still going

perhaps i thought i would have more time to blog!! ha, it has been crazy. we are in illinois now. it was soo hot yesterday 106 coming thru ozark mountains. we all stopped together to take a pic at the mississippi in the dark. well at least we know where we were!

we appreciate all the continued support and well wishes. i promise that i will share more of our story when i get back and sleep for a week! 

chow for now. we will look forward to some crabs in annapolis!!   alan

update from alan

wow, this is quite an adventure! we spent the first 2 days in oceanside getting things ready. considering that none of us have ever done anything like this we all came together and were ready to roll by sat morning. The start was at the city pier in oceanside. Gabriella Reese the Olympic voleyball player was the MC. Her husband is the famous big surfer Laird Hamilton. Our team was jsut behind him at the start and we did the parade route with him and got a chance to talk with him. cool guy. we got in alot of the pics since the media was all over him.

the support of strangers has been really cool. we just stopped in at a campground to dump the motorhome tanks and a lady came up to us and told us to kick butt, unfortunately she jsut lost her 2 year old daughter a few months ago to NF2. we all have to stay focused on the WHY we are doing this. We are raising awareness and money to end NF and the terrible things it does to generations of families.



We are so proud of our NF hero Drew. I have a D on my upper thigh facing me to help me stay focused. Cant wait to see our Hero at the finish line next week.



We made it thru the desert last night and into Arizona this morning. i was riding down a road that never ended while the sun was rising in the east. it felt like i was on a stationary bike! the scenery is awesome but it really felt like it was not changing at all!



Today we did the worst of the climbing until we get to West Virginia. Rich, Tony C and Anthony all had epic days of climbing. Rich made the front web page of raceacrossamerica.org pretty cool.

we hope to get some pictures posted soon. off to sleep now, riding 10 hours overnight tonight.



all for now! take care, Alan



PS: you can track our progress on the above we

biste. go to the top bar "race coverage" and leaderboard and you can find drews crew.

Oceanside!-Alan

Oceanside! wow, is this nice! We all arrived safely in Oceanside this morning. Registered, Pete learned some rules at the crew chief mtg then we lettered all the trucks, put the bikes back together and started talking trash with the other NF Endurance Teams. We have a NF Endurance Team Meeting tonight and then going out to dinner. I am so proud of the support team that we have assembled to guide Tony, Anthony, Rich and i across the 3024 miles. Gotta tell you as i looked looking out the window of the airplane last night i realized how WIDE the country is!!! All for now. Hope to post some pictures soon.

48 hours we will be in CA, by alan

On Wednesday we will be in Oceanside CA looking at the starting line that we will cross on Saturday. I have many thoughts as we begin the race that started for me over 2 years ago when Steve Kendra and the first NF Endurance team did RAAM 2007. I knew then that i needed to find a way to get involved in the race. So after much discussion we formed Drew's Crew and will race RAAM 2009. We named the team after OUR HERO, Drew Budlong. He is a 10 year old boy that suffers from NF. We will leave Oceanside Ca on 6/20 at 5PM EDT and have 9 days to cover 3024 miles and be in Annapolis MD by 6/29 at 5PM. It will be an amazing journey and i hope you all will keep us in your thoughts and prayers. The racers and the crew will be updating this blog. you can also get twitter updates on your mobile phones to get text messages of our progress(ask a 14 yr old how to set up:)) www.twitter.com/teamraam We thank all of our friends for the tremendous support that have provided. All The Best, Alan Sterner- riding to find a cure and raise awareness for NF.

dry run this weekend!! We are going from Trexlertown west to hagerstown MD then east on the RAAM route to preview the finish line in Annapolis!!! 380 miles should help get the kinks out of the crew and the riders :) Saturday will be 3 weeks from the real start in Oceanside CA

30 DAYS!!!!

We are counting down quickly. 30 days till the race start on June 20th in Oceanside CA. Motorhome and cars just got lettered with the NF Endurance Team/Drew's Crew/Children's Tumor Foundation logos. They look great! Tonight we are meeting to teach the motorhome drivers how to drive "Mother" the RV that will be following us. Tell everone to go to www.teamraam.com and support us!

update 41 days till race start In Oceanside CA

We are all reading rules, making lists of things to pack and trying to figure out blogging and twittering (?) Our fund rasing is in full swing, up over $40,000! Thanks to everyone for their support. Planning big rides this weekend.

Our twitter site is http://twitter.com/teamraam

Alan