This is the true post of Little 500 riders picked to have their lives surrounding America's Greatest College Weekend posted to the web. To find out what happens when the IDS stops just reporting and starts getting real...check here for The Real Ride -- Little 500 style.
The time is almost here friends.
Everything we have worked for, everything we sacrificed, every party we have missed, and every flat tire we changed in sub 30-degree weather is coming down to tomorrow and Saturday.
It seems impossible when I think about it, but I start to look at it as a celebration. It's a celebration of all those things we accomplished and all the miles we logged.
Some of us will be victorious tomorrow and some of us will feel defeat but the sheer fact we all showe up and continue this great tradition makes us all great.
For seniors this will be your last time: take it all and make it everything. For everyone else, take it all in and know that when it is over, all you will want is to do it again and a year seems like an eternity.
I want everyone to know that they have been changed forever by those last 100 or 200 laps, and always for the better. You have done something most wish they could and some will never get to. Ride with your legs and your brain, but don't forget your heart. If you ride without heart, there will be times where this challenge is just too great.
It will take years, if ever to understand the mark the Little 500 has made on you. You will see it in your job, in your family, in the friends you have made and the stories you can tell, or if nothing else, you have the greatest party trick showing people how to jump on a moving bicycle. Take in every second from tomorrow and Saturday because they will be over before you can count them. Let's make this great and give everyone a race they will say for years to come they were glad they witnessed.
So in closing my friends... ride hard, turn left, and Godspeed.
Abigail Legg is a Junior majoring in Neuroscience. She is in her second year riding for Wing It Cycling. Wing it finished ninth in the 2010 race.
Previous Real Rides
Zach Osterman - More Than Students, Little 500 Riders
Eric Anderson - Rounding Turn 4
Eric Anderson - A Taste Of Qualidays
Zach Osterman - The First Day Of Spring
Eric Anderson - Sometimes You Crash
Sam Harbison - A Little 500 Spring Break
Abigail Legg - You Know You're A Little 500 Rider If...
Eric Anderson - Only 19 Days Until Quals
Zach Lusk - We Are The Cutters
Abigail Legg - Why Do We Ride Little 5?
