Counting Up, and Counting Down

In March of 2023, I made a social media post sharing my intent on making the Trans-Am Nonstop bike race my next big target. Historically, I love putting the proverbial cart before the horse and talking big game about my plans at the risk of them falling apart because, well, I hold myself to them better that way. Still, it was an outlandish jump from single-day ultras and week-long bike trips with hotel stays where I had recognized my love for the long haul; I had come to understand there that going bigger just required more gear and the ability to evolve on the move. I learned how quickly the body adapts to excessive mileage as long as you’re eating plenty and sleeping decently. I set 2025 as my goal year to assure myself that I had plenty of time to train, save for quality gear, and because I’d be turning 30.

Here we are. Since that decision, I have learned through my fixation on mileage and speed data on my bike computer that numbers are limitations when they aren’t treated with due respect. Spend too much time trying to move too fast- overtrain. Set a strict date that doesn’t work out the way you hoped- unnecessary disappointment. Tell yourself you need to accomplish something by a certain age- realization that time doesn’t care about you or your goals. It’s all arbitrary, relative, and illusionary.

All of this to say that we’ve made it to the dawn of Trans-Am 2025 and what I thought I needed two years to get myself together for, I’d still throw myself at last-minute if I had the opportunity. Supporting yourself riding 120, 150, or more miles every day for weeks is not something you piece together by the seat of your chamois, but the instinct to gas it is still there. The resources aren’t there right now though, and that’s just going to have to be okay. We’ll work on it. Alternatively, I get to drive and work a camera for the media team of the race’s faster cousin, Race Across America, this summer and can probably learn a thing or seventeen before my time finally does come. I am already dreaming of how I’ll write about that experience. I also have the opportunity to film a short documentary of a rider in the pro field at Unbound Gravel.

But even while my big goals will sit on the backburner as I explore how to help tell the stories of others, I’m living in a hotbed of local gravel racing that I’m scrambling to get it together for. A whole host of events will happen within a two-hour drive from home in April and May, before I haul off for the aforementioned projects for most of June. We’ll see where the tailwinds push us and readdress the topic of ultra racing around then.

Spring 2025 Race Calendar

• April 5th- River Road Classic, 65 miles
• April 19th- Furry Fifty, 50 miles
• April 27th- El Chupacabra Grondo, 62 miles
• May 3rd & 4th- Tour of Hermann Gravel Challenge, two 100 milers!
• May 10th- Muleskinner Gravel Classic, 68 miles

That’s a hot, HOT block of racing for someone who has been out of the game for a minute and is pushing the limits of a pretty clapped-out bike, but I’m hard pressed to sit anything out when it’s all basically on my doorstep.

~

On my 29th birthday, I had a breakup. On my 28th, I experienced a mystery episode of severe abdominal pain that I suffered with all night and was driven to the emergency room for the next morning. Even though the occasion hasn’t meant much to me for a while, today I used it to daydream about the year ahead. I turned 30 today. I’ve been going grey since 19. With that comes a perceived loss of youth, but in some ways, I feel like I’m regaining one I didn’t get to explore fully the first time because I was too busy fighting. It’s taken this long to really unpack and let go and even though that work will never truly be complete, I’ve found myself capable of forgetting more often.

So thank you for popping in to celebrate with me.