Race weekend is upon us.

Here it is, Friday the 21st. That means that tomorrow we head to Philly and the next day we ride. Can't believe it's finally and yet suddenly here. Let me bring you up to speed on some recent LIVESTRONG Challenge happenings that have got us amped up before even leaving CT.

First of all, I made it to $2500.00 in funds raised. $2,555.00 to be exact. All thanks to you guys, a few key last minute donations and a little help from the little, I mean younger brother. All tolled, together the Frost boys raised over $7,100.00 to help benefit cancer research and awareness. And by Frost boys, I of course mean you guys, the people who we reached out to and who answered the call with resounding generosity and warmth.

We couldn't have done it without you.

I can't speak for Chad or Clint, but I am personally very humbled by the outpouring of support, and I'm very grateful for it. When it all came to a close, 85 people broke out their checkbooks, even in this hard economy to support me. That number itself surprises me but what surprises and humbles me even more, is the fact that out of the 85 donors, I only personally know 32 of them! That's right 53 people that I've never even met before donated to help me achieve my goal and to help us win the battle against cancer. Unbelievable! Really, I'm dumbfounded by this. I don't know what to say, it makes me feel wonderful that there is so much generosity and so many good people in the world, but it makes me a little bummed to know that cancer affects nearly everyone out there. You can see why it's important to me to do something, even if it's just a little fundraiser, to help the cause. Thank you too, you have obviously felt the call to help in this fight and I'll be thinking of you during the race.

Now that fundraising is closed, the thoughts turn to the actual ride itself. As you know, it's in Philly and since Becky and I live in CT, you'd assume that it's pretty important to have a place to stay in Philly. You'd be right in that assumption. We had even thought this through ourselves, and even went so far as to book a hotel room that that night. Wise idea right. So you can imagine what kind of fiasco ensued when we got a call from the DoubleTree West Philadelphia that we no longer can stay in the room that we booked months ago. Seriously, two days before the event we got that call. Apparently they've had some rain in Philly and the DoubleTree roof wasn't prepared for precipitation. Crazy. Now that they have water damage in some rooms, they are systematically ousting people. Our whole team is/was staying there so it's been quite a headache. They are trying to rebook us in an Embassy Suites, 13 miles away. Apparently they didn't think 100 miles was quite man enough, why not throw on a dozen more. Anyway, I've been going "Cathy Frost" on the GM of the hotel so there's a chance that we'll get a room there.

Besides the stress of worrying about a roof over our heads race-day-eve, (seriously, I had a dream about a strong chat with the GM last night) everything else I think is ready to go. My body feels as ready as it's gonna be. The bike's been tuned up and I'm about to hit the garage and give it a good cleaning. I know Chad and Clint are ready, Todd's feeling good, so it's on.

In other good news, since Team Fat Cyclist has ballooned to 197 participants and raised over $265,000.00, we won every award that the LAF gives out for the Philly event. This means that our team got 20 tickets to go to the LIVESTRONG Fundraising Appreciation dinner Saturday night. We were very honored to get invited by our team captain to help represent the team at this invite only dinner and I'm sure I'll have great stories and memories from the night.

So, the plan is to caravan with Todd and Katie tomorrow morning to Philly, sort out the hotel stuff and then relax until dinner, dine with other cancer fighters, sleep, wake up crazy early, ride, ride some more, keep riding, turn left and keep riding, turn the corner to the finish line, ride a little bit more, and then finish in a heap. Can't wait and you'll hear all about it after I recover next week.

Wish us luck.