Wow, I couldn’t even be bothered to update what happened after I actually finished my first BP MS150? Damn. Well. Better late than never.
I completed every mile in my first BP MS150 in 2012. I did not use every rest stop, nor did I dismount and walk any of the hills (which was overwhelmingly tempting in the hills of Austin). I only had Clif bars, Clif goo (carb gels), and 2 sport-top water bottles that rode on my bike frame. I rode with PWC, and I was one of the last riders on the team to cross the finish line in Austin around 5pm. My incredible, supportive husband was waiting for me, and he drove me and my friend back to Houston that night. The official pictures from that ride are fucking awful, because I looked the exact opposite of an athlete. Every picture featured my round, rosy cheeks, and my brow eternally set in my “thinking/effort” expression, which looks to outsiders like I’m plotting their doom.
I cried many times during that ride: when the heat was buffeting up off the black asphalt of SH-71 in waves, when I’d look ahead of me and see the pack I’d been riding with outdistance me easily and disappear over the far hill, when those riders twice my girth and weight inexplicably overtook me. I cried because of the psychological pressure I had cultivated. I cried because I was still raw from the death of my mother-in-law, and all the problems that had arisen from that in the following months.
I had told myself on every training ride and every dollar spent on gear that I needed to complete this ONE thing. I needed to prove to myself that I existed, that I mattered, that even in a world where I am constantly powerless in the face of someone else’s grand design, I could choose to take on a challenge that other people would not or could not face. The ride started out as an idea of accomplishment, a large goal I could reach that was appreciable not just in the application of my hard work and training, but as evidence that my life was still moving forward. That I had purpose.
When I was arduously ascending those low, rolling hills blanketed with wildflowers, sweat dripping from my eyebrows and irritating my contacts, my left foot cramping, my odometer reading an excrutiating 5 mph– I saw my desire differently. It was no longer an act of proof for others, but an act of defiance for myself only.
My body was (and still is) overweight. It’s lumpy in the wrong places, and I don’t know if my double chin will ever go away. My breasts are too large for my liking (always have been), and I have to tame my mane of frizzy, coarse hair into something that is “appropriate” for current societal expectations of sleekness. I am not a woman of willowy grace. I have a barrel chest, and I’m built for strength. My self-image is that of a knobbly sweater, a mug of hot tea, and a slice of coffee cake. I identified with Laura Ingalls Wilder when Pa called her his “little stout French horse.” That’s always been me, and that will continue to be me.
For the first time in my life, laboring up and down those hills on that second day, I marveled at the strength of my imperfect body, that I was witnessing this incredible act of physicality that I had always assumed myself unsuited for since I adhered to the ethos “brain over brawn” in most instances. I watched my thighs pump up and down methodically like slow pistons; the hem of my bike shorts cutting my thighs into half moons only accentuated this vision. Every 30 minutes I changed my grip on the handlebars, flexing my aching hands and rotating the wrists a few times, amazed that I possessed such extraordinary tools. I wondered at the structure of my body, that I had figured out the secret of fuel so exactly that I could complete 10 miles on half a Clif bar and 3/4 of one bottle of electrolyte-infused water. That my imperfect, oversized body was capable of this level of effort and perseverance.
I am not ashamed to say that I pulled over to the side of the road after this revelation. I stared into the Bluebonnets dotted with Texas Paintbrush, Indian Blankets, and Black-Eyed Susans and wept into the bandana that had come in my MS150 registration packet. I was humbled by the beauty of my body. A true first. I wept for the years of abuse I had heaped on my body, for every piece of garbage I had ingested. It was a transcendent experience.
The best piece of advice I received during my training was from a fellow rider I met on one of Bike Barn’s sponsored rides. ” My advice? Don’t bring a radio or earbuds. It clouds your judgement. You can’t listen to your body if you’re listening to the next track. Focus on your body, and it will respond. Be aware of every second of effort and pain–it will make you wiser.”
The majority of my training was during the previous year in 2011, and it still remains the worst year of my life. I was laid off from my teaching position, my self-esteem and purpose took a nuclear blast as a result, I spiraled in and out of depression while I hunted fruitlessly for another job, and my mother-in-law died that December. I rode my bike faithfully each week, regardless of my emotional state. It had become the one thing that I was still doing right, and I could not afford to FAIL in any sense of that word. It forged in me perseverance and clarity, and it took the MS 150 for me to make sense of that dry, joyless year. The maxim that dominated my internal landscape for so long–you can accomplish anything if you work hard enough–was tested, and it rang true, but in a different way than I expected. It’s not about being able to work hard enough to do anything conceivable. It’s taking a risk, and pushing beyond to a greater challenge if your risk succeeds.
I completed the 2013 BP MS150 with a different friend, and it was much harder than my first time. I walked several hills. My body made a pointed display of how unprepared I was, how lazy I had become in the face of new obstacles. The 2014 BP MS150 is in a few shorts months, and I am once again challenging myself. I don’t know what to expect, but I do know one thing: I won’t be wearing any earbuds.
Forth Eorlingas! 