“I will never do the Unbound 200. You‘d have to be crazy to do that.” Suraj Yalamuri, 2022. Well, I guess I’ll eat my words because that’s exactly what I will be doing the summer of 2026. Riding 200 miles of gravel will be the second part of my riding goal for 2026 along with climbing Mauna Kea and doing Leadville 100.
Considering my clinical and research work has to do with heart transplantation, I’m riding on behalf of the Chris Klug Foundation (CKF), a nonprofit that educates on the importance of organ, eye, & tissue donation. Not only will I be riding in their honor, but I will also be fundraising for their cause, in support of organ, eye & tissue donation.
Numbers always seem to boggle the mind when it comes to ultra endurance racing. When I raced The Rift (200k of gravel in Iceland) I was on my bike for 10.5 hours, drank 11 liters of water, consumed 1.4kg of sugar, 8g in sodium, and nearly 7000 calories of food. And after all of that, I weighed 3lbs less than when I started the race! Now here are the crazy numbers for transplant: Everyday 17 of the people on the transplant list die waiting for their turn for their transplant. And every 8 minutes, someone new is added to that waitlist. Just one person has the ability to save up to 8 lives as an organ donor and improve up to 75 lives through tissue and eye donation. But here’s a stark reality: although 95% of U.S. adults support the idea of organ donation, only 48% are actually registered as organ donors. And for heart transplants we use only 25-30% of the organs that become available. All of this is not good enough. We need to increase the donor pool. My research is focused on keeping hearts alive and regenerate them so more recipients can have access to more donor hearts. But that will never happen, if we don’t have enough people signed up to be donors. CKF is helping with that.
Please help me raise the very important funds they need to continue their lifesaving mission. The smallest amount helps and 100% of your donation is tax-deductible. Donations can be made via credit card or check.
