Adventure, Hincapie, and Disney References

We make strange choices as a pair, me and my husband. We choose to skip over normal vacations, like the beach, for other more adventurous explorations that leave me hungry for more, yet somehow sated and happy. Much like Disney's incarnation of Belle, "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell." I am constantly hungry for mountains, beauty, exploration, and the bountiful growth these things bring.

This year we decided to do something fun with our bikes to celebrate our fifth anniversary. I was bucking for a tour from Paris to Amsterdam, just the two of us with no guide. I figured we could combine our powers (my minor in French and Paul's decent orienteering skills) to make our way across the countryside on bikes, camping and sleeping in little inns along the way. Paul was a hard sale on this idea, though, so we let that rest aside for another year.

Then the Hincapie Gran Fondo entered onto our radar screens. Eighty miles, with more climbing than either of us had ever endeavored, through the mountains of North and South Carolina: all these things were enough to stoke our interest. This was how we would celebrate what I came to hashtag as #fiveyearsaschwer. It would follow our first years of bike racing, with full summers plentiful with rides. A weekend of riding, with friends, and a quiet celebration our life together with scenery and suffering.

The route is curated by the Hincapie brothers, George and Rich, as evidenced by the beautifully challenging nature of the course. It's a beauty and a beast. It starts out quick and rolling, and continues onto a lakeside roller coaster ride that is as pretty as it is chaotic. Skyuka Mountain and Green River Cove are some of the most amazing climbs I've ever done. They're stunning, full of switchbacks, and relatively untraveled. They're also much longer and more technical than any climbs I can easily access around here. If you had told me that morning as I stood shivering in the start corral, that I'd have a breakthrough moment on Skyuka Mountain, I probably would have laughed at you. But I did... I've never been much of a climber, as most of my regular readers know. But that morning, as I ascended into the fog, I was able to stay in charge of my heart rate and exertion level, and have fun. I took it easy, because I knew what the rest of the day held in store for me, and rolled up, all smiles. I had fun climbing. For the first time ever, I started to feel the hill repeats and afternoons riding up and down Alto begin to pay off.

After descending Skyuka, you ride through rolling scenery before hitting the next climb, the unassuming but beastly Howard's Gap. The grade is nonstop, with little-to-no-chance to recover until the very top. My legs still felt like toast, and all around me riders were paperboying (zigzagging) or walking up the incline. But ride up this, with no shenanigans. A no-nonsense approach up this climb, with a commitment to just stay on board, is the best possible method.

Following Howard's Gap, things got whiny in my head and heart. We passed a gas station where we stopped with Hobbes earlier in the year - he tossed his cookies on a long road trip - and I knew there was beer there, and food, and part of me wanted to stop there and not get back on. Thankfully, we found a group of our friends at the next rest stop, and we started sharing time at the front, and my day instantly improved.

Misery loves company. And it's just nice to see friendly faces of people you trust in a paceline when you're at a ride like this. It's cozy, like sitting around the camp fire. And while I don't see these people all the time, I feel like I know and trust them like family. That's the beauty of being out on a ride with people. They're the ones who see you at our best and worst, and generally embrace who you are.

We made our way to the final climb of the day, Green River Cove, which clocks in seventeen switchbacks, with a startlingly beautiful roll through a river gorge to lead into the lowest turn into the climb. There are signs in each switchback, counting down from seventeen, which is a fun game of memory with an oxygen deprived brain, a mechanism to distract myself from the increasingly searing pain in my legs, back and lungs. I triumphantly reached the top, met Paul, and we went on to the rest stop to wait for our friends.

After regrouping, we approached the descent from Saluda, back towards the finish at Hotel Domestique in Traveler's Rest, which makes the last few miles fly by. At this point in the ride, I was grateful for the break, and felt refreshed when we hit the final rollers into the finish and was happy to be climbing the short hills.

I told my friends it was the hardest ride I had ever done, and the metrics of the ride agree with that statement. It was a beastly amount of climbing. But it was also exciting and fun, and the route is really quite lovely, especially once the riders begin to spread out following the early rush from the start. It probably isn't the way most people would choose to celebrate their anniversary, but it was just right for us.

Growth

Those moments, when nothing works out like you expected. You're typing and the words don't come like the usual raging torrent because your mind is all awhir with thoughts that don't have lexicon. Or you're spinning your legs, but once again can't hang on. Or all you want to do is take a day break from adulthood, because sometimes it sucks, and sit in a hotel pool and drink champagne all day. Days like that, they can make or break you, in the short and long term, and its all in how you approach them, I suppose.

I have rides lately where my fitness isn't what I expect it to be. I'm realizing, though, that occasionally I have to look beyond the day-to-day assessment of my fitness level to look at the trend of where I am globally. Am I stronger than last year? Probably... athletic metrics feel fuzzy to me sometimes when I try to examine the data.

But maybe there are other areas of growth that will contribute to my future success. Forging through on the days when the words feel all wrong as they flow from my fingertips to the keyboard to the screen to the world, like I find myself doing today. (My post-ride beer could be to blame.) My thoughts seemed eloquent earlier today; here I am now, shuffling through this.

Those low-fitness-feeling days have felt like that. Shuffling through, not hanging onto wheels. On the other side of these rides where I've been disappointed with my performance, though, I'm seeing through a different viewfinder. One that shows me that while I'm not as fast as I was a few weeks ago -- I have been sick -- I'm growing as an athlete in other ways, other than the explosive growth I experienced toward the end of the summer. I no longer need the husband or a friend to constantly hang on with me. When I find myself alone, with people to chase, I keep seeing myself mentally buckle down, and tell myself things like, "This is where I'm the strongest." I hope someday this growth will benefit me, when I'm strong enough to be the girl off the front in the breakaway. Because I know that day is coming, because I'm working hard for it. And when that day comes, I'll know I'm strong all by myself.

Posts when I forge through, they prepare me for days when maybe, if I work hard, this thing gets bigger. These things I want, these goals, they're within my reach.

My last thought, because I somehow can't weave it in elsewhere:
        I get nowhere good by beating myself up if I have a bad day. Positivity, and the belief that I can handle the rough days, that's a driving force for good. The trying times are doors that open to a wider world, with bigger experiences, as long as I handle them as obstacles through which I can grow, instead of brick walls against which to bang my head. This works for all facets of my life: writing, riding, relationships. I want to learn to appreciate the experience of growth more. I think I am.

September Book Report

No one likes a book report on a half-consumed book.

But that's what you guys are getting.

Much like I can't quite finish a foot long sub, but the half size is too short, Terry Orlick's In Pursuit of Excellence was more than I could chew in one month. The book isn't terribly long. It is, however, laden with volumes of useful information that sometimes require serious consideration for digestion. Wait, is this a sandwich or a book?

I picked up In Pursuit after searching around the interwebs for a highly recommended sports psychology tome. Orlick's work repeatedly emerged from the searches, so I decided it might be a good choice. I often feel I defeat myself mentally on the bike, as a parent, and in life in general, so a little positive pop psych couldn't hurt me any.

Sometimes I feel like I'm weeding through a jungle, thick with sights to see, as I read In Pursuit. The pages and words occasionally present as slightly text bookish. This is not to deter you, just to warn you. Still, find a copy and read this book. I can't say it has magically made me faster. Orlick has encouraged me to examine my psychological approach to all walks of my life, though, and I can say I feel better about most facets of my athletic performance, parenting skillset, wife life, and even authorship.

I happen upon concepts in the book that sometimes feel a little hokey. Like snake oil. I figure I may as well drink the kool-aid, though, and am even trying his self-hypnosis methods. (Really just intensified focused meditation...) His ideas go past simple positive psychology, and encourage the reader to remember we are in control of our minds, and our body will follow where the mind leads. Seek positive thoughts about who you are and what you do, and your actions will follow. Which, even my constantly skeptical husband agrees, is a good place to start.

Would I recommend this book to a friend?
Yes. If you are a person who breathes and lives, you should read this book. With an open mind.

Any warnings?
Enter into this reading with an open mind. No language warnings for this one. My grandmother would be proud.

Physical or E-book?
I am reading In Pursuit of Excellence on my Kindle. I suggest finding a physical copy, for easier reading and reference.