Finding Adventure

Last week, my tweep Rob posted, “Keep finding adventure in your life!” Seems so simple and for some reason it really spoke to me.

After my accident I’d read that a person may go through some personality changes with this type of injury.  Evidence is showing that I’m not immune to that.  Within a month or so, I’d found myself wanting to try new things.  Not things like new food, but things that aren’t something most people would ever find themselves doing.  For example, I decided that I desperately wanted to take flying lessons. 

Throughout my vacation, I also found myself a little more outgoing than normal.  Yes, I was still relatively quiet in a group situation, but I didn’t seem to have much trouble with starting a conversation with the complete stranger standing next to me.

Even my mom commented that I seem to be a little different the last few months, but she was unable to pinpoint what the exact difference is.

Keeping in line with my new “adventuresome” side, when my friend Deborah mentioned signing up for an event called Beat the Clock, I decided I wanted to do it too.  The signing up for the event isn’t the out of character part; it’s what the event is.  Beat the Clock is a charity event for LiveStrong held once a year at Hellyer Park Velodrome in San Jose.

Yes, you read that correctly.  A velodrome.  Meaning I’d signed up to ride on a track, something that I never had much interest in doing and if I’m being honest, a year ago I probably wouldn’t have done it.  I have no experience riding on a track and while I would be allowed to use my road bike, brakes and all, I was still insanely nervous.

So nervous that while I was being held upright and the countdown started for my first event, I thought I was going to hyperventilate.  I had done a few warm up laps to get the feel of the banking on the velodrome, but placing so much trust in this stranger not to let me fall over was difficult.  I’m pleased to announce that he didn’t drop me.

My first event proved much more strenuous than I’d anticipated.  I’d miscalculated the number of laps and based my speed on how I felt warming up.  I ripped out of the start and amped up my speed to 24 mph.  Suppose I looked strong for the first lap, but after about one and a half laps, I started to burn out even though I was only halfway through. 

The second event went much more smoothly as I paced myself and managed to keep a fairly consistent and comfortable speed of about 18.5 mph.  As I rode by my friends, one of them yelled for me to stop smiling.  Hey… I was having fun and channeling my inner Chris Horner, nothing wrong with that! 

Of course, I came in last each time, but I tried something new.  I took a lot of comfort in the fact that I was on the track at the same time as Deborah.  Really made a difference to know I had friends there with me. While I'm not certain this is an activity in which I'll partake on a regular basis, let's not forget what Davis Phinney says - "Every victory counts!"

Thanks to Deborah, John, Chris, and Emily for all of the support… and for the super cool poster!