Day 4 Bordertown to Horsham 175km
Yep up at 5:15 again for the sunrise breakfast cross. Today from Bordertown primary school. Yes, today is the start of 9 school visits that the tour will make to present our mantra of Be Healthy, Be Fit and Be Happy. The visits are a critical part of the tour’s objectives to help regional Australia where the incidence of cancer far outstrips the wealthier city populations. The first presentation we missed as we had to hit the road to another presentation but we had half an hour to mingle with parents and their children.
Good news…no rain and not much wind. The bad news is I’m on the front of the peloton for the first 2 hours which means I’m using 30% more energy than hiding in the bunch. Today’s pace 35km/h. Ouch! This is going to hurt…and it did…but it was all worth it as we rolled into Frances population of 100 and home to Frances primary school with 30 screaming gorgeous kids ages 5 to 10. We had a full hour to interact with the kids, present our story and hopefully leave some memories and make a little difference. The school visits are the biggest highlight on tour and if there are any more perfect than the little school at Frances we are in for a treat. The kids signed off with a song they had written and the news that they were holding a bike ride next week “The Tour de Frances” to raise money for tour de cure. Priceless.
The next school was at Goroke, 50km up the road and this was time for Team Optus to present to 60 screaming kids ages 5 to 13. We gave it our best shot and raised a lot of laughs with our pantomime theatrics and hopefully again made a little difference. The receptions we get at the schools are mind blowing and emphasise the beautiful and positive outlook on life that young children have.
So 75km to go and a deadline to meet with an Optus store visit arranged at 5pm and radio broadcasts for me to do. The next 2 hours were a blur. All I know is we rode very very fast and we were all very very tired when we rolled into Horsham. 4 days and 600 kms. It doesn’t get easier you just get progressively numb to the pain. Tomorrow’s ride is 216km. The tally has ticked onto A$1.9 million.
So easy if you are a boy, I would be off somewhere finding a tree to hide behind.
We live by the whiteboard for 10 days, OPTUS task for the day to do the TDC blog.
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