the tao of cycling: the story of april 20

Thursday, April 21, 2011

the story of april 20

once upon a time there was a girl who fell in love.

she married her knight in shining armor, and soon they decided to start a family. when they learned she was pregnant, they were ecstatic. four months later they learned she was carrying twins, and their excitement doubled, if you can imagine that.

it wasn't long until they were told that their identical boy twins needed to be monitored due to a size discrepancy, and within two months they were asked to come in for testing. when the doctor gently placed his hand on her knee, fuzzy images on the ultrasound behind them, she knew that the smaller twin had died.

the young girl's heart broke when this was confirmed, and that heart was hastily pulled together when her surviving son was born, prematurely, two days later, april 20, 1991. tape and bandages and some string wrapped round and round, holding that heart's pieces from falling apart.

it was a gray and rainy day, and the girl spent most of it sleeping and trembling in her dreary hospital room while her new son slept on a warming table in the newborn ICU. it wasn't until the next day that she learned her precious son had suffered a severe cerebral hemorrhage before birth. as he grew it became clear he would never able to completely fulfill the three wishes she had for him: that he would be able to discover the joy of using his intellect, that he would be able to glory in the beautiful world around him, and that he would be able to give and receive love.

he lived a beautiful life anyway.

and in january of 2010, he left the girl and rejoined his twin.

now the girl rides her bike on april 20, she rides her favorite ride, up emigration canyon and down to the reservoir, around the paint-chipped yellow gate, and up toward big mountain as far as she can before the snow stops her progress. at that point she stops, she talks with her son for a few minutes, and she spreads a few of his ashes beside her favorite road.

yesterday she rode in the rain and the sleet, and paused a mile and a third past the gate. she talked to her son, she smiled, she shook the rain from her helmet and she wrapped her arms and tucked her gloved hands into her armpits.

she likes to think her son watches her ride, every time she rides, and she's certain he joins her at times. yesterday he was the tailwind pushing her home, back home into her new life without him, but always with him.

happy birthday jake, happy day, little joe.

2 comments:

Jeanne said...: wow. that moved me. i love "the girl". she's very special.; May 2, 2011 at 3:59 PM
susan said...: the girl has some pretty incredible friends, too. thanks for being a special one of them.; May 2, 2011 at 6:10 PM

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.