Last year, I thought that this week I would be going on a new adventure: I’d be riding my pink Felt road bike from San Francisco to L.A. on the 8-day, 525-mile epic journey called the California Coast Classic, which is a major fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation. Then, COVID-19 happened, and the official event was canceled, and I ended up with an 8-day staycation. I used the time to discover something about myself.
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CCC Remote Challenge: Mt. Lola
For those of you who know me, I’m not really much of a “dirt” rider. For about three years, Rich has been trying to transform me int a mountain biker, and he hasn’t exactly been successful. Even in my running days, my favorite workouts took place around a track where pace, distance and all the metrics were measured out and easily calculated. Trails were places where you could roll and ankle and put yourself on the couch for a week or two, and so they were never my strong suit. Follow me on this journey to a new understanding of life, myself while raising funds and awareness for #TeamCarter2020 and the CCC. If you feel so compelled, support me and this incredible organization which supports all the important dreams and lives.
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The Sound of Gravel
These days, I’m finding an unexpected solace on the gravel bike. Maybe it’s because I have to concentrate on the trail, so there isn’t much room in my mind for me to think other thoughts other than to focus on what’s happening in the moment. Maybe it’s something new, or maybe it’s overcoming fears. Whatever the reason, riding dirt feels “right” to me. It’s distance and it’s solitude— and it’s, oddly, like meditation on its insistence on the here and now.
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Write, Embody, Heal: Thoughts on Community
I am participating in a monthly creative/therapeutic and regenerative For Women Unfolding: The Write, Embody, Heal! workshop group led by my creative colleague and friend Kelsay Myers. I appreciate the group not only for its ability to remind me to slow down, to breathe, and to embody (myself in) the moment, but it also inspires me to have creative-play when it comes to my writing, something that hasn’t happened for years.
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A New Life Lesson and Tents
This past week, my teammate on #TeamCarter2020, Kyle Berg, posted this video on Facebook about his commitment to the Arthritis Foundation, which really threw me for a loop. Not because I don’t agree with him, but because I haven’t really checked in with myself in the midst of all this craziness: am I truly prepared to complete the California Coast Classic this year? In other words, am I committed?
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The California Coast Classic: A Return to Community
I started this blog wanting to write about someone else. In my last blog, I said that the California Coast Classic was all about sharing stories. And, if you haven’t been on the ride, it really is. Every night after a day of riding your bike and eating food and riding your bike more, you hear a story from someone who lives with Arthritis and how the Foundation—and the fundraising required by this event—has made their lives better. I wish I could tell you how disappointed in myself that I just can’t write that blog.
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Week 21: Why Storytelling Matters
It’s been a hard week. I’m starting to question how useful it is to share the details of why it was hard for me, exactly, because I feel like most of us are in the same, shitty COVID-19 boat and you already know what I’m going to write about. There are so many ways it could be worse, and so when I say I had a bad week, it’s in the context of this little world of mine.
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Week 20: You Are Never Alone
It’s funny sometimes how life works. One moment, we think we’re on a certain path and then something happens— a pandemic, for example—and everything we believed about ourselves and our lives evolves to fit the situation. And then we wake up to discover that we, too, have changed.
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Week 19: The 54-Things-to-be-Grateful-for-Challenge
If you want something to feel grateful for, you can get involved. Supporting organizations like the Arthritis Foundation is important now more than ever given the recent data that is being released about COVID-19 and its impact on those who have pre-existing conditions. I also challenge you to take out a sheet of paper and write down 54 things for which you are grateful. Share them with your loved ones… or share them with me. :-)
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Taken on Emigrant Trail which runs parallel to CA Hwy 88.
Week 17: Discovering the Best in Every Situation
I think, like everybody, it was shocking how fast everything changed. One day, we could buy toilet paper and the next there was not a roll to be found. It reminds me of other changes that can happen in your life and change everything, which is part of the reason why I’m dedicated to raising awareness and funds for the Arthritis Foundation.
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Week 15: In it for the Long Haul
In this journey, I am so proud of myself. I rode 100 miles and I did great. I have reached 1/5 of my fundraising goal for the Arthritis Foundation. I also ran 2.04 miles in 12 minutes, which is pretty amazing for an older person with a full time job and a heart full of stories I’ve got to get on the page. I am telling this story, and I’m so honored to do it.
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Week 14: Conquering Fears = Growth (in a good way)
So, there I was: 3 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, wide awake and thinking about my 5 a.m. workout at Orange Theory Fitness (OTF). The coaches had warned us in advance that it was a “benchmark” workout (a template they surface every six months or so as a way to gauge our gains in fitness.) Today would be the 12-minute run for distance.
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Week 10: Getting Over Myself
A part of this journey is physical: the training, getting to the start line, eating right, resting right, etc., etc. But then there’s the mental part, and that, to me, is just as important. We’re all warriors in one way or another, fighting our own battles, winning some, losing others but hoping that the win-loss ratio comes out positive in the end. I’m a warrior of words, and for years I have struggled with bearing my soul to the world, or more precisely, of feeling worthy of doing that sort of work. I need to become stronger because the writing demands that of me. So, here I am.
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Life is full of beauty and of miracles. After avoiding another injury, I’m grateful for them all.
Week 9: Oh, Snap!
This and experiences like it make me feel as though I can, at times, glimpse what having a form of Arthritis must be like. I know, of course, I’m wrong. That this is an approximation, a clunky metaphor at best. Yet, to live a life in which what you want to do— what you can imagine yourself doing— and what you can actually do diverges and goes separate ways, that is the territory of athletic injury, too. In these moments when I am more fragile than a small child, I’m reminded not to take anything for granted.
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Week 8: One Step/Stitch at a Time
For those of you who know me, you won’t be surprised that I picked up an unexpected obsession this week. Of all my personality traits, utter and complete devotion to something that may or may not matter in the long run is something I tend to do. In graduate school (all nine years of it) my obsession was maritime history. I was obsessed with shipwrecks, scuttlings, or basically anything written by maritime historian Nathaniel Philbrick. I wrote a few essays based on all this research (none of which were published) so I can’t say for certain that that particular obsession really did all that much for me.
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Week 7: Creating Magic
I think we need to be brave, and to create more magic in the world. I think we need to surpass our weird boundaries or limits and to foster connections rather than silence.
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Photo by sergeyryzhov/iStock / Getty Images
Week 5: The Holiday Season
Instead of giving you the ordinary laundry-list of training details, recovery tips, workout ideas and other essentials for a 525-endurance ride, I thought I’d take a break all from that and share some holiday stories with you. Because, well, it’s the holidays.
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Left: Jerry Davis with his grandson, Carter, the inspiration for “Team Carter” of which I am part. Right: taken on the 2018 CCC when members of Team Carter hugged me because I was shivering and for the first time I really felt what it’s like to be a part of something larger than just another “win”.
The Day I Met a Hero: Carter's Story
As I start my multi-month training for the 525-mile California Coast Classic cycling event, I wanted to introduce you to the reason behind Team Carter (the team I’m riding for): Carter. He was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) when he was three years old. Since, his grandfather Jerry Davis has ridden the CCC to raise awareness—and funds— to help find a cure for his grandson.
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