Friday, July 27, 2012

Finished...


It's been several weeks since I rode in the Huntsman 140, and I still haven't written anything here to follow up on the event. Alas, too often I allow for the daily things of life to interfere with things.

Anyway...

I want to thank everyone for their outstanding support, and for the financial contributions. And thank you to the wonderful support teams that helped cheer everyone on, fix flat tires, and in general, just added moral support.

The ride was a wonderful experience, and I'm very glad that I choose to go through with it. In the process of training, I learned a number of things about myself, and there are a few things that I'd like to write about in the future here.

A few years back, I underwent a great deal of preparation for an event which never took place. Afterwards, I was talking to one of my friends, and they asked if I was disappointed that the anticipated events had not materialized as I had hoped they would.

I told her that while I was disappointed, it was all okay, because I had emerged on the other side of the experience a different person than I was before. The changes from that event are still present in my everyday life today.

The most transformational changes in our lives come about when we embark on a task that requires our mental, spiritual, and physical focus at once. These are the events that challenge us to draw on what we already know and understand in each area, but then require us to reach outside of ourselves for more knowledge and understanding. Often times, before these events, we are not receptive to more knowledge, but the very nature of task we undertake seems to have a way of stretching us enough that we will be willing to look for more.

The Huntsman 140 was an event like that for me. Fifty miles would not have been enough. Seventy-Five would not have been enough, but 140 was. While perhaps it was not an earth shaking experience, it was one of those experiences along the path that changes the individual in subtle ways.