June 15/Special Olympics Bike Ride, (SOBR)

Please allow me a quick introduction. My name is James "Spudd" Sasak, I'm 52 and I belong to Lakeshore Lodge 307 in Madison, Ohio. I have taken a dedication to the principles of Moderate Fitness Recovery and created an endurance athlete. Thirty seven marathon finishes and well over 25,000 miles of self-contained bicycle touring allow me the privilege to count myself among the athletically gifted. I wish to share my gift with some special friends. I am going on a 6 or 7 hundred mile bicycle trip to raise awareness for our state's special athletes. I will be pedalling around Ohio for the next couple weeks in my "safety green" Ohio Special Olympics t-shirt drumming up as much interest for these amazing athletes as I can. And visiting as many Masonic Lodges as possible. If you're not home I'll leave my card and one of my "safety green" t-shirts. I hope to meet all of you out on the road.

June 15/Special Olympics Bike Ride, (SOBR)

Prepping for a bicycle tour is a lot like training for a marathon. Millions of details and knowing you are going to somehow forget something. I must admit to forgetting nothing except that my left knee had been a problem since the Rite-Aid Cleveland Marathon on May 18th. I rested it for the last four weeks. I received amazing treatments and massage from incredible specialists. And still the knee is banging. Not as badly, but it is going to be touch and go. Lots of aspirin and water. I'll stay in lower gears to save the knees, travel more slowly, and hopefully be able to keep my assignation with my Brothers and ALL of Ohio's Special Olympians on Friday evening,
for the opening ceremonies on June 27 in Columbus. Let me leave this introduction with one of the incredible lessons we can learn from our Special Olympians. A popular corpoarte slogan tells us to, "Just Do It." Our Special Olympians teach us to, "Just Try It." Fearless of failure they are teaching us to "try" a little bit of physical activity. Even though we may not all be natural or gifted athletes, we can at least try to get ourselves into a little better shape.

Here's the skinny; I have promised my Lodge brothers at 307 that I would learn how to blog and send my bicycling adventure stories daily. Deeds not words. Today I pedalled from Grand River to Avon Lake. Nice weather, tough winds, help from good friends. I covered 50 miles along Lake Erie in about 6 hours. Laying over at my Cleveland State Fraternity Pledge Brother, Willie Keis, we speak of fraternity days. I have missed the connections with my college chums and welcomed my new brothers as I became a Mason. There are a great number of similarities between my college fraternity and my Masonic fraternity. I will try to tie them together during the course of my travels. But one thing is certain. One of the major smilarities is that both of my fraternities highly value service to the Community. This bike ride is my chance at this point in my life to do something good for some great kids. Many layers my friends. Stay tuned. I will tell you a good story.
Pictures are worth words times a thousand. Will try to get photos up asap.
Staying tuned,
Brother Spudd