100 miles to Nowhere.

Typically at this time of the year, the thought of riding  100 miles does not incite any type of concerns for me. Having had the summer months to ride, race and train, I normally would be coming off a fitness peak, hence in as good a biking shape as any avid cyclist. Alas, that was far from the case, the thought of riding 100 miles in a circle caused me a fair bit of anxiety and trepidation. 100 miles to raise money for the local cancer center, 100 miles to cause people to stop for a second and think of their friends are relatives who are fighting this disease, 100 miles to raise a few hundred dollars for a local cyclist who has been an inspiration and fighter to all those aware of his story, that was the plan, and this is how it went.

One of the 4 right hand turns on the route

Its hard to write any sort of ride report, or blog about the 7 hours it took to ride around a 3.2mile loop 33 times. Oh the drama – I turned right, then right, then right again and wait for it … I turned right again.

I would rather take you through the emotional paces of my ride and take some liberty to juxtapose it against what I assume could be the struggle of someone struggling with cancer.

You Never Know.

It always starts that way doesn’t it? I had an inclination I was not in the greatest shape to do this ride, however, I wasn’t sure, maybe I would have a great tailwind, maybe a bunch of people will come out, pace me all day and I would just sit on wheels, maybe I have residual fitness that magically surfaces, maybe from training for the gran fondo, and this ride would be a breeze. I assume that’s how it is till you are sitting across from a grim looking person in a lab jacket delivers the news to you that your life as you know it is about to change and in some cases, be over. We have ideas what our reactions, thoughts, next steps would be, but you never know, but all the same you go.

A Village at the Start.

When we set out at 9am, there were a good number of people, I was full of optimism, I knew it was going to be hard, but it was going to be fun. I was going to coast through the first 60 miles for sure and then slowly suffer. The energy was positive, we were out riding our bikes on a beautiful day what more could you ask for. It felt like something with a purpose behind it, everyone had a personal motivation for doing it. Slowly people hit their individual goals, some rode for an hour, some 2, and others 4, but slowly the field widdled.

Increasingly, the responsibility of completing this ride was becoming apparent “you told people, if you donate your money I will ride 100miles, not we”. The work was left to me to put one pedal in front of the other. Is this not how it is in most cases? We hear of this someone newly diagnosed and we are heart broken for them. In some cases we loose sleep, we immediately cook meals, send cards, say prayers, like fb post, but ultimately, and slowly something else wrestles away our attention, slowly another fire needs putout, another project take presidency and slowly the battle falls to the person and his close family/friends to carry on fighting. It is the reality of life for bystanders, the spirit is willing but the bandwidth is limited. Slowly, I saw less and less people as I kept making right turns.

 

Photo: Martin Heavner

True Suffering Begins

At about mile 45, I start seeing signs that this is going to be a longer day than I thought. For reference, I gif this same ride last year “75 miles to nowhere” which I completed in a little over 4.5hrs, average speed 16.4mph. On this ride, at mile 45, I start seeing cracks in my mind and body, I start hearing the voice of doubt yelling “dude, you are only at 45miles”! My out of shape triceps were starting to strain from holding my formerly furloughed gut. Every once in a while though a glimmer of hope and encouragement would appear, a friend and co worker parks at the side of the road and cheers me for a few laps, another friend shows up and rides in the wind letting me sit on his wheel for a while.

Wifey and daughter joining for a lap

Tom did 50miles with me. Believe it or not I caught a little draft from riding his wheel

I remember seeing chemo patients in a similar state, the same routine, treatment 4 days a week, 2 days off, go home, get sick lay in bed, loose weight, diarrhea, pain. Intermittently, they are buoyed by the visit of a grandchild, a pastor, a surprise card, a song on the radio or an encouraging scripture or video from coworkers. These things happen give you the will to keep going I imagine. I had to, I had 55miles to go.

The Dark Dark Days

Photo: Martin Heavner

For the last 30 miles of this ride, the appropriate word for my state is “pathetic”. I was barely pedaling. Thought like calling it quits, faking a crash, actually intentionally crashing, and believe it or not even giving my ride to someone to ride a few laps for me crossed my mind. The obvious answer is real cancer patients don’t get that choice, do they?

At mile 80, there were only 2 of us riding, me and Ryan. Ryan is also a cancer survivor and obviously tough as nails. I think he was suffering, but holding up better than I was. Somewhere around mile 60c my friend Ron shows up. I believe God usually gives us one or two champions who stick with us through the thick and thin. I see them walking down the hallways of the cancer centers: spouses on extended FMLA, children who quit their jobs, leave the city and move back home to be with dad, friends who never miss a single day of chemo and come sit in the room and watch terrible daytime television while treatment is given.

Ron & Brian making sure I finish

Things got pretty dark for me, if it were any other day it any other ride, I definitely would have been calling my wife to. One rescue me. But my friends Brian and Ron cajoled, guided and literarily pushes me around the loop.

The Last Mile

Ryan finished the 100miles 2 laps a head of me. I can not honestly say I was absolutely confident I would finish the ride, I fully expected the rapture somewhere between mile 86 and 100. I have heard of some people recently who have battled cancer and made it to the other side. They are an encouragement and a light to many. I can only imagine the anxiety that comes with the nearing of one’s final chemo or radiation, or the wait for the PET scab at 12months. There is so much to empathize with. When one is. It certain that the finish is the end.

Broken

Salt-Caked

Destroyed

The Bounty.

At the end of the day, we were able to raise $3160 after this ride. A solid $500 above the $2500 goal. This money will go the the Schwab Cancer center, for things the staff come up with to help patients, especially those without families and $500 goes to local cyclist and friend of all Sam.

Received $500 in cash donations

I would like to extend this platform to anyone who would like to fundraiser for a cause they believe in. Next year could be 50/75/100 miles to nowhere for the animal shelter, MS, human trafficking, domestic violence, you name it. I’m just tired to asking my friends for money and want to donate to what you care about. Let me know your plans.

Thank you to all those tho gave, Cameroon out, and encouraged. Big shout out to those who have battled or are battling, more grace and strength.

 

Food for Thought

Can the world accommodate everyone living in their purpose, with every step and decision intentionally propelling them towards their pre-designed destiny? Many people I know are like trains locked into tracks made of responsibilities, obligations and social expectations, unforgiving and unrelenting. We are governed by mantras like – “man must chop” and “I have a family to think of”, the system needs everyone to play their role to exist, we must go to work to earn and pay the mortgage, the bank must give loans to kids to go to college, who must in turn find a job to pay back those loans and on and on. The system needs us just like we need it.

Staring out this window at my regular 15 minutes work breakfast, I watch people file into worker, I ponder their faces. Some look like they are still trying to fully awaken while others look laden by what awaits them as they walk in the door. I see some people who look like drones, compelled to put in their 8 hours by some unseen force, living for the 48hrs between Friday and Monday. I can’t help but wonder – are all these people doing what they want to do or better yet, are they doing what they are meant to do? Is it possible for us all to do what we are meant to do?

Can the world support a mass awakening, the systems: education, financial, political, social even spiritual are all built on people sucking it up and accepting the hand dealt, what would happen if half the people in our jobs decide to quit tomorrow and follow their heart, downsize and live for contentment. I am not quite sure. Would that be a good or a bad thing? What if the farmer, accountant, doctor decides to quit and become a musician, or load up a backpack and through hike the Appalachian trail? As much as I want this for everyone, I wonder how this would play out. In the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam work to do, I assume he liked doing it, it was what he was meant to do. The woes of living in a fallen world.

As usual I have more questions than answers. I just am moved by our collective level of compromise, overwhelmed by the courage and vulnerability required to unshackle oneself and take the leap, intimately aware of the possibility of failure which if the other face of the coin on which courage lies. The saddest part is that the effort required to dream for a better tomorrow or contemplate decisions in the past that has lead us to our today, actually ends up robbing us of today. I guess all we can and should do is keep fighting, keep dreaming but all the while not forgetting to keep leaving because as of today, TODAY is all we have.

I do need to get some pictures, I know posts without pictures to lighten up the melancholy sometimes end up sounding depressing

 

Point of no return…

Too late to turn back now….

when skiing with friends much better than me, we always come to the point where the blue and black diamond trails no longer satisfy them, the logical next step in a double black or glade skiing. I am forced to decide to take the plunge and thread the needle; though the trees or ride in between and over the mine field of knee high moguls. Many times 15 yards down the steep I can abort, hike back up, ski across to a tamer trail, or gracelessly exit the glades (there have been cases where I took off my skis and hiked to the button to the amusement of onlookers. However, there is always the point of no return, that point where it is impossible to hike back to the top or pizza it to the bottom.Where you must muster all your courage and go for it.  It is at times like these that we come face to face with our inner strength. In these times we realize that no one else matters but us and what we think aboutourselves and our effort. At such times, due to the inability to guarantee success the most important thing is effort; doing the best we can to achieve our set goal. 

wipeout and we will laugh.

Many times, a difficult trails runs right under the lift line, so if you wipe out you end up being entertainment for everyone. This stops many people from attempting runs they would like to try, businesses they would like to open, vocations they would like to answer. You would be surprised by how many adults who do not know how to ride a bicycle but are afraid of what people would say or think when they see them practice. When you reach that point of no return, survival sits higher on your scale of preference as compared to avoiding embarrassment. 

Your Turn !!

Sitting on the ski lift at White Tail ski resort for some winderful springish skiing, I realize I am slowly inching towards that point of no return in my personal life. It feels exciting and scary, I can’t stay where I am but making the move somewhere else is daunting and scary. Soon it will be too late to turn back. I would love to nail this run but there’s also a good chance of a wipeout. 

Let’s go…

Are you successful?

 

What is Success? Have you ever pondered such a seemingly simple question? Quite capricious is human nature that we set a moving target as our definition of success. We wrestle between having a full life, living our dream, and making a difference beyond ourselves. Lately I have been trying to come up with a definition of
success that works for me. Of course there is a myriad of cookie-cutter answers like spending quality time with family, experiencing life, having a successful professional career and the likes. Like Solomon, given the opportunity, what would you ask God “specifically” when you ask for success in life?

I concluded that; besides desiring to be a great role model for my children and the best possible Godly husband to my wife, I cannot with any specificity articulate what I want in the form of a successful life. This comes from a lack of faith, resulting in vague prayers. God does not answer vague prayers because we can’t tell if they are answered or not, then he doesn’t get any glory. Because some desires (to be a bike shop owner, adventure journalist/photographer, outdoor adventure manager) seem and sound unsustainable and outlandish we have difficulties believing it is achievable and instead ask God for a better job rather than the specific desire he has created in us and is aware we have.

I watched the documentary Living on a dollar a day, it brought about the question: how do you live without guilt when by providence you are born into a family, place, and time where you have options. How to you decide to downsize and live as if you are on burrowed time when the most joy you have comes from activities that are a luxury in many other places? How is it that security brings about less joy than uncertainty? If you have follow this blog, you know I have more questions than answers.

I do have one answer though for all these question: Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the lord with all your heart, lean not on your understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.

 

 

The Unknown

Sitting on the steps of my driveway, the  Fall chill sipping past my soft shell jacket, my skin and nose bask in the crisp aroma of tired leaves, the atmosphere saturated with the smell of fall, and the sun – missing in action. It was decision time: do I go on this ride or not? You see, every once in a while, especially post riding hiatus comprising of full on absence from the saddle, I decide on some big exploratory ride the theme (slow and long) where I attempt to go off lots of unbeaten paths and explore roads I have never been on before. It so happens that somehow on those rides I end up riding some variation of the rides I already know, I never really get lost, I stay constrained in my curiosity and always stay within the buffer of the familiar.

What do we fear in the unknown? Is it trepidation of mental and physical anguish we might experience in discovering it, or the effort required in embracing and mastering it, maybe its just the awareness of our nakedness and ignorance made glaringly apparent in a state of not knowing. I think in my case, my fear is that I might not be able to afford the cost of the venture. Due to the significant topographical fluctuations in elevation (climbing) around Cumberland, I would have to climb and/or decend a couple thousand feet before I even reach uncharted territory, when finally on virgin territory the further I go the more worried I become: I worry about how climbing lies ahead, am I going to get lost and have to backtrack, what about getting back home? I am going to have to do all that climbing to get back home (this conversation set to the Banjo ridden soundtrack of Deliverance as I go deep into Appalachia). The fear of running out of energy is so immense I inevitably end up doing a variation of the ride I already know.

On Saturday though, I mounted and headed towards the limits of my familiarity, I got to the cross road of decision where I could turn left and head towards Centerville and back home or I could head towards Everitt, towards more struggles with gravity, towards adventure. I chose the latter. I rode all the way to Bedford PA, through a cathedral of changing colors and Fall foliage, the scrubs signaled their welcome to old man winter with bright shades or green, yellow and amber, the maple trees displayed every shade of orange occasionally liberating a confetti of spent leaves as the wind demanded, I coasted on the downhills ignoring my Garmin, I drank of the beauty and searched for a deeper meaning of all this. I dug deep looking for a palpable connection between this awe and my inadequate comprehension of God’s magnificence, constantly failing, my attention wrestled away by a vibrant shrub or a cammo-clad youngster stretching his bow.

Thanks to inadequate planning, I ran out of food was cold, worried and my butt and legs hurt. There comes a point in ever Century ride when it is no longer as much fun, you just turn the cranks in order to get to that 100mile marker. In many aspects of my life I feel that’s where I am: like I just rode past the 75mile marker and the views are beginning to look the same, the company the same since mile 1 and conversation is running thin, in my ride of life, change is imperative but I remain clueless as to its initiation. I was tired but I somehow knew I was going to make it, the hardest part had been done, I had gotten on and started riding, I had made that turn and had been rewarded for it.

I recently heard “Fear is the fruit of forgetfulness” when we forget all the other times we have taken the leap of faith and God has brought us through it builds our faith and debunks fear. Another I heard is “Faith is not the opposite of Fear…Love is” when we finally comprehend the love God has for us, and how much he has done and is willing to do for us, we gain perspective and faith and loose fear. You know, I think even those we think are brave like the Nomad and Vagabond need to ask themselves if deep down they are actually afraid of stability, assurance and calling a place home. In the Bible my favorite passage about fear is 1John 4:18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love”.

After 70 miles and 6k ft of climbing, I arrive home, toes numb, shoulders locked, ears and face numb but a smile frozen in place. It was difficult, it was lonely, it was hard ….. But it was New!

In the Eyes of the Beholder…

In the Eyes of the Beholder.

 

Lately, I have been pondering the limits of morality as it applies to different people in different circumstances. What sets the boundaries beyond which we call a morality timeout? Who draws the lines where it is too far to cross? Are we governed by some universal meter, religious, social, or political ideologies and are these standards universally applicable? Are our personal morals universal or do we reserve the right to adjust them depending on out physical location and social circumstance? Really, think about that… Do We?

I just came back from Nigeria where the economy is doing great with $510 billion in GDP, ranked 26th in the world (the fastest growing economy in Africa) but also a country where the great troughs of poverty can still be see. It is still a place where uncertainty in the areas of food, shelter and security is commonplace alas tell me a place where those concerns do not exist. Someone supposedly credible explained to me: Nigeria has two economic streams, the legal/transparent stream, and the Shady stream. He claims the legal stream puts Nigeria not so much better than any other African country in terms of economic viability and growth but the illegal really boosts the economy and provides people with the resources required to drive economic growth (the reliability of this statement is a topic for another day). Now when I say Illegal, I do not mean stealing and tax frauds and extremes like that though those things do exist and are commonplace. In this case I mean markups on prices which both parties know is going on, gratuities given and received that reach up and above the 20percent expected in western cultures (actually American culture), bribes, kickbacks, unprofessional gifts etc. These things done because it’s the way it has always been done, because it is the grease that lubricates business and gives you a better chance of getting the next contract. It is a means of spreading the wealth in a country where the socioeconomic stratification is so wide and distribution of wealth and resources so uneven and restricted to the one percenters’.

Now if one looks at the world through a “Black and White” lens where there are no grey-zones, if we judge the world through the standards set by the bible without discernment, if we are rigid in journeying through the rigors and messiness called life, we might relegate such practices as illegal with no possible excuses to justify them. However we fail to take into consideration that only God judges the Heart and rewards according to what our actions deserve (Jer 17:10). Now I know some might see this as me justifying such behaviors but like many other quandaries, I find myself the amphibian; born of the land and of the sea, able to live both lives and torn by the dichotomy that exists thereof. Pondering this situation whilst trying to reconcile the prevalence of “off the book side businesses” almost everybody I know in Nigeria does,(a banker gets a N15,000 appreciation for fast-tracking someone’s application, an Oil company man gets $50,000 for choosing this contractor over another) there is the unspoken rule that one good turn deserves another. I asked a friend where he draws the moral line, I said I want to be financially comfortable, I want to contribute to society, to my country, I want to give and I want to receive but I don’t want to steal, so help me see how what people are doing is not stealing.

A quote from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath summarizes his response: How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other.

People do what they must to survive. A system in which surviving requires, some rules be bent, truths warped, actions taken with the normalizing clause “as long as you are not hurting anybody.” Well at the end of the day, we are hurting someone by marking up the price, by selling a good for twice its actual cost, someone is paying for the greed that has been trickled down the system, the price being paid is not always in money but in opportunity, in dreams, and the most costly of all in hope and faith. Usually people are okay if the only people they are hurting is the government because the general feeling is they do not care for us, they plunder and loot us, but in the end hurting the government gets richer and the people poorer.

I will not pretend I know the answer to this conundrum because its a system where you need to stay alive in order to change, and to stay alive you might need to reevaluate your moral boundaries and any adjustment of your moral boundaries puts you in same group as the rest (no small or big thief… a thief is a thief). Here we need strength and wisdom … Strength, Wisdom and Gratitude that God does not just judge the works of out hands but sees the inner things of our hearts.