Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

Alas, the Ride of Love has finished its 24 hour endeavor. The last few hours were very difficult for everyone and hard to stay motivated. Most of us were either desperately in need of sleep or exhausted from cycling so many hours. Though it warmed ever so slightly for a bit, a strong cold wind came in, and the rain started to pick up.

I struggled so hard to stay awake, that I eventually was forced to hop onto a bike and try to get some adrenaline pumping. It actually helped quite a bit, but once I finished a wave a tiredness really set in. Abbey was visibly tired, and started shaking from the cold. We wrapped her in a blanket but with the rain and everything getting wet, it didn’t help too much. She really wanted to get back home.

During the lunch ours, Chick-Fil-A set up stand beside us and started handing out free food. We happily gorged ourselves with chicken. Two of our mountain bikers also provided some entertainment. Ryan performed some cool wheelies, bunny hops, and all sorts of other things like riding up stairs and jumping off them. I believe at one point he crashed into the snow but I missed that one. Which brings up Sean. He attempted to go on rollers for a first time and like everyone else who tries them for a first, slid right off. No harm would have come, have he not setup the rollers in between both the tents. He crashed into the pole of one tent and wiped out, nearly toppling both tents.

In the very end, the excitement grew again as we knew our long hard journey was coming to a close. When the clock struck 1500 and we counted our remaining donations. We came to a total of 557 dollars! We met our desired goal with a little bit extra to spare. Ride to Anyplace (that’s the benefit race for leukemia) here we come!

Clean up was quick and mostly painless. When all was said and done, I found myself in my room at around 1630 or so. My original intention was to stay up for a bit longer. Why not try to hit 48 hours of no sleep? I was only a few hours away. Besides, I didn’t want to throw off my schedule. If I fell asleep right away, I would wake way too early in the morning. Unfortunately none of that happened and I’m note entirely sure how. The fact is, I don’t remember anything. The last thing I remember was me cleaning up the mess of items on my floor from the ride.

I suddenly found myself awoken by Abbey around midnight who had to desperately go to the bathroom. I must have been really knocked out because we only made it to hallway floor before she preceded to piss all over the place. After swearing at Abbey and scrubbing the floor I found myself unable to go back to sleep. Now, for a fracking forth time in a row, I am awake for the new day literally at the beginning of it…midnight. Yes, I’m a little frustrated right now.

What’s odd is the state of things when I awoke. One, I was in my bed. I specifically remember not wanting to even sit on it for fear of falling asleep. Two, all my lights were turned off. Once again, I specifically remember keeping them on to aid in not sleeping. Three, I was in my PJs.

So this is the scene I’m concluding to. I was moving around cleaning up my mess, when suddenly my entire body fell into a sleep walk state. I then proceeded to strip off my clothes and change into my PJs, shut off all the lights, and tuck myself into bed. LoL. Suffice to say, I’m not ever attempting to stay awake that long again. BTW, the final count is 41 hours of staying awake.

All the photos for the 24 hrs event are on my Flickr Page.

The 24 hrs Ride of Love is almost done! Truthfully I can’t wait. My body is screaming at me to go to sleep. 0900 hit and our numbers greatly increased, returning to last nights energy. The weather is holding bay and only a light drizzle.

The schools local paper has been released this morning and guess whose pictured in it? That’s right we made the paper! It seems the paper was a little confused as it thought Matt, Zach, and Evan will be cycling nonstop for the whole 24 hours. LoL. If you’d like to read the brief article, go here. This event has been awesome and its only bound to get better as we approach the 24 hour finish.

Still only 34 degrees, but a warm 34. I’ve gone ahead and stripped Abbey of the Army sweatshirt. She’s now sporting our race jersey, helping bring in donations by her pure cuteness. :)

Wanna see all the photos. Go here.

The sun has finally risen and brighten our area. The morning shift has left and only Matei sits riding. He’s continuing the high spirits and motivation. With the morning sun, we’re finally starting to see donations come in. The weather has risen to a warm 34 degrees. LoL. It also seems to be bringing rain/snow. Which is is be bad for me. Gonna need to hide my MacBook, as its starting to come down. Hopefully the rest of the club will be show within the hour. See all the pics here.

Running a little late, the morning crew has finanlly arrived to replace the night shift. The guys were pretty worn and ready to pass out. LoL. Of course, the ladies brought a revitalized spirit and motivation to the area. Noticeable difference between the two pics, aye? Even Abbey has seemed to perk up. Will be a few hours before we see anyone else from the club to show up. Temp is still at a 33 low, however is not the same cold feeling we had during the wee early morning hours. I’m finding a lot of difficulty typing due to lack of sleep. My hands keep typing completely different things then what my head is thinking. Check out my Flickr page for all the pics.

Well while we are waiting for the morning shift of riders to replace the night shift, thought I’d post where we stand money wise. 210 dollars! Just shy of half way. Since about midnight, we really haven’t gotten any donations which is expected. Only the occasional drunk will come by.

Abbey is definitely tired out. This whole staying outside for 24 hours is new to her. I also forgot about bringing food to feed her. Aside from some of my french fries from earlier she’ll have to starve for a bit. I’m amazed by how calm she has stayed and sleeping quite a bunch.

My fellow team mates urged me to sleep so I accepted to lay down a bit in my sleeping bag. Didn’t get any sleep but it was nice to relax a bit. Warmed up quite a bit. Especially when I was cuddling with Abbey. Hard to see her in the above pic but I’m definitely spooning her pretty good. I could tell she was equally cold because she didn’t budge for a good 20 minutes. Usually she doesn’t stay cuddling with me for more then a minute. LoL

Check out all the nights photos here.

Well first Abbey needed to use the bathroom. For some reason she felt it was best to do it in on the sidewalk, in the middle of a group of people! Keep in mind she was off the leash. Have had her off for the past 5 hours now. The grass/snow was literally only 3 feet away. Guess she didn’t want to get her feet cold.

Shortly after, 2 drunk girls decided to pee no more then 30 feet from our area. They squatted behind a ramp leading up to the building behind us. Of course, a rather large puddle of pee rolled down the ramp and left a long disgusting trail. Not 20 minutes later, some drunk guy came by and peed in the same exact location! Must be a popular spot.

Something random here, the above pic was takin earlier in the night…morning? Gets confusing doing these late nights. Anyway, we had TKS cycle his bike as fast as possible. Incredibly the above picture was the result. No motion blur what so ever! Incredible. Temperature dropped back to 32. All pics for this event are here.

Read it and weep! I was sitting at our table uploading pics when some strange fellow approached me. He was dressed entirely in black, from head to toe. He sneaked up relatively unseen. To describe him best would be…the grim reaper. His face was completely masked. My initial response was “What the hell are you?” He simply handed me the above note and left. He’s a member of the Druids of Univ of Pittsburgh, our school’s very own secret society. Picture The Skulls but a good version…maybe? They go around donating money and praising those who deserve it. The PCC is very excited and glad to have received their appreciation. We should frame the letter.

Its really starting to feel cold. Abbey has really settled down and keeps huddling up under the table/blanket. Glad she’s wearing a shirt and sweater. I’ve added another layer myself. Currently wearing two pants, two shirts, 3 jackets including my military field jacket, two face masks, a beanie cap, gloves, and my military winter gortex boots. Still not really warm. My MacBook seems to be struggling too. The enclosure is reading 42 degrees! The CPU is at 72!

Though it feels colder, we’ve actually gone up two degrees and are now hovering at 33. Perhaps it feels colder because we’ve been out here for so long. Perhaps because things have really settled down. We only have three people left. We’ve set up rotating 30 minute shifts. I don’t count as I offered to stay the entire 24 hours. Only way I could do that with my already lack of sleep is by staying off the bike.

Most club members had to leave at midnight due to classes in the morning. Those of us who remain are simply crazy! Noah somehow plans to make his 0930 class. Zach has class later in the morning and Matt has a quiz. I seem to be the only one who doesn’t have class on Fridays. Well, I do, but I never go.

Check out all the pics thus far here.

*UPDATE: Apparently that druid guy also dropped off 2 packs of Gatorade on our table when he approached me. I was too distracted by his mere appearance to have even noticed that.*