Life is an Adventure Made for an Adventurer

In 2010, John and I were training for our first Ironman in Lake Placid. During that training season, I was thrown off the road by a car, and it shook me. I remember being so afraid to ride my bike outside. In fact, that crash affected my cycling confidence for at least 2 years. (I’m not quick to recover from sliding across the road at almost 20 mph. Call me a sissy if you must.)

A few weeks after that crash back in 2010, John and I went for a ride in the New Hope, PA area, using a cue sheet we downloaded from MapMyRide.com. We were looking for some hills (notice the recurring theme in my blog?), and we had heard from friends that area was perfect for finding them.

The ride that day was hard, and the course itself was way too technical for my budding cycling skills – or lack thereof. (Hmmm, another theme?)

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Image credit: Culture Cycles, original post: http://www.culturecycles.com/2011/01/h-e-l-l-helping-everyone-live-longer/.

And, I was scared – not only of the cars (of which there were ample on various sections of the route), but also of the twisting and turning descents, with blind corners and unknown scary monsters up ahead. Okay, maybe there weren’t any actual monsters, but I had plenty of scary monsters in my head.

As we were headed down one particularly narrow and twisting stretch of descent, I started singing to myself as a way to keep calm.

“Life is an adventure, made for an adventurer, made just for the girl who can grow up strong and be Ironman.”

Okay, yes, I changed the lyrics from this classic Violent Femmes song. But, you have to adapt them to your circumstances, right?

As John and I continued through the ride that day, with me scared out of my mind for most of the ride, and he enjoying the adventure, I soothed myself to these lyrics from the Violent Femmes. By the end of the ride, I had almost convinced myself that it was a grand adventure. And, now, with the benefit of time, I’m convinced it was a grand adventure.

Me, scared? NEVER!

Last weekend, I was reminded of this day when John and I went to Pittsfield, Vermont for a Spec-Training adventure. Our plan was a hilly ride on Saturday, and then a hilly run on Sunday. In between the training, we would head to the Peaks Ultra to cheer on some people we knew who were running the 500 mile race. Yes, I said running, and yes, I said 500 miles – in 10 days, with 120,000 feet of climbing.

Life is an adventure, for sure.

For the ride, we selected a loop that would allow us to climb (and descend) the Middlebury and Brandon Gaps, two long and challenging climbs with rolling terrain in between. We downloaded a cue sheet from Ride with GPS, and by 7:15 am, we were on our way.

Somewhere around 2.5 hours into the ride, we realized we were lost. Well, not lost in the sense that we didn’t know where we were, because we did. But we were lost in the sense that we weren’t on the loop.

The ride was officially an adventure – a hilly, butt and leg busting adventure. After several false starts and redirects, along with the support of several Vermonters who unknowingly but willingly became support crew (people are so friendly!!), lending directions to get us back on track after we missed no less 5 turns from the cue sheet, we were finally back on the route – but the adventure continued.

Brandon Gap Vermont
Top of the Brandon Gap.

We had climbed the Middlebury Gap in the first part of the ride (pre-wanderer phase), and the second half featured a climb up the Brandon busting-my-ass-for-forty-minutes-to-get-to-where-the-heck-is-the-top Gap. This was the single hardest climb I’ve ever done, and my entire body was burning. I felt certain that if I didn’t get to the top soon, I would be a human sacrifice of some sort.

When I was about a quarter mile from the top, John had looped around to check on me. He confirmed I was almost to the top, so the VooDoo ritual would have to wait for another opportunity. I would hold on for another day.

John gave me some motivational words: “C’mon, push, pull, push, pull,” to which I huffed in reply, “Don’t. huff. Talk. huff. To. huff. Me.”

Apparently, I like to be left to my own devices when I’m oxygen deprived.

Finally, mercifully, beautifully, exhaustingly, I was at the top of Brandon Gap, with its 1,900 feet of climbing in 6 miles and 15% %#@$!? grades. It wanted to break me, but it didn’t. Very dang near close though, I will say that.

The view was gorgeous, so we took a moment to take it in, and prepare for the way down and down and down. Smooth pavement, steep grades and curves, I held to the hoods on as the adventure shifted tactics.

Ride completed, we went to check on those crazy kids running 500 miles. What an incredible event the Peaks Ultra is. John ran (and was the first overall male) at the 50-mile race last year (you can find his race report by clicking here), and we knew two of the guys running in the 500 mile race this year, so we wanted to show our support to them – as well as the other lunatics athletes racing in the 50, 100 and 200 mile races.

Within an hour or so of arriving on site, Kale Poland came across the finish line as the first of two to finish the 500 mile race. We met Kale in February; he did the Florida Double Anvil with John. He was followed by Nick Bautista several hours later. What an incredible feat! You can read Kale’s report by clicking here, and Nick’s report by clicking here.

It’s hard to complain about a hard day’s ride when these guys grinded it out for over 9 days. Unbelievable!

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The next morning, I was a little tight, a little sore. I thought of Nick and Kale and realized that even if you think you can’t do something, you really can.

So, out the door we went.

We stayed at the Killington Motel, which was only a quarter mile from the 5-mile run up to the base of Killington Ski resort. We decided we were going to run up that road – about 5 miles of mostly climbing up. Our plan was to take a parallel road with slightly more gentle loping to come back down.

The climb up was uneventful, and when we got to the bottom of the mountain – we saw there was still snow on the mountain. OBLIGATORY SELFIES COMMENCE!!!

We played around running through some ski trails, and then found ourselves at a road which we assumed was the parallel road we were looking for.

Well, you know what assuming does – it ends up having you run down a steep, quad busting road that spits you out about 5 miles away from where you thought you would be.

Okay, adventure redirect – this 100 minute run was about to have a little something extra added to it, like 40 minutes extra.

I woke up that next morning more sore than I’ve been in about 3 years – I was Boston Marathon sore. Stairs were painful, trying to get into or out of a sitting position was a teeter-totter parade.

I thrashed myself. And it was worth it.

Life is an adventure, and it’s made for the adventurer.

You’ve got to get after it and accept every twist and redirect you are lucky to experience.

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