Exhausted and aching in unfamiliar places, Martin \u201cMitch\u201d Mitchell uttered three words Monday evening that have come to define his character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did it,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
Indeed Mitchell did. On Saturday and Sunday (July 17-18), Mitchell began and finished what proved to be one of the greatest challenges of his lifetime \u2013 The Seattle to Portland Bicycle (STP) Classic. The 200-mile bicycling extravaganza draws roughly 10,000 riders a year.<\/p>\n
None of them, however, are quite like Mitchell.<\/p>\n
Mitchell, 57, recently quit smoking after a 40-years addiction. Bicycling? That only came into the picture in the last year as a means of getting in shape. But Mitchell\u2019s trek was about a heck of a lot more than getting in shape. It was about fulfilling a goal. It was about raising jars of peanut butter.<\/p>\n
The Kent man was pedaling to Portland for jars of peanut butter, which he then would turn around and donate to Northwest Harvest, a statewide hunger relief agency. Northwest Harvest then will dispense the peanut butter to individuals and families in need.<\/p>\n
Mitchell set a goal of raising 2,500 jars of peanut butter donations through his grueling ride to Portland.<\/p>\n
On Saturday morning, shortly before pushing off from the University of Washington campus parking lot, Mitchell had raised 389 jars. Many jars, however, still had not been collected. Mitchell, who was on his way back to Kent on Tuesday, noted that he still had three more \u201cpeanut butter\u201d stops to make before returning home, and that he would not have the official tally until sometime this Sunday (July 25).<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not done yet,\u201d Mitchell assured. \u201cI did reach my goal. My part of it is done. I will be counting (the jars) up Sunday night, and going to Northwest Harvest the following day. I have a smile on my face for my appreciation to the people of my community, many who I will never even meet. I wish that everybody in their lifetime could experience this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout the support of the community, my idea was fruitless. It was everybody else that made it grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Mitchell\u2019s goal in regards to the ride itself?<\/p>\n
To not come in last place.<\/p>\n
That mission also was accomplished. Mitchell pushed off early Saturday morning, stayed the night in Centralia, and arrived in Portland shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday, slightly more than 200 miles later.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am burning in places that God put on my body that I didn\u2019t know would hurt,\u201d Mitchell joked. \u201cThis is probably in the top 10 things I\u2019ve ever done in my life, and that\u2019s including the birth of my children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until taking part in the STP, Mitchell\u2019s longest ride was the 60-mile trek in the Orting-based Daffodil Classic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn one day, I went almost as far as I\u2019ve ever ridden in one shot. That was quite an experience,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cI learned a lot. There are things I would change about my training. I expected my legs to be more sore, but I didn\u2019t expect my neck or upper body to be as sore as they are.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I wouldn\u2019t change what I did this year for anything in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exhausted and aching in unfamiliar places, Martin \u201cMitch\u201d Mitchell uttered three words Monday evening that have come to define his character.
\n\u201cI did it,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":5040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5039"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}