I will the machine.

Tag: missouri

  • Letters to Thanatos: A 300 Prelude

    Daemon of nonviolent death,

    We’ll speak in person soon, in a quiet place. Just when I started feeling steady, I up and upped the stakes on myself again.

    I’ve had some ask what the impetus is to keep coming back to the rail trail for big distances when I could just as soon start them from my front door and go anywhere else. The cold little voice on my shoulder says it counts less, and I giggle because the pain inflicted by monotony and metronome turns you inward in a sharper way than the mountain and the wood.

    I cannot hide from you there.

    Some cannot survive you there.

    I come back to you in rehearsal of the day when you’ve decided I’ve done enough, hoping I can appeal to your mercy to meet me with nothing left unsaid.

    I’m certain reckoning doesn’t come after death, but in the centuries-long moments before; it will land like an assault for those whose closets rattle with skeletons not yet dead.

    And so,

    I draw my sword.

    _____

    The sound of clanging metal ascends.

    I put my body on notice yesterday with a 6.5-hour simmer on the trail. It took minutes to remember why I thrive out there even as I continue to describe my one-day completions of the trail as “worse than Kanza” (now known as Unbound). It’s flat. It’s unglamorous. It’s incredibly painful because your only relief is to stop. It’s virtually impossible to blame anything but you if you fail. It’s so predictable and boring that I have the privilege of settling into this virtually unkillable rhythm, listen to the same new song on loop, and become irrationally offended when it’s interrupted.

    I learned in Endogenous Rex that I am most driven when I let everyone else disappear. Getting dropped means innumerable distractions are eliminated. Thanatos came to reap all hope of me finding love for classic competition again and returned me to the holy ground that has weathered everything. The manger where I am allowed to understand my own voice without static.

    My sanctum is internal, the ability to observe my own patterns and come back out at will- that observance is why my writing sounds like it does. It’s how I wasn’t molded by the environment I grew up in, but cut out the bullshit in spite of it. The nearer I draw toward the dark, the more clearly I can discern its language.

    I am privileged to say what it whispers, and what I show you, are the same.

    _____

    Practical updates:

    I cannot find record of someone riding from Kansas City to the end of the Katy Trail within a day. I was keeping a very conservative goal time because 80 additional miles on top of what I have previously done is major, but now I will target sub-24 hours from state-line to state-line.

    I plan to start on Saturday, October 4th, at 6:00 p.m. This is subject to vary if weather becomes an issue.

    I will update again when I have a Trackleaders link. If you aren’t familiar, this link will allow you to view my movement/location live for the entire pursuit. This link can be shared with anyone, and all are welcome to intercept in person.

    But because I am a woman, let me make this super clear:

    I am not polite toward questionable company, and my team will never be far away. If you show up with an ulterior motive, I will know.

  • We’re All Dirt: Trans-Missouri 300 Update

    This is a follow-up post to

    The Closing Argument: Trans-Missouri 300.

    “We’re all dirt,” Aaro said during our 62-mile ride yesterday, where I was still fussing with comfort issues on a new (sponsored) bike I’ve had for a week. It was the humble version of “We’re all made of star stuff,” which was part of the inspiration behind my nebulous tattoos.

    And the acknowledgement of the fact that every one of us will return to the earth one day, that this body is merely borrowed, and everything we do with it is dress-up, is why I have a difficult time feeling legitimate in a sport that requires me to push this rental to such extremes. I gravitate toward hard- but is it hard enough to matter?

    This summer has been a life-overhaul. I’m starting college in January as a first-time student. I’ve essentially been adopted as an adult. I officially said goodbye to the history of abuse that made that necessary. I’m back to working in a horse barn in the meantime and the environment doesn’t match the cut-throat, cliquey, energy-siphoning ones I moved to Missouri for to begin with. In other words, I have met real-community.

    Not a pretend one.

    The change in my ability to feel safe is exponential, and riding from the “Welcome to Kansas” sign to the edge of Illinois is both a celebratory act and an experiment to see how much more solid I am finally having, and accepting, support even if I’m undertrained. The new bike is also a literal marker of this- I’m not under-equipped anymore.

    _____

    I don’t have a lot of time to write right now while I prep for this, but here is what you need to know, and how you can be involved.

    I plan to start my time-trial in Kansas City, KS on the evening of October 4th, with a goal to finish in Alton, IL within 26 hours.

    My resources are limited, so I have created a GoFundMe to help cover the essential costs of having a support car track me across the state (Link here- Fundraiser by Genna Brock : Trans-Missouri 300 Support Crew Funding). I have never had this advantage before, and having one this time will eliminate the psychological stress of self-supporting an effort like this.

    Once that barrier is cleared, I will finalize details with Trackleaders, who will be providing live tracking for this pursuit so that you can follow me for the entire ride. This also means that at any time, anyone can meet me out on course and ride with me for a while if you choose.

    And to be honest, I kind of need that. I’ve spent too much time in this dirt feeling like I couldn’t have that kind of connection.

    We’ll talk again soon.

  • The Closing Argument: Trans-Missouri 300

    Three years ago, I asked another ultra-minded friend of mine if they’d be up for riding border to border of the state, from Kansas City, MO to Alton, IL. We then spent the summer putting miles in on the Marthasville corridor of the Katy Trail and its adjacent roads, but had to bump the date back twice. Then, the day before we were slated to drive out to Kansas City to settle in for the 300+ mile effort, something urgent came up for them and I waited another day for an update. That next morning, I ripped my knee open on the latch of the van door as I was getting out for the day. I called someone from inside the horse barn I was working at to bring me a towel to control the bleeding, and then drove myself 30 minutes to the ER.

    My teammate still hadn’t updated me on if we could still make the ride happen, and I asked the doc who was stitching me up, “Should I not ride on this then?”

    “I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I would recommend waiting two weeks,” he said, with cheeky eye contact. The first statement was him talking to me, the second was him speaking to his medical license.

    Once discharged, I drove to Marthasville to tell another friend about the absurdity of the weekend before it had even really started. I texted my teammate to ask for an update- within five minutes they replied to me telling me they were out.

    Before I could come to terms with things just not working out again, my friend broached an idea.

    “You’re already prepped. Why don’t I drive you out to Clinton and you can go for the Katy record.”

    I was listening, but this concept required a total rewiring of expectations, quickly. This new plan meant I lost two key components- a riding partner, and a support car.

    They handed me the trail map that listed all of the trailheads, mile markers, and their amenities. I now had to consider how much extra I could carry on my bike, where I could buy what I couldn’t, and all of the other time-killing tasks that might come up now that a driver wasn’t going to be available.

    This was around 4:00 p.m. on a Friday.

    At 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning, I was 3.5 hours west now rolling out for 240 miles solo with an Ace bandage wrapped around my knee.

    I broke the original women’s self-supported fastest-known-time (set by Kendall Park) with a total elapsed time of 16 hours, 51 minutes. I then came back the next year to ride it again 24 minutes faster.

    _____

    If you haven’t read anything of mine lately, this year has been mostly devoid of any planned objectives since a last-minute ultra race entry in May where I experienced what was likely a CPTSD episode at 170 miles (see Depths Too Dark). The rest of the summer has been further plagued by logistical stress and nervous system shutdown from a long history of having to push too hard on and off of the bike.

    I’m now fully aware of limiters I wasn’t even at the beginning of this year, and more recently discovered how to work with them even as they have slowed me down- one part science, one part spirit. I think I’m onto something.

    And thanks to the most astutely supportive people I have met, one I’ve known for seven years, the other for hardly one, I have a new bike being built at a local bike shop this week to take over for the one I’ve run into the earth for over 40,000 miles. I said earlier this year that I wanted to make that happen and give the full Katy a run again both mechanically and cognitively refreshed, but the chaos since spring meant I was again not able to provide that for myself.

    A couple of people didn’t want to see me fail again and were in a position to do something about it.

    I want to both honor that in my usual style and attempt to end this season with the magnitude I had hoped for, and thought had escaped me. Call me delusional, but I’m staging an intervention.

    In four to six weeks (official date TBD), I want to be cut loose in a parking lot somewhere in Kansas City on that original pursuit to touch both borders in one ride. At approximately 320 miles, I know now that the key to finishing has a lot less to do with my physical capacity and ultimately depends on not having to be the sole proprietor; I want to taste what it’s like to ride without the lessons of relying entirely on me, for once, even if I am not chasing speed this time. I need to see what I can do when I don’t feel unsafe.

    I also want a spot to take a nap that isn’t on the damn ground.

    What is going to be a 24+ hour assault is going to be arresting for a driver (or a team of them), too. The most difficult part of this is asking for help I seldom feel I deserve but have recently been receiving in tons anyway. I am opening this part of the story up for you, dear reader, to be a part of, if you want to. I have a crew of 2-3 stepping up at the moment, but am also putting out the call for at least one more driver. I am also looking to crowdfund for hotel stays at the beginning and end of this behemoth, fuel costs, and making sure all of us are fed. But because there are no rules with this one, riding company and trailside comradery would make this version surreal for me too.

    If you want to be involved, in ways that I have mentioned above or with your own ideas or questions, please Contact Me directly. Years of van-life as an under-resourced athlete have conditioned me to believe I had to account for every detail down to the punctuation mostly alone; class on not having to do that is currently in session. Can I sit next to you?

    _____

    This will be my final push this year, but still a step toward even greater assaults where self-sufficiency and psychological safety will have to be forged in iron. We’ve already started.

    Trans-Am is coming.

    Follow-up – We’re All Dirt: Trans-Missouri 300 Update

  • Counting Up, and Counting Down

    I turned 30 today.

    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.