I guess I can say I have officially started training for the Pan Mass Challenge (http://www.pmc.org/) in August. The 160-mile bicycle ride across Massachusetts benefits the Jimmy Fund, helping research treatments and cures for cancer in children.

For now I am biking indoors at the YMCA to keep in shape. It's much harder to keep up the intensity here than on a real bike, but it's a start.

I am daunted by the 'official' training schedule, but I feel if I basically live on my bike starting in Spring and get a few long rides in, I'll be OK.

To raise the money for my ride, I put a 'ChipIn' widget in the sidebar of the blog, to the right. If you feel so inclined, please click and donate a few dollars to help me reach my goal of ,400 (I have actually raised about 50 as of this writing, but am having trouble adding offline contributions to ChipIn). Thanks!