Is it summer yet?

...probably not- at least not where I'm living. It's raining almost every day and today there are some thunderstorms in the forecast, as well. Jeez, I finally started with my training for the Challenge in October and now all I can do is ride on my stationary bike- which I have to admit is very boring- I know my basement by heart and there's no TV or any other distraction.

In other news, I have another eBay auction benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation. It's a signed cycling jersey from Erik Zabel (6 time winner of the final green jersey for best sprinter during the Tour de France) - similar to the one I have in my raffle.

I received the jersey directly from the team, so it's a 100% genuine article- a great chance for all you cycling enthusiasts! With all the sponsor emblems: Milram, SMS Santini, Daigo, de nardi and the UCI Pro Tour Logo.

Size: XL (50)
Made in Italy by Santini- "Tilux Active Micro Hive"
60 % Polyester, 40 % Nylon
wash on cold/ 30°C

The auction ends: Jul-05-07 15:01:53 PDT and of course 100% of the money goes directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (a tax deductible donation for people living in the US). At the moment, the highest bid is for $70. Here's the link to the auction:
Click here to go to the Erik Zabel signed Jersey auction

There's one more issue. Ever since Karen's battle with breast cancer, I've been reading up on the illness and on people's experiences with it. Today, I got a very nice e-mail from a breast cancer survivor from Atlanta, Georgia and she told me about her involvement with the "Young Survival Coalition", an organization that assists women who are under 40 and have breast cancer (thank you Sarah for sharing the information with me). It's a wonderful group of very inspiring young women, and you can read more about them right here:
http://www.youngsurvival.org/

Challenge Route descriptions released/ Lance in France

The route descriptions have been released for all 3 Challenges. The Austin Challenge will start and finish in Dripping Springs, which just happens to be Lance Armstrong's training grounds, and is called "Gateway to the Hill Country", so it should be very picturesque... can't wait to see the Longhorns. However, I'm not really sure what to think of the "steep climbs" :-)

Anyway, if you want to find out more about your Challenge, go to: http://www.livestrong.org/site/c.khLXK1PxHmF/b.2714871/k.BA74/Event_Information.htm Just click on the Info button of the Challenge you're participating in and then you can find all the information you need- route descriptions included. In other news, Lance is back in Europe. He and some friends went to France this weekend and climbed the Mont Ventoux, one of the most challenging climbs of the 2004 Tour de France. Reports say it took him 2 hours, which is twice as much as during the Tour of 2004- so that's a former pro-cyclists' idea of having a good time with some friends?!

I took my bike out for a much less challenging ride with some friends over the weekend, too. But I have to admit, it felt really good to be healthy enough to do some decent cycling again and not feel like you'd fall down your bike in desperate need for an oxygen tent after just five minutes (a feeling I experienced during the last few weeks).

Lance in Cheesehead Country

As some of you know, I consider myself partly a Cheesehead as I have been studying at the University of Wisconsin @ LaCrosse for a year. And I'm still getting (more or less regular) updates from some friends there and from Steve about what is happening in the region.

Well, on June 1st, the new Trek Madone bike was unveiled at the Milwaukee Art Museum (what a great place for an event like this!) and Lance was there as well- a big surprise for everyone attending.

You can find some pictures of Lance "admiring" the bike and a short video clip here: http://trekroad.typepad.com/trekroad/madone_world_premiere/index.html
Lance also supported an event called "The Trek 100 in support of the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer (MACC) Fund". As the enthusiastic cyclists of you may know, Trek is based in Waterloo, WI. Anyway, there are some video clips from that event, too.

For an exclusive one-on-one interview with Lance Armstrong, where he talks about cancer, his career and about cycling being called "the dirty sport", please visit: http://www.todaystmj4.com/sports/local/7800946.html
To see a short clip about the Trek 100, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/2gyvpn




"GO PACKERS!"

The end justifies the means, or does it?

Today, a lot of people in Europe were waiting for news about a certain "reality show" from the Netherlands. What happened?

Dutch publicly financed television network, BNN, announced it would broadcast "The Big Donor Show". The show was supposed to be about a 37-year-old woman, named Lisa, suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. She wanted to donate a kidney before she died and wanted to choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television. Viewers were said to be able to vote for a candidate via SMS text message (for 60 cents/message), but the final determination would've been Lisa's, according to BNN.

What followed was a huge outcry not only by members of the Dutch parliament, who had a session on this topic and said that they couldn't intervene the stations plans for the show, as any intervention would be "censorship". Almost everyone thought the idea was extremely objectionably, distasteful and unethical. However, the station is no stranger when it comes to scandals. They invented "Big Brother", and showed a reporter snorting cocaine and then being interviewed about the experience in a talk-show format. Plus, the production company was censured by Ofcom (in the UK) last week for their handling of the Celebrity Big Brother racism row.

At the end of the Big Donor Show, the host informed everyone that the show was completely staged and that Lisa was an actress. However, the 3 contestant really were waiting for a kidney, but were informed about the show and played their parts. The host explained the reasons for the show as a way to inform the public about the extreme need for donor organs in the Netherlands. This discussion was meant to inform people about the whole process and encourage people to sign up as organ donors.

Okay, I totally agree with them that at the moment the issue of donating your organs after brain-death or Cardiac Death is not very popular in the media. At the moment, mucoviscidosis is the illness that is most talked about in Germany. There seems to be some kind of trend, where the media only talks about one illness and pretty much forgets any other diseases. Unfortunately, cancer isn't a major priority in the news right now and neither is AIDS.

But does a need for information about a certain issue justify a show like this- even if it's staged? I don't think so- why not make a documentary about organ donations (and no, documentaries don't have to be boring, just add some real patients who talk about their experience waiting for donors and the stories will be interesting and people will talk about it.) Also, why not talk to your politicians about the possibility to change the law. In some European countries, everyone is a donor and you have to object if you don't agree due to religious beliefs or personal matters.

There's so much you can do, but shock everyone just to get a headline in the news? I don't think so, and this whole scenario probably will have the opposite effect- it will give a bad name to the whole issue and people will remember the scandal, not the cause.

What a difference a Livestrong Day makes

The goal for Livestrong Day was to recruit 500 new Challenge participants and I think everyone was a little bit surprised when the final number was released: 1,518 new participants signed up for the Challenge on Livestrong Day.
Amazing!

In Washington, D.C. 200 advocates met with national leaders to call for a change in the way we are raising awareness and funding for the cancer fight... but there were events all over the US and other countries, too.

For example, I spent my day at a hospital and talked to people who are fighting cancer right now. Later I just handed out Livestrong wristbands and it's so funny to see the reaction of people when they get suspicious of a free gift. Some didn't want to accept it because they thought I wanted money in exchange, some gave me the almost expected talk about their opinion of Lance Armstrong- (nothing good, let me tell you, but I'm used to defending the Foundation against all those talks about doping going on in Germany right now) and some didn't understand the meaning behind the wristband at all.

The funniest reply I got was from people at our local customs agency- of course the package of new wristbands was stopped in Frankfurt and I had to go to the custom agency. I told them a little bit about the LAF and about the fight against cancer and they actually asked me if I thought the wristband was a cure for cancer! Can you believe it? I think they were trying to make sure I wasn't some kind of charlatan.

Livestrong Day made me reach my first fundraising goal, too. Yep, I've officially surpassed the $500 mark- a little later than I hoped, but considering all the difficulties in my fundraising at the moment (the German cycling world is shocked with the news of years of doping in the Telecom Team- and more news about other European Teams and famous cyclists with similar results are expected) I am proud of getting there at all.

Anyway, there are some more Livestrong Day pictures and short video clips

LIVESTRONG DAY - join our team and receive 50% off registration fee

Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results
-unknown

Yep, it‘s true. If you want to participate in the Livestrong Challenge and plan to ride in Austin, you might want to consider signing up for the Challenge as part of the 2007 European Cyclists Team on Livestrong Day (May 16th, until midnight PST). Remember: you don‘t have to be European to be a part of the team- it‘s an international collaboration and we‘d be proud to have you on our team!
Team= together everyone achieves more!

This is what the Livestrong website has to say:
Take the Challenge.
Register for the LIVESTRONG Challenge on May 16th and receive 1/2 off the $50 registration fee!
Important: You need to enter LSDAY500 in the discount code box to receive the discount.

Click here to register for the Livestrong Challenge Austin (October 12-14 ,2007) and join our team!

Click here to register for the Philly Challenge (AUGUST 25-26, 2007)

Click here to register for the Portland Challenge (SEPTEMBER 29-30, 2007)

If you already signed up for the Challenge Austin and don't have a team yet- don't worry. You can still join us. Just send me an e-mail to Region11-International@mylivestrong.com and I'll help you to join our team.

Have a great Livestrong Day and be sure to wear your yellow shirt and/or the Livestrong bracelet on May 16th!

"Ignore your bike" Virus

Hello everyone!

There seems to be a virus out there, something like the “ignore your bike virus“, that affected most Livestrong Challenge bloggers this week. Well, I planned to get out and ride at least twice… didn‘t happen, though. The weather was gorgeous, so I really have no good excuse- other than meeting with friends, studying or sending out lots and lots of e-mails and letters to keep my fundraising going. At least I was doing some indoor training, and I promise to be better next week!!

The German Government presented their annual report about drugs and drug addiction this week. As usual, there are some good aspects and a lot of bad ones. Let’s start with the bright side:

• The percentage of young adults (ages 12-17 ) that smoke decreased from 28% (2001) to 20 % (2005)

• Laws that protect non-smokers have been passed on both federal and local levels. Smoking will be banned from all train-stations within Germany, all busses, trains and airplanes by September 1st, 2007. In addition, there are plans to ban smoking from all official buildings, including schools and hospitals as well as most restaurants.

Of course, there are some negative aspects of this report, too:

• 1 out of 3 German adults smokes

• Every year 140.000 Germans die from direct causes of smoking

• Every year 3.300 Germans die from second-hand smoking

• Germany sadly is among the leaders of European Countries when it comes to people suffering from skin cancer. 1 out of 5 Germans are being diagnosed with skin cancer- which ranks us 3rd in Europe, right behind Sweden and Denmark.

So, no reason to stop the fight against cancer, but all the little steps are quite motivating to keep on going strong!

Happy May Day

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a good May Day- or for most European countries: Labor Day!
Which pretty much means: a whole day to do whatever you want to do! Yeah, right!

First, I had to get up at 6. It was my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary and I was in charge of creating the present- two pages with an illustrated story about how they met all those years ago. It came out beautifully, but all the tiny drawings really made my neck hurt a lot. Oh well, it was all worth it... my parents told me it was a huge hit!

Next, I had to write an essay for college and start on a syllabus for a presentation.
The weather was just perfect and I really planned to get some training miles done- however, it was the first of the month... which means it's time for the monthly mentor newsletter for the Livestrong Challenge!

That reminds me:
Just in case you haven't heard about it, yet:
LIVESTRONG Day 2007 will occur on Wednesday, May 16, 2007. It's the LAF's initiative to unify people affected by cancer and to raise awareness about cancer survivorship issues on a national level and in local communities across the USA- but there's also an event in Ghana, Africa- amazing, isn't it?
To see what Livestrong Day events are being planned across the US, please visit the Livestrong Day Event Page.
However, it's also a great day to tell people in your neighborhood about your fundraising and the LAF in general, to volunteer at a local hospital/ visit cancer patients- or to wear your Livestrong wristband and/or a yellow shirt.

Before long, it was getting dark outside and the only training I managed to get done, was a short 45 minute ride on my stationary bike- oh well, at least I tried.

Prizes and Incentives for Livestrong Challenge Raffle

The grand prize of my first major fundraising event benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation has been described in depth on my blog and my fundraising page: signed and game-worn basketball shoes of NBA player Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks.



Plus, as a bonus, the 50th,75th,100th and 200th donation of $10 or more via my fundraising page will each receive a Livestrong magnet to put on your fridge.


More prizes will be added as more donations come in... so please go to my fundraising page- and also tell your friends and family about this blog to get the message across to as many people as possible.

The first donations have been made on my fundraising page, so the first additional prize is a book:
"Every second counts" by Lance Armstrong and Sally Jenkins.

Please continue to donate- there's still a good chance you might win the Dirk Nowitzki shoes!!

Livestrong Messenger Bag up for auction

Today, I listed some more items on eBay benefitting the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

I finally decided to part with my Livestrong Messenger Bag that I received as an incentive during the 2005 fundraising season by raising more than 500 Dollars! I only used it once, so it's in an excellent condition and I hope it raises some money for the LAF.

Frances won the auction- the final bid was $ 54.80 - thank you for bidding!