16 June Monday Union, ME – Waldoboro, ME (Day 36)

Starting Point: Union, ME
Ending Point Part: Waldoboro, ME
Mileage: 12.4   
Time: 1:21
Mph: 9.1
Terrain: hills
Temperature High: 60
Temperature Low: 55
Lunch: Moody’s Diner turkey sandwich
Dinner: home
Weather: rain
Lodging: home
Total Miles: 1,710

    The initial plan for today was to leave Union, stop at Moody’s Diner and continue on to Brunswick with a ride of about 4 hours. After starting out from my host’s home, I had an idea to have my wife, Susan, meet me at Moody’s so that we could have a lunch together and she could take the non-essential contents of my trailer in the car. This way the ride could take more like 3 hours. Fog and rain were plentiful along the entire stretch from Union to Waldoboro on Route 1.
    I met Susan at the entrance of one of our favorite diners, Moody’s, not very long before noon. As we sat there having fine warm cuisine (perhaps that’s a little too strong for the fare at Moody’s) and having good conversation, an idea began bubbling up in my brain: I could stop the ride right now and it would still be over 1,700 miles long which is nothing to sneeze at. The internal argumentative voices were in full force trying to convince me to continue, but the basic line of thinking revolved around the fact that I wasn’t doing this ride to prove something. It would still be a fine achievement if I got in the car with bike and trailer and drove home to Brunswick. It wasn’t as if a marching band would be waiting for me in the driveway if I rolled in on the bike or in the car.
    As you can see, the voices of moderation won out and my total mileage for the day went from a potential 47 miles down to almost 13. I did pay a small price for not biking longer: I was restless for the remainder of the day because I hadn’t gotten in my customary 5 hours of bicycling.
    For today, I will close this journal. I’ll save a more reflective overview article for the next couple of days. Then, I think, it might still be valuable to write one more in a week’s time if my print readers and blog readers are interested.
    Overall, I consider this ride to be a success. I was able to stick to the schedule I created while still taking every opportunity (of which there were many) to talk with people about the American Lung Association of Maine. Despite a slight perfectionist streak I have that would have plenty of chatter about what could have been done better, I have to declare that I am satisfied with the results this year, both in terms of fund-raising for ALAME and in terms of fitness for myself.
    Even though I’m officially done fund-raising for this year, you may still feel moved to contribute so go to http://www.lungme.org/pledgejohn.htm. There you may use a credit card to help round out my results for 2008…I’m still $100 short of having raised $191,000 for my 13 years of fund-raising for the organization.
    Thank you all.

Comments

[jen chapman]

Hi John,

I enjoyed reading your blog entries from the Trek. Congratulations on finishing your ride! It was a pleasure and an honor riding with you.

Here's the link to my Trek pictures on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirtydash9/sets/72157605639230826/

Hope to meet you again at next year's Trek, or maybe even on the Norther Tier one day!!

Jen Chapman

[Scott]

Hi John. Congrats on your successful ride this year. I am passionate about your mission of assisting people to quit taboacco. I am a cyclist as well.

I have been looking for an American Lung Association jersey. Any clue where I can buy one? I have seen them in the past.

I work for the ALA of Arizona. I am a respiratory therapist and provide education about Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This is the disease that one in three tobacco users are likely to develop.

I know you spread the word about the dangers of tobacco. This is great for denormalizing tobacco use. However, do you perform a 5A model brief tobacco intervention? Have you heard of this? This may be an avenue to make your message more powerful.

I teach a 4 hour course taught here in Arizona called Brief Tobacco Intervention Skills. It teaches people how to discuss the dangers of tobacco using an eveidence based five A model: Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist and Arrange.

The major advantage of using this skill is that it connects people who say "yeah, you know I know I need to quit" to services that can coach them through the process of becoming tobacco free. All 50 states have a county health department that offers this coaching service.

Another way to measure success with your mission is to track the number of people who you were able to connect to services. These places can track all your referrals and the sucess rates of tose referrals.

I wish you well. Contact me if I can be of any assistance. scerreta@lungarizona.edu