Pelotonia Capstone to Law School for Schonauer

Studying for the bar exam is filled with stress for most recent for law school graduates. The long hours, the caffeine, the review of subjects covered three years ago all can lead these hopefuls to any means of relief. For Centerburg, Ohio native Joshua Schonauer, that relief was found riding his bicycle along the country roads.

Now that Schonauer has completed the New York Bar Exam, he has one goal to complete before leaving Ohio. What began as a study break has led to a commitment to ride the entire 102-mile distance in the 2010 Pelotonia to benefit cancer research at The Ohio State University.

OSU's Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute is consistently ranked as a top cancer hospital and is the only dedicated cancer hospital in the Midwest. With all of the money raised by riders going to OSU-CCC, Pelotonia is modeled upon The Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The 2010 Pelotonia ride, held August 20-22, will be similar to the 2009 route and Schonauer will go the distance, riding from Columbus to Athens.

I've known Joshua Schonauer since he was a little boy when he was one of my daughter's classmates in the Centerburg High School Class of 2001. He then traveled to New York where he studied journalism and mass communications, graduating from NYU in 2005. Schonauer returned home to attend the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, graduating in 2010.

While in New York, Joshua was actively involved with the Relay for Life as a way to help a cause near to his heart. Cancer has touched his family from losing his maternal grandfather to lung cancer while he was still an infant to his father's diagnosis with malignant melanoma skin cancer when Schonauer was 10 years old.

Schonauer admits that his initial reasons for riding were "to blow off steam while studying for the bar." Then, he realized it was helping him get into shape for his post-graduation self-reward - a 12-night cruise through the Mediterranean. In the end, Joshua found another reason to ride Pelotonia.

"It's a physical challenge, too, because I've never been a long-distance biker," he wrote to me. "At this point, the longest ride I've taken has been 40 miles, and that's still less than half of the 102 miles I'll be riding on August 20."

While Schonauer will actually be tackling the physical challenge of Pelotonia along with hundreds of other riders, there is a way you can help from your computer. Register with Pelotonia to be a Virtual Rider and share the fundraising message. The minimum donation for Virtual Riders is $10 and it all helps support cancer research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

If you'd like to help Joshua reach his fundraising goals and support cancer research at the James Cancer Hospital, visit his rider profile. It's also possible to support any rider of your choosing and 100 percent of donations go directly to cancer research.

Source: Joshua Schonauer, Official Pelotonia Website