I wrote this at 7:00am this morning because I couldn’t sleep with so many thoughts racing through my head.
7:00am Sunday Morning:
I’m not going to go into a detailed race report of any kind. I’m not looking for sympathies. I’m trying to repeat the mantra “no excuses, no regrets”. This race meant the world to me. There had not been a single ride I’ve done this season where I hadn’t thought about it. It served as more than just a race for me. At first it was simply a personal attempt at doing something great. However, it grew into more than that.
Many people have told me that I have been an inspiration to them threw this journey. At first, I didn’t know how to take that. However, I knew it served as motivation for me.
As for my family and myself included, I felt that this endeavor had served as hope for us all. I’m learning that the loss of my brother has affected me more than I can really begin to understand and that my grieving has only started. This race had been more of a distraction than anything when it came to dealing with all of this. I’ve experienced how a 24hr race breaks you down to your simplest being before. This race ended up doing that sooner than I had thought/hoped for/ and anticipated. I reached my breaking point and surrendered to it. I tried my best to not let the race take my fight out of me, but it did.
Retrospect can be a painful knife in your side. I never felt right from lap one and began to unravel from there. At several instances I started to realize that because of the state I was in and the toughness of the course that I was significantly risking my safety staying out there. I began to review priorities in my life and for the first time in a long time, racing took a back seat. Unbelievably this came at one of the most inopportune times in my life. When it was all said and done, I looked at it as “just a bike race”, which was the antithesis of my mentality going into this all.
Sometimes the journey can be more important than the destination. I think in this instance it is best if I relish in this idea. This journey helped me to cope with intense sorrow and the toughest year of my life. It also made me realize how many beautiful people are in my life that I am thankful for. It made me see clearly what priorities are most important.
This journey is not over; it simply got derailed a bit.
I am thankful that I have had a great support network through all of this and I hope that those of you who have been a part of this truly know how genuinely gracious I am for all of you.
So I guess I’m officially on vacation now with seven other beautiful people whom I love and cherish greatly. When it’s all said and done I am coming home a winner, I have won the love of a perfect counterpart to myself whom I now get to spend the rest of my life with by my side and go through many more journeys with. This was just one of them. Time to make the best out of failed expectations and try and see a way to learn how this will only make me stronger in the future.
I may have failed in my attempt but my journey was invaluable…No excuses…No regrets.
12:16 Sunday Morning
As a quick follow-up: I’m back at the race now packing up and have discovered many of the riders had pulled out including the front running pro rider. As a result, I still ended up 15th in the pro/elite. I can’t hang my head low. Just lining up was a battle of nerves for me.
