Those of you who are reading this may already know a little about the Police Unity Tour, since I've probably hit you up for a donation. Since I'm not out training today, I thought I'd share a little bit of the story behind my participation.
About a year ago a friend of mine who is retired from law enforcement on the east coast was talking up Police Week in Washington DC. My friend said that it is something you should attend at least once in your career, so I started to look into it. I happened upon a reference to the Police Unity Tour, a 300 mile bike ride over 4 days from New Jersey to Washington D.C. This seemed like a much more meaningful way to participate than to simply fly to D.C. and attend the various ceremonies and events.
As I looked into it further, I learned that the chapter of the Tour that I wanted to ride with only accepted 400 riders, with each rider expected to raise $1500 in donations and sell $200 in raffle tickets. I was pretty sure I could get the donations. I was less sure about selling raffle tickets to people in Colorado for a car to be raffled in New Jersey. I also wasn't too sure about making the 400 rider cut. I did not want to apply before I knew I could get the time off from work. (Police Week in D.C. falls during our Spring Riot Season, so time off is difficult to get). I did get the time off and was accepted to ride, but only after a phone call from the Executive Director to make sure I understood the commitment to raise money and be in shape for the ride.
I didn't really set any fund-raising goal other than to meet the $1500 minimum and sell those raffle tickets. Through the incredible generosity of friends, colleagues and family I've raised around $4500 in donations and sold even more than the minimum number of raffle tickets.
Between minor injuries, work and family commitments over the past few weeks, I'm a little shy of my goal of increasing training miles by 10% each week. I've still put in around 1500 miles since New Years and hope to put in a few hundred more before leaving for New Jersey on May 7.
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