Epic weekend in Brisbane for the Rio Tinto Ride To Conquer Cancer

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." - Michelangelo 

Jeepers! I know for a fact I didn't aim low with this Ride To Conquer Cancer achievement. I am speechless, so many europhic and epic moments that I will endeavour to keep this short and sweet. Still pinching myself with Richard Branson getting back to our invitation to come ride with us. Totally outta this world!

Photo courtesy of amazing photographer Pat  Event Photos Australia

Seriously? This time last week I was in Bris Vegas and meeting a bunch of crazy and super extraordinary people. Yes, we the VisionCrusaders.com finally met face to face for the first time. It was like a family reunion. Faces were familiar and we were chatting like it was only yesterday. Which is kinda true, as we would've touched base via Facebook the night before to finalise our weekend arrangements.

The power of social media and connecting people these days simply blows me away. I am totally in love with it all, as you can appreciate being a Mum of 4 kids my social life isn't as regular as back in my Rockstar Dani days :-)

Anyways, without getting too emotional and telling you this has got to be one of the greatest things I have EVER done in my life (besides marrying the love of my life and giving birth to 4 amazing children) this comes pretty close. I rode with so many amazing people and loved hearing all their stories and why they ride. They shared their life with me and the ones they lost. I too told them I had family pass away and thankfully my father survived prostate cancer.
It was truly humbling to hear them give me thanks for doing what I am doing and for leaving our young family behind to help theirs. WOW!!! Tears, strolling.

So without further adieu here are my thousand words in pictures.....

Day 1 - Vision Crusaders We ROCK!!! We were pumped!!!! Just about to take off!

Simon Mills, Brenda Batten, Nicko Lunardi, Nicole Whelan, Dani Stevens , Kai McIntyre, Ken Dutton, Josh Potter, Klaus Bartosch, Troy Douglas, Greg Leitch, Bec Failla, Chris Hennessey, Sharon Robson, Jeanette McGhee, Rona & Tim Wakeman, Robert Dixon, Jacqueline Anthony, Lis Dargush, Matt Leasegang and Stephen Hughes

Day 1 - I officially fall off my bike with one cleat still on (only a minor fall), first 5kms into my ride and I stuff up on my gears, the chain gets stuck in between the cassette and the rear hub, amazing Rio Tinto bike techs to the rescue and I allow the blood flow back into my body after my feet go numb riding. 

Fitness Food And Style rides her first 220kms ride

Day 1 - celebrating our amazing team member Robert Dixon reaching his 20,000kms milestone, super special

Vision Crusaders celebrating Robert Dixon's 20,000km milestone

Day 1 - riding along side my partner in crime, Matt (I'm sure we got separated at birth)

Matt L (another amazing photographer) and I

Day 1 - first lunch pit stop after missing one in between and cycling 40kms straight! I was on fire!

Captain Klaus Bartosch and I (eating as per usual)

Day 2 - We were very noticeable standing out in our Blackmilk Clothing leggings

Photo courtesy of amazing photographer Pat  Event Photos Australia

Day 2 - riding in the fog and being escorted by Police vehicles was pretty cool

Photo courtesy of amazing photographer Pat  Event Photos Australia

Day 2 - Beautiful Stephen Hughes kept me going over the 2 days, awesome crew at every pit stop nourishing our fatigue bodies, fab photographer Pat capturing all these amazing pictures and Greg and I woo-hooing at the finish line on Day 2

Day 2 RTCC highlights with fabulous people

Day 2 - Bec and I crossing and finishing our 220kms ride together

Photo courtesy of amazing photographer Pat  Event Photos Australia

Day 2- I complete my first ever ride of 220kms of my life (my bike only clocked 100kms on an indoor trainer 14 days ago). Anything is possible if you set your mind to it!

Very proud moment

The Rio Tinto Ride to Conquer Cancer raised an astonishing $4.2 Million, with 1,236 riders to support vital cancer research and clinical trial at QIMR. I am super proud to be a part of this. For those wishing to support us please donate generously so we, the Vision Crusaders can complete ALL of the 6 Ride To Conquer Cancer events. Click to donate to our team here or you can donate to my next ride in Melbourne which supports the Peter Mac foundation.

Special thanks 

To all my Vision Crusaders family, amazing sponsors Cycle City for my bike, Goves Cycles for my awesome gloves, 2XU for my bike apparel and all of you that kindly donated and made all this happen.

While I was in Brisbane my beautiful girlfriend made me feel pretty special by placing micro bead hair extensions, I am so in love with them. So if you are in Brisbane, you have to contact Nicolina at Lashing Extensions and please like her Facebook page and leave her a comment and say hi. They feel so amazing, so natural. Our kids thought that the sunshine made my hair grow longer while I was up North. Gold!!!

Hair extensions by Lashings Extensions

Have a beautiful weekend and I look forward to another sensational week with you all next week.
xxDani

Linking up With Some Grace for FYOB.

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Fitness Food And Style turns ONE

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday dear Fitness Food And Style. Happy birthday to me!

Fitness Food And Style turns 1

I can't believe it's been an entire year since I googled Blogger and created my blog. I had several girlfriends tell me I had to share my new healthy and fit lifestyle with the rest of the world. I told them who would want to follow me? Low and behold over 100,000 followers later!! THERE YOU ARE! So thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your love and support. 

Here's a quick snapshot of the last 12 months.

June 2012

I created my blog and Facebook page. This face now goes out there in the world wide web as Daniela Stevens Creative Director of Fitness Food And Style

Dani Stevens Fitness Food And Style

I share all my post baby transformations and hope to motivate others that you can get your body back after having babies. I have, after 4!!!

Post baby number 2

Post baby number 3

Post baby number 4

I started getting better with my food choices and no longer gained over 30kgs over my pregnancies. Hence wanting to share the 15 minute workout program I have been following for the past 6 years and healthy eating. No more yo yo dieting. 

July 2012 
I start my own 6 week Transformation Challenge and document what I eat and the 15 minute workout program I follow.

Fit Yummy Mummy Transformation Challenge

August 2012 
We celebrate two birthdays. Our first born Noah turned 7

Skylanders birthday party

and baby Zali had her 1st birthday.

1st birthday party baby pink

To ramp up my 6 week transformation challenge I pick up the pace and do a mini ab challenge to see if I can motivate myself and YOU to eat healthy and eliminate sugar within 12 days.

I also start to train for my first ever Ballarat fun run. I am no runner, so this was a huge challenge for me.

Run Ballarat

September 2012 
I get really excited about blogging and can't believe there are 60,000 page views in 3 months and my readers/followers on Facebook start growing from 20 people to 1,100. I am truly grateful that you are all enjoying my blog and my fitness, food and style journey xx

Fitness Food And Style reaches 60,000 page views

October 2012
Busy birthday month again with 2 parties and I officially complete my first ever Ballarat fun run and take a picture with Olympic champion Steve Moneghetti.

Steve Moneghetti and Dani Stevens

I even appear on the front cover of The Ballarat Courier which totally blew me away!!!!

Our sweet darling Mietta turns 3 and has a star party!!!

3 little tin cakes 

and we finally get to celebrate my darling husbands birthday

November 2012 
Our pool project is slowly coming to an end, I participate in a yoga challenge for the month and realise how much love and passion I have for this particular movement and we celebrate Oscar's 5th birthday and have a pirate party!!!

Pirate party

December Finally we wrap up the year with no more birthdays (except for JC's on Xmas Day). I kick off my first official challenge and run a #xmas25squats challenge on my blog, Instagram and Facebook which took off!!!!!

I also clock over 100,000 pages views on my blog and have 2,000 plus followers on Facebook and over 5,000 followers on Instagram. Really enjoying what I am doing.

Squats challenge #xmas25squats

We took some fun squat pictures and Christmas is always a great time of the year with our kids, friends and family.

January 2013
I now get hooked and start challenging you all to join me in my monthly fitness challenges, on top of our normal workouts we do. This month it was all about planking and we had some amazing pictures under the #planksjan2013 hashtag. My results weren't too bad either.

Planks challenge 2013

I also gain a lot of Instagram followers with 15,000 from people tagging my challenges and sharing with their friends.

February 2013
This month was HUGE!!! I had so many of you participate in my No Added Sugar 14 days challenge and even got a mention in the Lorna Jane Move Nourish Believe blog.
The I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson ebook was a fabulous recipe book, with so many options to assist to curb my sugar cravings.

No added sugar challenge

I also get an exclusive 10% discount for all my readers for the awesome 180 Nutrition protein powder I use. I love it!!! Don't forget to use the promo code 264464 at checkout any time. 

March 2013
This month it was all about push ups and eat more greens. I collaborated with @tonedtannedandfitness from Instagram  #pushupsgreens, celebrated my 39th birthday and clock 39,000 Instagram followers. I also go to my first ever blogger event Digital Parents and meet Klaus Bartosch who invites me to be part of the Vision Crusaders team.

Push ups challenge

So many cool pics with people doing their push ups all over the world.

Push ups challenge

April 2013
With all the greens we pushed up in March what better way to continue this by eating fully raw!!!  Stand up and be RAWESOME was a very challenging month for me to say the least. I really had to increase my calories & fruits a lot more but didn't manage to eat enough, so I ate a 80/20 fully raw diet as my beautiful Kristina at Fully Raw coached us along the way.

Fully Raw and Fitness Food And Style

Our kids loved this challenge and their Incredible Hulk AKA Shrek smoothie.

May 2013
We take a little bit of detour from fitness challenges and we focus on every day things and a little on style with my #photoadaychallenge.

Photo a day challenge - Fitness Food And Style

I also feature in the Lorna Jane move, nourish believe blog and meet Lorna Jane herself.

Lorna Jane and Fitness Food And Style

I have a busy month campaigning for my Vision Crusaders Ride To Conquer Cancer and I meet so many amazing people online that are helping me achieve my goals. Special thanks to Andrea for making this clip for me by Biz Promo Video.

June 2013
This is wind down month where we focus on our spirituality and connecting our mind body and soul. I have collaborated with Grow Soul Beautiful with this months yoga a day challenge. Facebook fans nearly clocks at 10,000 followers and Instagram hits 83,000 followers. I am blown away!

I also started my #richardbransonproject and appeared on Win 9 News and our local newspaper The Courier with our kids primary school holding up the sign.

Source: The Ballarat Courier

So many signs across the world holding up this sign asking Richard to come ride with me. I am blown away and can't wait to receive his reply.

Richard Branson Project

This has been the best 12 months EVER! I thank every person that has contributed to making this such an awesome year! Even if you are not listed by name here, you are never forgotten as you are the reason why I am here. You mean so much to me and I look forward to more adventures in 2013 and beyond!

Which reminds me, have you a spare $5 you can dontate to my Ride To Conquer Cancer please? You will be making such a difference by contributing to this amazing cancer research benefiting the Rio Tinto Queensland Institute of Medical Research. 


===> DONATE HERE

Much love and friendship,
Dani xx 

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