It's 3am, let's wake up and ride monster bikes

The things I do in the wee cold and dark hours on a Friday morning. What's the thing you would least expect me to be doing from 4am to 6am this morning?

Fighting polar bears?

Nope, even more unexpected.

Dancing with polar bears?

Come on, think unexpected.

Surprising polar bears with a homemade birthday card?

No, enough with the bears. I'll just tell you.

Touchy about the bears.

Stop it!

Ok. Already this morning, I have ridden a PedalPub for two hours. From 4am to 6am as part of Spare Key's Pedal to the Max fundraiser. They hosted a 24hr continues PedalPub (no alcohol, however) ride. My team's shirt was the wee hours of the morning. Which means I got up at 3am to find my way to the magical world of Lilydale, MN (it has a name that evokes whimsy and is almost impossible to find, just like a pixie).

My team was fun and happy and the treats were plentiful and all frozen. We were pedaling! We felt powerful! We had Cheetos! And we were freezing! Middle November mornings in Minnesota are cold, I thought I had worn enough layers, but what I have come to learn is that there is never enough layers. Halfway through our ride, I slipped some toe warmers into my shoes. I hoped this would relieve the numbness of the top of my feet. But no, the toe warmers didn't start warming my feet until I was on my way up the stairs to my apartment at 6:30am AFTER I RETURNED HOME from the ride.

However, our legs did get a good work out for the day. It was fun waving to all the cars that passed us. I hoped they thought that we were a bachelor party gone on way to long. Some cars honked at us when we waved. Others drove by so fast you could almost feel the driver covering the side of her or his face to avoid us recognizing them.

As our enthusasum for our early morning adventure waned so did our energy. At 4am, you don't really think abotu breakfast and the slim jims and energy drinks provided by the organizers weren't really doing it so we were running out of pedaling energy. By 5:45am we were ready to be off the bike and hand it off to the 6am crew.

Now if you are an astute reader of my blog, you will know this is the second 24hr fundraiser event I have participating in in less than 48 hours. On the 13th at 11:30pm I was part of the Huge Improv Theater Improvathon to raise money for Give to the Max Day and today was Pedal to the Max for Spare Key. Excellent observation, you.

This is also the second time in two weeks (and in my entire life) that I have been a part of a new worl record. The first world record I was a part of was on election night, where our production of the Neo-Futurist's play 44 Plays for 44 Presidents along with 44+ other productions, broke the world record for most productions of the same play happening on the same day. Woo!

Today's record was for world's longest PedalPub ride, but we didn't see anyone from Guinness there so we think it might be unoffocial. Unless, the Guinees representative was hiding in a warm car, becuase for sure no one wanted to stand out by the cold coffee (not on purpose).

So that is today. Already, I feel very accomplished. But I still have to go to work.

What? I though biking a giant machine around for two hours was work?

Nope, that was volunteer.