Starting the ride!

Actually, I don’t want to really wrap up this challenge. But yes……the 100 mile bike ride is done!!!

October 5th was a perfect fall day in Arcadia National Park, ME—no strong winds, bright blue sky, crisp air, and a great spirit amongst 250 riders of all levels.

During my sleep the night before I kept feeling I had already done the ride. Then, waking up and getting ready, I was nervous. 100 miles was just more than I could get my head around. Even though I had done 90 miles before, I had ridden them with some long breaks and I wasn’t going to take any this time.

Once on the road though, nature’s beauty, the other riders around me, and my own determination carried me to ride at record speed until, on a steep hill at mile 22, my gear system broke. And from then on it was up and down, on and off the bike to keep putting back the chain that kept derailing when I changed gears. It wasn’t what I had anticipated, to put it mildly, but there was no question about giving up.

The only real temptation to stop short of my goal came at mile 90, facing the 3 mile climb up Cadillac Mountain. “Is it crazy to go up there without a working transmission?” My friend Eva, who supported us with fuel and cheers during the ride, said nothing but I knew I just had to go. Ultimately it was not a problem—on one low gear, in a steady pace and with the big-hearted encouragement of a co-rider.

Afterwards I felt I didn’t really know who had done that ride. My body was shaking and I was so tired I could have dropped face down into my Chinese soup. But it was thrilling to have discovered a level of determination beyond the flailing physical energy and the frantic racing of the mind. Onepointedness. In this simple physical endeavor I could steer the course.

After the ride

I am very glad I did this ride. It was a victory over fear, doubt, inertia and stomach cramps. In all of my 48 years I have never felt stronger, but most importantly the ride punched a hole into the veil of the nagging sense of self-limitation that so often shrouds our hearts. I want to keep pushing myself, not just in physical ways, and I will keep riding—I plan do a century (100 miles) every other month or so, to find out how big my lungs and how strong my heart and muscles can get, and also to pay tribute with my own body to the extraordinary life-energy we have been given.

On the long ride back home in the car the following day I felt like a vegetable until I remembered my other commitment for this month—Chi Gong. At a gas station, under a wind bent tree surrounded by trailer trucks, I just did 5 minutes of it, and felt 500% better immediately—alert and energetic. It is another powerful way to connect with the life-force we are a part of. So I will definitely keep practicing Chi Gong as well.

I am looking forward to hearing how your fitness challenge went!