4K orientation

Hello from Baltimore!!! I’m writing this post super last-minute from my hotel room with only 6 hours until I need to wake up and 11 hours until we roll out from the Inner Harbor.

The past two days were a lot– I already know this will be the most challenging and exhausting experience I’ve ever had. But, it has also been a ton of fun! It’s really been great to learn more about Ulman, my teammates, and our adventure.

I left home early Friday morning to make it to our first day of orientation by 9 AM. We kicked off with some staff introductions, the history of the Ulman Foundation and the 4K, and, of course, icebreakers. We did an emergency scenario exercise where we had to agree as a team on what to do. We did well as a team, but I won in terms of personal scores… almost like I study disasters or something? I already found myself stepping out of my comfort zone and into my ride director shoes which was a little nerve-wracking but it went well! We also got a tour of the Ulman House, which provides free lodging and a community for young adults (and their caretakers) who are receiving cancer treatment at local hospitals.

After orientation I made a quick trip to the REI in Columbia for a last-minute bike shorts exchange and also managed to swing a quick visit with one of my best friends, Jordan, who happened to arrive home in Columbia right around the same time. Good timing! I then headed back to Baltimore and met up with my Dad and Beth, who accompanied me to the 4K friends and family dinner. We got to hear from two current residents of Ulman House (a 17-year-old with a rare bone cancer and his mother) which was very emotional and moving.

THEN I drove to BWI to pick up my boyfriend, James, and we drove up to Bel Air to stay at his dad’s house. I was wiped so we turned in pretty early, only to wake up early yet again to get back to Baltimore by 7 AM for day two of orientation. We spent a good chunk of the morning getting ready to head out for a training ride, which included changing into our 4K jerseys and learning how to rack our bikes on the vans.

We then drove to Centennial Park to do a 17-mile training ride around Ellicott City– not going to lie, it was a bit of a struggle. We have some newer riders on the team who need a little time to get used to riding with others, riding around cars, and unclipping their cleats from the pedals at stops. As a result, we went pretty slowly and had to make a lot of stops to regroup. My group in particular had quite a few “clip and tips” (falling over because your feet are clipped to the pedals), the last of which caused some mechanical issues less than a mile from the vans when Grace clip-and-tipped into Glenn… to be fair, Glenn said he would catch her and then did not manage to catch her :)

But, before the ride, we got a trial run of the routine we will do every morning as a group. We will count off by our assigned numbers (I’m 6), go over the route and our riding groups for the day, do our team chant (currently a little rough around the edges, but getting better), and dedicate our rides to someone we know who has been touched by cancer. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the day– it was so nice to get together as a team and remind each other (and ourselves) of why we’re doing this. I dedicated today to my great-grandma, Mary Ellen Rodine, who passed from lung cancer and was my first close connection to cancer.

Once we got the bikes racked again we devoured some sandwiches at Jimmy Johns and went over a few more last-minute things at Ulman House before wrapping up. I met up with my family and devoured more food, then got a surprise visit from some college friends (including Jordan again, how lucky am I!), and packed up my new duffle, which was delivered to my mom’s house yesterday (cutting it a little close). The thing is HUGE!!! Way bigger than I was expecting. I’m 5’7” and I could fit inside of it! I have a ton of extra room– I actually think I can fit my backpack inside the duffle when it’s in the van. The good news is I have plenty of room for souvenirs :)

Some notes about the blog moving forward:

1. There will be lots of typos.

2. My goal is to write a journal-type entry for each day, but I may not be posting each day. I’ll do my best to write full posts when I have time and post them when I can, but they may come out a day or two (or three) behind.

I really need to go to sleep soon because we have to be at Ulman house at 5:30 tomorrow morning :( but I will definitely be wide awake and running on adrenaline tomorrow!

Until next time!!!!

Lauren