[Audio transcription]
On days like this, I put my earbuds in and play the last song that gave me goosebumps, desperately trying to summon the fuel that got me even here.
That is the only prewritten line that I have today.
This is another audio essay, which is essentially going to be another diary entry in the current state of things I’m trying to accomplish. And as I have previously mentioned, audio material is going to be longer because I do not pre-script this. I have a list of bullet points in front of me, but I just want to speak freely in these.
So, um, with that, I am also going to provide the written transcription of the audio so that you can follow along with text, or you can just choose to read. But just bear in mind that this will not be as artful as my written material needs to be, or as compact. So you can choose how you prefer to engage with that.
I am at home, sick today, and that is probably going to be, um, discernible to you. And I am not thinking as clearly, and my voice actually kind of hurts a little bit, so I hope that you can bear with me there. But I am here today primarily just because I need to talk.
I went to a race yesterday and had to turn around 10 miles in. And before I could get back to the start, I backtracked on the course, made a turn, laid my bike down, and kind of lost all of my composure. And this doesn’t really happen much in front of other people, but when I’m alone—believe me—I come apart.
And this is off the back of essentially eight months of not being comfortable on my bike. Last year, in the fall, somebody that was positioned to support me sort of removed my decision-making process in getting a new bike. I was presented with the information that I needed a new frame. Unbeknownst to me, there wasn’t anything really wrong with my frame until I learned after the fact.
Somehow, the decision was just made that that was the best option because the frame was old, and there was a single proprietary part that was stripped that needed to be replaced. That part, I was actually able to contact somebody else to help me find, and it only took less than a day to source.
And so there was a major communication breakdown there, and that resulted in me tearing the bike that I had been comfortable and productive on for over five years—tearing that down to build up a new frame that just didn’t work for me.
And my options at the time were limited, even then. And so, after a couple months of struggling to make that work—trying to get it ready for ultra-distance pursuit, in doing 300 miles in 24 hours, basically from border to border of Missouri—we ultimately ended up backtracking and rebuilding my old frame with newer parts.
And unfortunately, that still wasn’t right. And here now, in almost May of the following year, I am not functioning anywhere near my capacity because I’m uncomfortable.
I get on that bike, and I’m hoping that the last adjustment that I made was the winner, and, you know, everything is getting close, and that maybe I can just adapt. And it doesn’t happen.
It started with back pain that was causing me to just not sit on my bike correctly, and thus I’m not producing the efficient power that I normally can—to now, I can’t even sit on my saddle comfortably. And if you can’t sit on your saddle, that’s basically it. There’s just no being on a bike.
And I haven’t been able to convince myself to just stop riding yet. That isn’t what I want. That isn’t what I built my goals around. That isn’t what I’ve built my blog around. Getting off the bike is not really an option in my mind.
But right now, my body is starting to force that, and that is the reality that I’m looking at.
And unfortunately, this is just my perspective on the matter, as the person that has been implicated by this. But I do feel like there have been supporters in recent history that have worked closely with me—kind of dropped the ball with that. They look me in the eye and can’t produce an answer, despite having the means to help me find one.
It was just this avoidance pattern of: “You being uncomfortable makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t want to feel at all responsible for that, so I’m going to step back.” That is how I perceived it.
And as a person that has historically had to solve my own problems—even very complex ones like this—I naturally will kind of say, “You know what? Don’t worry about it. I’m going to figure this out for myself.”
And that is part of why I’m still struggling now, because I’m reaching my limits with that.
I have a tendency to ask AI, with a lot of proprioceptive information. I tell it, “Hey, on the ride today I noticed that I’m rocking my pelvis backwards, and when I want to engage the pedal stroke I tilt forward, and that is not where I’ve historically been. I also am having this interesting left-sided pinch and a hot spot in my right foot—that is not historically my pattern either.”
And so I’m giving it really specific information, trying to figure out what adjustments that I need to make.
And so every ride that I’m going out on, I’m having to stop every few miles and—okay, here’s what’s changed—and I’m feeding this new information. It’ll give me a good breakdown, like an analytical breakdown, of not only what I need to change but why, and how this is going to change how I engage with the bike.
It’s very detailed stuff. But every single ride is plagued by that, instead of, “Oh hey, I need to make sure that I stop for water at this location so that I have enough to get the next 35 miles and not have to stop again.”
The logistical part of the ride is what I need to be focusing on, and how my body feels is bad enough to where I can’t do that. None of my rides are free anymore.
And that is pretty devastating for me at the moment.
So right now, I am looking at Mishigami two and a half months from now and not sure if I’m even going to be able to show up, because I am uncomfortable and I can’t find the solution despite countless hours of analytical process.
That is not simple.
And I am fearing another season passing me by, in what will be almost a year coming up, in combination of having burned myself out last year and then having these bike fit issues start later indefinitely.
What has been the most inconsistent, painful, and least satisfying year of my life on a bike—which has now spanned going on 12 years—that’s a pretty heavy blow for somebody who has revolved their entire life around this pursuit.
And let’s be honest: I will continue to do so, because I’m tenacious to an unstable degree, if you will.
My fear at the moment is also tied to, with the content of my blog and being so honest online—both in written and verbal format—that I’m going to, if I haven’t already, become this person that is associated with just constant struggle.
And it’s something that I’ve actually been questioned on before. Like, “Hey, Genna, is your whole sense of self tied to this identity of struggling and trauma?”
And it’s not.
It’s actually the fact that I know that I have a serious amount of potential if I can just get barriers out of the way. And a lot of the things that I’ve written about are said barriers. And I consider barriers downright offensive—they’re not necessary.
And most of them I would not consider things that I instigated. They’re just very unfortunate parts of being human in a very, very inequitable world at the moment.
And I would like to be a person that is actually telling the satisfying story that I know a lot of people come to my blog wanting to see.
Everybody loves the feel-good story of seeing this person basically go from rags to riches—not in the literal sense—but coming from the bottom, having things work against her, to accomplishing great things.
And the reality of the situation is: I’m not there yet.
And I don’t want to wait to tell the story until that happens and then speak from hindsight. Everybody does that. I don’t feel like that is actually doing the story justice.
I’m writing from within it. I’m writing from all of the things that I do not have solved, which does make people kind of uncomfortable. It makes them perceive me as more negative.
That’s, in a sense, them reacting to themselves and not to me. And so I remind myself of that.
But this right now is a pretty dark point for me.
It’s quite fascinating, um, because I have been at points where I have felt less stable in every other point of my life—like housing insecurity, vehicle breakdowns, income insecurity.
Those three things are actually functioning pretty well for me right now, and they’ve done so in less than two months. Like, I’ve been able to flip that.
So I’ve had success on that front.
And now the bike is the thing where I am not put together.
And so it’s almost like this cosmic joke—okay, I got the systemic barriers kind of covered right now (that could change at any moment; I’m used to that), but now the place where I usually put that energy is not available and parked.
And that’s, um, I think the more complicated part to solve.
I’m not educated in biomechanics, but I’m having to learn quite a bit just to get this solved. And because I’m convinced that there’s a lot more to be explored in my life, I refuse to kind of drop it—even though my body’s like, “Please give us a break.”
Which might be why I’m sick today.
I actually had somebody, interestingly enough, tell me yesterday, as I’m talking to Chat GPT, giving it all this material, trying to decide if $124 is worth spending on a new saddle (and the saddle on my bike has been the longest-running one for me; why has that spontaneously changed?)—he said, “Hey Genna, you’re in that scary mood again.”
And he was talking about how intense I get when I’m trying to figure something out.
When things get tough or complicated, I tend to not necessarily discuss those with other people, because it is a lot. AI doesn’t get overwhelmed with the constant influx of information that I’m having to feed it in order to self-solve.
So I take it to AI, and that takes a significant amount of my attention away from the outside world.
And so I started thinking about that too—like, how much of my social battery is being depleted because I am trying to solve something that is very complicated, and I can’t lay that down until it’s solved because it’s holding me back.
I’m not very good about bookmarking things and coming back to it tomorrow and saying, “Hey, let’s just chill out and have a good evening.”
It’s: I’m very wrapped up in, “Hey, can I get back on the horse and start producing again what I feel capable of?”
Not thinking about that—so that adds another layer of complication.
And so I think you could probably consider that an update on where I’m at right now.
I again only have two and a half months left until Mishigami, and it’s taken eight months to even get a semblance of progress. And I’m still currently unable to create the conditions where I can go ride the back-to-back 100-milers that I need to be doing right now to prepare for that race.
So I’m going to have to have things turn around for me within the next couple of weeks, or else I’m going to have to start thinking about how realistic chasing that race even is.
I’m also looking at the potential of using my other bike for this event. It is primarily paved, but there are some sections that are gravel, and I have basically zero flexibility on tire clearance on this other bike.
Which will make those sections a bit threatening—both from a comfort perspective and, you know, having tires that can tolerate gravel.
It’s also just not as compliant, not as smooth of a ride, especially with weight on it.
And so I’m concerned about the comfort of my hands—like, am I going to have numb hands from more shock being absorbed through my body because I don’t have wide tires?
There’s a significant amount of detail involved with considering races like this—or even races not this big—that isn’t visible to everyone unless you’re doing it.
And I am highly ambitious, but I’m also realistic about:
- what do I have at my disposal right now
- what are my weaknesses
- how am I prepared to accommodate those weaknesses in the unknown
And all of that is very much being tested by my equipment right now, and not my ability to adapt.
And that’s the difficult thing, because the equipment part is a lot less controllable for me than training to be capable of a long race.
And I think ultimately the most difficult part in processing this is: if I had more knowledge or more resources to throw at this, I could probably solve it—and then that would be fine. Then I can go ride and get myself physically adapted to this demand.
That physical training is the easier part.
And that’s hard to think about.
When I’m able to exit the brain fog of a very bad race yesterday—if you can even call it that—and being sick, I do have an upcoming blog post that I’m looking to finish.
You can probably expect a little bit of quiet from me for the next week or so while I try to figure out if Mishigami is even possible.
It’s not something that I can really set aside and focus on anything else at the moment. I don’t know if that’s healthy or not, but that’s where we’re at.
And so with that, thank you again for listening. I saw that last time this was pretty well received, and so I really appreciate you tuning in to listen.
We will talk again soon.
I will the machine. 