We biked to Dallas already?!

I looked at a map this morning of our path thus far, and to tell you the truth- I didn't really believe my eyeballs. It seems quite surreal to realize that we've biked across ½ the country already. We're in Dallas and we've covered somewhere around 1,500 miles across California, Arizona, New Mexico, and now a good chunk of Texas.



Before starting the trip, I wasn't really sure that it was actually possible. I trained pretty hard from the time I bought my bike until the day I packed it up in a cardboard box and shipped it out to California, but I still felt woefully unprepared. I didn't bike more than 50 miles at all in my 5 months of training (we do an average of ~85 miles a day this summer), and my back has given me all kinds of trouble for a long time.

My back was my big concern. It's given me problems for a long time: I hurt it the first time in college (doing something stupid- jumping off of a building that I was scaling up the side of...) and then re-injured it a year and a half ago playing basketball. I expected it to get better within a few weeks, but it still hurt a few months later, and then a year later, etc... When I signed up for the Ride:Well Tour last November, it was still hurting a lot, but I kind of thought that there was no way it would still be hurting me by the time the tour started. But it just kept on aching. Badly. It was the first thing I thought of every morning and continued to hurt all day, every day. I made it through my days and training rides on my bike with a steady diet of Ibuprofen every few hours.

I couldn't figure it out and was freaking out, thinking that it was going to destroy my trip. I didn't know why it was hurting (I'd been to the doctor a bunch of times, physical therapy, x-rays, etc...) and I was getting pretty angry and frustrated. And slightly confused... I just wanted it to feel ok so that I could do the trip, but it wasn't seeming to get any better.

The week before the trip started, I was hanging out with some of my friends in Pasadena and was getting pretty darn nervous about this biking across the country thing. We drove down to the beach and passed a bunch of bikers on the way down. It was really hilly approaching the beach and as I watched the cyclists struggling up the road, my honest thought was that there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to do this. I didn't think I could make it up the few hills these guys were climbing, let alone across the whole country (especially the southern portion of the country that we're doing, full of desert and mountains...). I wasn't in good enough shape, my back wasn't going to be able to handle it, and the whole thing was a stupid idea. What was I thinking? Why did I tell all these people I was going to bike across the country? What were they going to think when I make it 2 days and then my back snaps in half and I can't finish or my legs just give out as I try to bike up these mammoth mountains?

I think most of our crew felt like this. None of us are hard-core cyclists. Many of us had previous injuries we were worried about. I think we all felt unprepared (although we all working crazy hard to get ready for this) and that we were going to get left behind by the rest of the group (who, in our minds were all unbelievably prepared, super-human athletes and cyclists who've been doing things like this their whole life).

But here we are. We've brought each other through. God has brought us through (my back hasn't bothered me AT ALL since the first day, which I don't understand but am quite grateful for. Nothing short of miraculous.). We're 1,500 miles into the ride. We've climbed mountains (we climbed 8,000 vertical ft. one day the second week), braved 110° heat through the deserts of California, spent nearly 9 hours every day on our bicycles, slept on various gym floors and woken up at 5 each morning, endured near heat stroke, falls, intense knee/bum/shoulder/leg/everything pain, ...

I'm so proud of our team. We're a rag-tag group of normal folks who just want to make a difference and are willing to hurt in order to do so. We've pushed each other through each day and we're really doing this thing. And it's making a difference (We've raised a ton of $ for Blood:Water and have gotten to share our stories with all kinds of folks and churches).

One of my favorite moments happened last week as we were speaking at a church in New Mexico about Blood:Water Mission & our trip. We had explained what we were doing/ why we were doing it and were all introducing ourselves to the church. We stood up front in a row and went through introducing ourselves and what we do in our regular lives: high school music teacher, peanut-sheller, college student, resident director at a college, wanderer, recent graduate, youth pastor, shaved-ice business owner, banker, non-profit employee, unemployed, college admissions counselor, musician, author, ER nurse, etc... We're very normal people from all kinds of different places.

We're just normal people. As we've biked together and heard each others' stories, I've come to realize that we're all broken people full of hurt, confusion, heartbreak, letdowns, failures, and restlessness, but that's the kind of people God uses to do things. And it's beautiful.

It's been pretty exhilarating to be a part of this team and there's no place I'd rather be than sitting on my bicycle every day alongside of these folks.




It feels good to hurt for something worth hurting for.



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(And here's a couple pictures too)



Hello Texas.



Dustin and I on our way into town.



Earned this view by climbing a 6 mile uphill.



Lunchin'.





"Sledding" at White Sands National Park. We moved slowly and fell gracefully.