Posted by RobertB Published on October 26th at 10:47 am @ http://www.ridetoaustin.com/
I was writing this on Saturday night/ Monday morning & couldn’t contain my thoughts. After a couple of days, I think I’m ready to finish it.
Good morning. I should be in bed asleep recharging to do the Ride for the Roses this morning, but I can’t sleep. There is a lot that is on my heart & mind. I have had a great time in Austin with all of the P3C3 family. Most importantly, I had an amazing time on the journey getting here. The trek halfway across the country with people that you may or may not know well or at all before you start the journey can make many people uncomfortable. That was not the case for me or most of Team ScottSTRONG to my knowledge. It seemed as if we all embraced the opportunity to be a team, and took almost every chance to get to know each other better & make this journey more rewarding for the rest of us.
As for me, I am feeling so many different thoughts and emotions about life and what is important. That make me appreciate what I have. Most importantly, my health and my family. As I am writing this, my wife’s grandmother is in failing health and is not expected to be with us too much longer. (She has since passed on as of Sunday night). Being separated from someone you care about is difficult, especially when they are hurting. I have asked if I should come home and if that would provide comfort and the answer was, “You need to be there. You are doing something important”. I think to myself, that I have planned for over a year and a half to make this journey and all it entails. The fund-raising, the planning, the actual ride to Austin & of course the celebration with friends. Those are all good reasons to do this, right?
Well, today was the LiveSTRONG Challenge 5K Walk/ Run and it was a very powerful event for me. It was great to see the mass of humanity and the excitement of the emcee build up until the start. The other really cool thing is being a part of the mass of humanity representing the P3C3 from Greenville in our neon green shirts that are recognizable from a mile…or two away. I haven’t run any distance over a mile anytime in the past year or so. I initially decided that I would just stay with the group or part of the group and do whatever feels right. Well, a few or our serious runners really jumped out of the pack & made great time. I was pulled by a feeling that I needed to run. Not just to run for the sake of pride in running well, like I said, I haven’t run a mile in over a year. It was to run from the mess that I feel is my life right now. Life is hectic, work is…work & I just need some sanity. So, I started to follow some of our more serious runners out of the large part of the group. They kept going making a good showing & I had one thought in my mind. “I am going to run solo.” Not that I was in a bad mood, but I felt like I needed to run and do it myself. I made a very respectable showing and felt good about finishing the 5K course in just about 30 minutes. I then circled back to find some of the P3C3 crew waiting for others to finish. This was the when I gained a little more clarity. Being with our group & waiting for our people to finish was great. The cheers for them as they passed and then joined us afterward was great. We then had our Cancer Warriors approach our position on the way to the finish & we joined with them to finish the course. We all made the rest of the way together as one. For me as well as our Warriors, this was a tremendous experience. I cannot speak for them, but I know it brought me to tears to know the work & determination and spirit that it took many of them to take this journey to Austin and show cancer what they were made of.
Sunday was the Ride for the Roses which is the signature event of the weekend & culminated our week long adventure together. It offers several distances between 10 and 90 miles. I had originally signed up for the 60 mile distance knowing that we would be maybe just a little tired of the bike after riding our bikes from Greenville to Austin. However, with all that life is throwing at me now I was ready to just get on the bike and ride. Well, not really ride, but run. Run for as long as I could by myself (maybe with a couple familiar faces). This is where I for a few days had been thinking that the BIKE was the only place that I am feeling real peace right now. I just wanted to keep going and going and going, hopefully to clear my mind or get away from what I am dealing with. My P3C3 friends kept asking me how long I was going to ride & I kept saying, “I just want to get on the BIKE and ride. I am so thankful that the 5K was the day before. On Saturday after the 5K, my thighs ached worse than I have felt in a long time. As we all arrived in our vans to Dripping Springs, I started to come to my senses. There were a couple of our guys doing the 90 mile ride, but I knew that it was going to be windy out there and that I would be suffering all day long. With that in mind, I found that most of my friends were doing the 45 mile loop, so I decided that I would join them. As we rolled up to the start, I didn’t know how I felt about making that decision. As we lined up, I wasn’t with the people that I had planned to be with and so I felt a little alone. I was still in the large pack of P3C3 that was very noticeable to everyone else there, but somehow didn’t feel it yet. Then we were off. As a mass of cyclist takes off from a mass start it is a little drawn out process, especially if you aren’t in the front. It goes from a walk, to mounting the bike, to pushing along with a foot, then a slow spin. As this is happening you are trying to keep your bearings of where the people you want to ride with are & how you navigate to get together. I caught up with a handful of riders that I enjoy my time on the bike with and we began to make our way through the mass of riders and then try to get to a comfortable riding pace. Throughout this Ride to Austin week we have seen great scenery & I was excited to be seeing the countryside of Texas since I’ve never traveled there. I am very humbled by God’s creation and that it is so different from what we see everyday in Greenville or where I grew up in Myrtle Beach. I can’t remember whether it was a power stop or if three of us just organized and did a good portion of the ride at our pace, but then we came across another pack of the P3C3 that was in need of repair. With the people in their group they could have handled it, but we happened to have one of the best mechanics around riding in our smaller group. We stopped and we got the other rider back on the road and joined on with their group. This made for a nice mid-sized pack to make the rest of the ride with. We stopped for a group pic at “Camp Lucy” where someone had made a “bicycle” out of two large bales of hay and PVC pipe. Sorry Ron, maybe you can upgrade them to steel for next year . We got back on & and after a bit more we started to get close to the finish. I had mixed emotions. I was so glad that we were finishing as we had done 45 miles on new and different terrain with a fairly strong wind and my thighs were still feeling it from the 5K. At the same time I was sad because this was my last ride and our last ride of the week-long adventure together. We crossed the finish line and it was over. We did a quick appearance to promote the P3C3 and then took our bikes to get packed on the bus.
Our BIKE adventure was over and I was at peace. I realized that although a spin on the bike can help you work through things or escape, that it isn’t about the bike. I NEEDED to ride with my family. The BIKE and the CAUSE is what has brought us together as that FAMILY. We have done amazing things together that some people cannot imagine doing. As a FAMILY, we raised over $200,000 to fight cancer. I am honored to have taken part in this journey with each and every member of the P3C3 FAMILY and pray that I am able to join you for each and every journey like this one. May each and every one of us RideSTRONG & LiveSTRONG.
Rob
[...] The Bike. The Cause. The Family « Word4Women’s Blog by word4women I was writing this on Saturday night/ Monday morning & couldn’t contain my thoughts. After a couple of days, I think I’m ready to finish it. Good morning. I should be in bed asleep recharging to do the Ride for the Roses this morning, but I can’t sleep. There is a lot that is on my heart & mind. I have had a great time in Austin with all of the P3C3 family. Most importantly, I had an amazing time on the journey getting here. The trek halfway across the country with people that you… [...]