On Saturday, May 9th, Steve Stefko set out to ride the 1/4 mile course in front of his Western Fort Collins house as a fundraiser for the Food Bank for Larimer County. Officially the goal was 100 miles and $2000.00 but secretly he was hoping to double both the dollars and the distance. He managed to double the distance for 201 miles but he didn’t double the dollars, he quadrupled them. At last count (the fundraising link is open until the end of the month. Link below) Steve raised $8,762 dollars. That equals 17,524 meals for the Larimer County community.  Not to take away from Steve’s accomplishment but I’d like to give a shoutout to my super neat wife who walked/jogged 26.2 miles, 8 weeks after a double mastectomy, on Steve’s course. She raised -+ $500.00 for the Food Bank.Nice Job NoCo!  A statement from Steve and some facts and figures are below.  “Wow, thank you from the bottom of my heart! There’s so much good out there in our community. We were part of something really special this past week. Everyone came together on such short notice and accomplished a truly remarkable event. Whether you rode, walked, jogged, cheered, donated, or sent positive vibes there was an indescribable energy present. Your generosity will help more than I ever imagined. Thank you so much, everyone!” We raised $8,762 as of this afternoon. That’s 17,524 meals for our community!!!! (2 meals for every dollar donated!)

That’s 3,212 right turns in a row.

Approx. 600 cumulative miles ridden/walked/jogged!Throughout the day a total of 52 people rode at least a lap with me.Close to 60 people cheered. All maintained an appropriate social distance. Thanks for leading by example!

Over 150 lbs of food donated!

Ride stats:
Total distance 200.79 miles
Moving time 10:23:46
Pedaling time 10:02:56
Total time 12:17:54
6,483 kJ of work
Calories burned from Garmin 9,369
Avg speed (moving) 19.3 mph (max 24 mph)
Avg cadence 86 rpm
Avg power (weighted) 180W
Normalized Power 174W
Avg HR 122 bpm (min 71 bpm, max 144 bpm)
Training Peaks TSS 374
Avg temp 58 (min 45, max 79)

The first half of the ride I didn’t draft much. Andy Clark joined in somewhere around mile 130 and helped me keep the pace higher. Drafting definitely helped me finish faster. All in all this wasn’t a super hard training day as compared to a 12 hr backcountry skiing effort.

What I ate during the ride:
12.5 bottles of Skratch (lemon/lime, orange, strawberry lemonade, matcha green tea)
4 large homemade rice cakes (rice, egg, bacon, liquid amino acid, brown sugar, salt, topped w/ parmesan cheese)
2 large homemade rice cakes (rice, almond butter, strawberry preserves)
2 large homemade cookies (Bob’s Red Mill choc chip cookie mix, oats, butterscotch chips, bacon, topped w/ coconut)
1/2 mozzarella/salami roll
2 Justin’s almond butter packets
5 energy gels (3 raspberry, 2 double espresso)
1 Larabar (cherry)
2 bananas

The donation link is open for another two weeks: https://my.foodbanklarimer.org/give/284895/#!/donation/checkout