2 blocks to the main dining tents to get ice for my water back and insulated Bottles of sport drink.
I had not gone 100 feet before I got the bad news, my knee was still bad. Despite the ice and rest I guess I strained something seriously.
I may also have done something in my fall. But whatr ever the cause, the medical crew advised me, and I agreed, that I should not push my luck.
I want to ride in the future so I rode to Dallas in a van and worked with the crew to support the other riders.
Dan, in the meanitme, Rode out and went about 60 miles before he quit from exhaustion. It's hard to give your all without rest.

There were photographers along the route and I bought 3 pictures from them . Between us we took about 70 or so pictures so I will sort and post them when we get them developed. I'll let you know when they are up and I'll do a bigger description of the ride.

Thanks for your support. Without you, we could not ride. Even though we are dissapointed in our personal riding,we are very proud of the effort and even more proud of the money we raised. That is the real "heart" of our "Riding To Make A Difference." and we can't do it without you!