That reminded me of the Pedaling for Parkinson’s ride that we’ve been doing in Prince Edward County for the past few years.
We ride in support of frequent guest blogger and family member Susan, who was diagnosed with PD in 2017. She’s blogged about it here and here, and likely on other occasions as well.
Register for this year’s ride in Prince Edward County, August 17th, here. There are 40 km and 75 km options, and the roads are pretty safe and scenic in the county.
Hope you can join us! It’s a fun ride for a very important cause.
I have a confession to make. Just 14 days before running the 2024 Boston Marathon as part of a charity team raising money to fight racial and economic injustice in Boston (a cause deeply aligned with my professional and personal commitments.)
My confession: I sort of wish I could back out. Because I can’t handle the pressure.
I’m pretty certain I can handle the physical pressure of running 26.2 miles. I’ve done that distance more than 40 times and have run more than 26.2 miles on some occasions. (Darn, I’ve even raced Boston 8 times before, and I’m a running coach for goodness’ sake!). But can I handle the pressure to perform and prove my worthiness to be here at all?
To many people I know, I’m a seasoned marathoner and ultra marathoner who runs all the time. And in some ways, this is true. I do love to run. And I run a lot. I can run long. And I can run pretty fast (for a 50-year-old). I could (if I had the time) run hours a day and find joy in every step. I have run on three continents, in more than a dozen countries, nearly all US states. At dawn, at midnight, and with the sun at its apex. In the shadows of pyramids, on the streets of countries rebuilding from war, on crowded sidewalks in urban spaces, and in quiet woods in my various home states.
I love to run. But I don’t love to race because I hate having my running on public display. And right now, the pressure weighing on me is the pressure to be publicly productive with my running and training and preparation for this race. And to perform on race day. To prove that I am worthy.
I feel the need to prove I’m worthy of the right to run this marathon. That I’m worthy of taking up space in this race. That my body deserves to be out there on April 15. Social media traffic among the Boston marathoning crowd can be brutal. There are posts asking why “charity” runners get to “take the places” of those who have “qualified” by time. There are those who have mused publicly about the selfishness of those like me, who have run this storied race before, while others who wish to, have not.
And because I worry about my worthiness as a charity runner, I feel the need to perform for others; to be happy, energetic, gracious and grateful at all times to friends, to fellow runners, online, to potential donors, to the non-profit staff. After all, I have “taken up” a spot in a race with only 30,000 spots. After all, the charity has “allowed” me to run “for them”. After all, I could just step aside. Instead, I have to publicly ask others to support me.
As someone who has struggled with imposter syndrome and a fair amount of body-hatred my whole life I’m feeling something deep and hard at this moment: the pressure to prove that I am worthy of others donating their hard-earned money to a cause I care about. To donating to me. To my body. I keep wondering: Is my body worthy enough…? Is my body worthy enough for you to care? Is my body worthy of your sacrifice? Then, if it is, what happens if I fail to knock the marathon out of the park?
These feelings and questions are troublingly familiar. They recall years of high school and college competitive running when terror gripped me each time I stepped up to a race. A place where others could see me and potentially witness my failure. I had won races, for sure. But would this be the day the truth of being a fraud was revealed? Would I still deserve to take up space on a team? On a track? To be called an athlete? I did not like my body. And I did not trust it to fulfill my duty to others (coaches, teammates, spectators). The eyes on me were too much. The fear of having to perform for others was too great. At 19 I stepped away from any competitive running. I couldn’t take the pressure. I didn’t want others to expect anything of my body and I didn’t want my body failing them. Failing to do whatever they hoped I (and my body) would do. I didn’t want the pressure.
So, as I face down these final days of fundraising, I have at times wished that I could just run this 26.2 mile on my own, without fear of letting anyone else down. I want to run and push forward and champion an anti-racist agenda in distance running with my race…but boy do I fear that I–and my body–will somehow fail the cause.
So now my confession is public. Perhaps foolishly. I know I should work on my mindset. But that is a task for another day. Today, I breathed. And today I ran…without a watch or a plan, for five easy miles. Solo. Hoping to believe a bit in my body. In me.
With a bit of luck, I’ll raise the remaining $400 of my fundraising goal by 4/12 and with a bit more luck, I’ll feel worthy as I run 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston later this month.
Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello is a professor of American Ethnic Studies, Chair of a department at Salem State University, and consultant for non profits, universities and community groups on issues related to how groups and organizations can effect structural change with an intersectional lens at the core. She is also an RRCA certifiedrunning coach and founder of The Atalanta Effect running coaching for women.
Finally, finally, I’m better, but now there’s just ten days left in the month, and I’m committed to riding 150 km in November to help cancer research.
Yikes.
That’s 15 km a day. That’s not a big deal when I’m riding on the bike rally outside but it feels like a big deal with my very busy job and the bike trainer. Wish me luck.
I started today with the Herd’s Monday Morning Coffee Crew ride.
If you’re in Canada and want to support my participation in this charity fundraiser, please click here.
Thanks everyone!
Coffee, in a white cup, on a wooden table. Photo by Ozgu Ozden on Unsplash.
You can start logging your kms on November 1, 2023, the page helpfully informed me.
It’s going to be a slow start because I’m travelling for work until late night Sunday the 5th and so the Ride 150 km in November Challenge won’t really start for until November 6th. I’m going to count both commuting and riding indoors on my trainer in Zwift.
What’s up? See A November charity cycling challenge? Count me in. One regular member of the blog team, hey Diane, and one occasional blogger, hey Savita, did this as a swimming challenge this summer. I missed all my usual charity bike rides because of recovering from knee surgery so I thought I’d give it a try. I also struggle with November and need all the help I can get.
If you’re in Canada and want to support my participation in this charity fundraiser, please click here.
Thanks everyone!
I’ll check in during the month and let you know how it’s going.
November isn’t my favourite month. But you all know that. September is back to school. October is all bright autumn colours and long sunny hikes and bike rides. December is the holidays. And then there’s bright snow and longer days starting in January. But November? Dark, rainy, gloomy, with none of winter’s redeeming features. I am always looking for ways to improve November. I’ll get my anti SAD lamps out. I’ll wear bright colours. I’ll cook fun food. I’ll look for good books.
This year it seems I’ll also take on a cycling charity challenge, aiming to ride 150 in November for the Canadian Cancer Society. Here’s hoping it improves my mood. And if it doesn’t? Fine, I’ll have raised some money for a good cause. It’s also a cause that’s close to home. My father died of cancer in 2015. I had thyroid cancer some years ago. My mother had cancer in her younger years.
Bonnie Raitt plus Royal Wood and the band
But as Bonnie Raitt said at the end of her concert Thursday night, 1 in 2 Canadians will have their life affected by cancer. It’s close to all of our homes. When she said that, I was shocked. I’m shocked each time I hear it. I even Googled it, and the Canadian Cancer Society tells me, “Cancer remains the leading cause of death in Canada. Nearly 1 in 2 Canadians will develop cancer in their lifetime and about 1 in 4 will die from cancer.”
So I’m riding my bike, sending some money their way, and hoping you do too.
Here’s the link to support my challenge. It only works for Canadians, sorry!
Thanks to blog followers, family, and friends who sponsored us in this year’s Pedaling for Parkinsons ride in Prince Edward County. Our team, Spinning for Susan, raised nearly $5000.
Next year, we hope to do it again with a much larger team of fit feminist bloggers and friends and make a Prince Edward County weekend of it.
This year, it was just Sarah, Emily, and me again. Our team was small but mighty. I was nervous. It was my longest ride since knee surgery.
The weather started out cold and threatening rain. It was also a very, very windy day. Luckily, the sun did shine eventually, and we had the tailwind on the way home.
You can check out all my achievements on Strava. Thanks tailwind!
Thanks also, Sarah and Emily! I did a lot of drafting on this ride.
Garmin info Strava map
Here’s our team:
Spinning for SusanSarah, Sam, Emily
See you next year! It really is a great cause, a beautiful route, and though we did the 40 km this year, I’m hoping that next year I’m ready to tackle the 75 km.
But for now, what I want is a dip in the pool, an afternoon in the hammock with my book, and possibly a nap. I was laughing at my Garmin’s estimate of my energy levels, body battery=5/100. Definitely nap time!
Or, alternative title, this is the first summer in a very very long time when I won’t have ridden 100 km on my bike and I’m not sure how to feel about it. (Actually, that’s not quite true, there was the first pandemic summer when I was very apprehensive about riding big distances. It wasn’t because I worried about catching covid-19 or giving it to anyone else, but I was concerned about hospital capacity, and even the small risk of a crash seemed too much.)
But before that, it wasn’t since my Australia and New Zealand sabbaticals in 2017 and 2012. I did a lot of riding in Australia and NZ and even some regular racing (thanks to Women on Wheels and the Vikings) but because of all the hills, people didn’t tend to regularly ride big distances. Or at least the people I regularly rode with there didn’t ride long distances. There were endurance cycling groups but that community seemed different than the racing cycling clubs.
In my world, a century is a kind of cycling landmark. People talk about their first century ride, for example. I’ve given advice here on the blog about how to prepare for your first century.
In 2018 Sarah and I did our first century of the summer on the day of the 1 day version of the bike rally. While not our best choice, we survived. I think that might have been my latest ‘first century of the summer.’
But this year I won’t make it at all and that makes me a little bit sad. Just like missing the bike rally.
Someone said recently, well maybe that’s the new normal for you post knee replacement–50 km rides instead of 100 km rides. And maybe it is. If it is I think I can accept that. I’ll still love riding my bike and I’ll focus on getting faster.
But it is also just four months since total knee replacement surgery on my right knee and just under a year since surgery on my left knee.
Patience. It’s early days.
I am setting myself the goal of riding my age in a day, so that’s 59 km in a day by the end of August. I am also taking part in the Pedaling for Parkinson’s ride in Prince Edward County and that’s 40 km on August 19. Our team is Spinning for Susan and you can sponsor us here. Meeting my goal might cheer me up!
Recommended listening “Hurricane Years” by Alice Cooper
Last weekend was to be my epic, triumphant return to the MS Bike Tour Grand Bend to London after a three year hiatus. For the first time in a long time Pride London was not the same weekend as the bike tour. I participate in both as part of my corporate teams.
I love that Canada Life supports Pride and matches the first $10,000 any corporate fundraising team raises for charity events. Win-win-win!
This year I was cycling each weekend and went from 20 km up to 60 km in just over a month. I was feeling prepared and loved that my partner Michel was able to join my team and train with me.
Michel and I take a selfie after one of our training rides. I’m in the foreground with a neon green helmet and a yellow and red jersey that reads “ms bike tour”. Michel is on the background wearing a blue t-shirt and black helmet. We are both sweaty and smiling.
Thanks to the amazing support of our friends, families, colleagues and fit is a feminist issue bloggers both Michel and I exceeded our fundraising goals raising just shy of two thousand Canadian dollars for MS research. Thank you!!
Monday before the event we picked up our registration kits and met with our Canada Life Cycles teammates for a meal. I had missed those smiling faces!
Friday night we got ready and packed all the things.
Our helmets with our participant numbers sit on tops of our red Canada Life Cycles jerseys with our numbers pinned on. We felt very prepared!
Saturday morning the alarm went off at 5 am and we were in the car by 5:22. I decided to stop at the Lucan Tim Hortons. It was open before 6 am and I saw our motorcycle marshals inside getting hot breakfasts. One came out to the vehicles in the drive through with bikes to let us know the start would be delayed an hour as there was lightning in the forecast. It was still calm and clear. I decided we’d head up anyway and connect with the team. Get photos etc.
We got to the start at 6:15 am and the clouds were rolling in. As we took our bikes off the car rack serious thunder started rumbling. A crack of lightning overhead had us dash back into the car. It wasn’t even safe to walk to the motorway just a hundred meters away.
Michel and I face the camera in our matching jerseys inside the car and are trying to keep our sense of humour.
I start getting texts from teammates in other vehicles and we notice a 6:30 email confirming a delay from a 7:30 start until 9 am. Dang. I mean. It was not safe to ride. The starting area was flooded. Registration was not open. It was very bleak in the start area when I darted in to use the port a potties while we waited. A few of my teammates had waded through calf deep water to climb up into the bandshell for shelter. It didn’t look like much room so I went back to the car to wait with Michel.
By 8:15 I got a text from my team captain that the ride was canceled and shuttles were coming to take everyone to London. I was soaked from my two trips to the toilet. The idea of waiting an hour or two more to take a bus with our bikes to within 2 km of our house did not appeal to me. Michel and I briefly considered just riding anyway. We had water, electrolytes and a couple snacks. But I had not packed enough for a fully self supported ride.
I’m also a rule follower and thought we weren’t allowed to ride. So we throw our bikes back on the car and drove home. We ran errands for our family. Later I saw most of my team had decided to ride without support. I regret not being ready to be self supported. I was so bummed out about it I cried off and on all day.
We decided to go see the Barbie movie. Great call! We laughed so hard. We also came up with a plan to ride a self supported 80 km on Day 2. We had the car in London, plus the official Day 2 ride is slightly shorter, the 150 km total is split wit a roughly 80 km Day 1 and just under 70 km Day 2.
Sunday morning we sleep in, have breakfast, walk the dog then hop on our bikes for an 80 km loop up to Ilderton. We accidentally end up on a very hilly route with 500 m of climbing. It was slow going for me but I didn’t walk up one single hill and that’s the first time this year I could say that.
Since we started from our house the club route had a break at the Tim Hortons which fell at 47 km into the trip.
Me, squinting at the camera and kind of scowling at the 47 km mark. I really needed the break off my bike, food, toilet and a refill of my water bottles.
As we left Ilderton and headed north a hefty headwind kicked in as we slowly climbed to 15 mile road. I was so over climbing at that point. As we headed east towards Adelaide street I looked forward to the downhill to home with a tailwind. I would get to fly home after grunting along at 16 km/hr on all the climbs.
But it was not my day. Somewhere on Adelaide while we were 12 km from home I got a flat. There were several fine green glass shards in my tire.
We stopped and Michel helped me change my flat. I picked all the glass from the outside then ran my fingers inside the empty tire to find more shards poking through. I must have missed some though because we couldn’t get the new tube to inflate. We would pump it up, I’d hop on and try to ride and I could feel it was flat.
So many friends and strangers stopped to check in on us. We declined all offers of help. It was just a flat. But. Dang. I should have taken the hint. After three more attempts to get me rolling I convinced Michel to bike home and get the car.
I don’t know if it was worry, frustration or just pent up energy from a weekend that would not cooperate but he flew, like 40 km/hr flew, down that hill on a tailwind and picked up a couple Personal Bests on Strava.
I found some shade and checked social media. I posted an update
It’s sunny, I’m in the shade. I look like hell. I’m disappointed I was just 12 km away from completing my 80 km ride.
So it was a lot of fussing and feelings, not much riding but I felt very satisfied with myself. I was ready to ride 2 days back to back fully supported. I really love the energy of the MS Bike Tour.
The more years I do this event, the more I meet people living with MS and folks who love folks living with MS. It’s all around me and I don’t think I’d have that knowledge if I didn’t ride for the cause and tell people about it.
I learned a lot this year. That I am able to train up even after a long break. I will always pack for self support. I’m riding both damn days next year, come hell or high-water.
I worried about not being able to do the rides because of my physicality. But it was weather and a mechanical that foiled my plans. I worried that the folks who sponsored me would feel cheated by me not completing either day.
It turns out though, all those supporters are. Well. Really fucking supportive. Huh. And all I got was love, encouragement and commiseration.
I’m really over having plans change/:be cancelled/interfered with. The pandemic gave me a physically painful reaction to plans being canceled. I’m working on it. And I’m still making plans. The 2024 MS Bike Tour is already in my calendar. Maybe I’ll see you there?
This weekend seemed to be the weekend of blogger and blogger-adjacent bike rides.
I’m writing to congratulate myself on feeling good about my relatively short distance rides.
This blog’s Cate rode 103 km. (Note from Cate: I did that ride because I’m training for a cycling trip in Eastern Europe — and I realized after I finished that it was the first time I’d ridden 100km since we were all in windy Newfoundland in July 2019. No wonder it felt epic!)
Nat rode 30 km. (Nat’s training for the Grand Bend to London MS Bike Tour and you can donate to that worthy cause and sponsor Nat’s ride here.)
And me, I managed 15 km Saturday and 15 km Sunday as I come back from knee surgery. (My end of summer event is the Pedaling for Parkinson’s Ride in Prince Edward County and you can sponsor me here.)
And we’re all in awe of Nat’s partner Michel who last week rode 1000 km! Even if I’m not tempted, I’m definitely intrigued and impressed.
More and more, I’m feeling okay about being where I am and not worrying about where I ought to be. I think major surgery and recovery does that. It’s a serious reset and I’m okay with that.
I blogged last week about fear of setting big goals and even writing that post and admitting that made me feel vulnerable. This week I was just so happy to be out on my bike and riding that all of those feelings–while very real and still there–don’t have to run the show. I’m happy just be out there riding my bike.
Gasport to MiddleportMiddleport to MedinaSunday’s ride, Medina to Knowlesville and back
Many of us have done charity rides or runs. We blog about it frequently. Samantha most recently did her PWA Friends for Life Bike Rally, as well as other more spur-of-the-moment charity riding. Amy has walked for Alzheimer’s research, Out of the Darkness (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and North Shore Juneteenth Association. Nicole has raised money running for the Canadian Diabetes Foundation as well as the Odette Cancer Center and spinning for Michael Garron’s Ride for Mind in Toronto. I’ve done the Bikes not Bombs ride in Boston a bunch of times, and others of us have done lots of charity events. Diane, our aqua-blogger (among other things) does a vampire swim every Halloween, with a donation to Canadian Blood Services (actual blood) or the Red Cross (money instead). Here she is with some water-loving friends, all dressed up for a swim a few years ago:
Diane (far right, with bandage from actual blood donation) and friends getting ready for their vampire swim.
However, my friend Felicity did a charity ride recently, using a mode of transport that none of the bloggers has tried: on horseback. She and a bunch of other equestrian philanthropists did the Ride for the Cure in Woodstock Vermont, raising almost $40K for breast cancer research. She (and almost 50 others) rode 10 miles on a beautiful October day.
Felicity (right) and Alice (left), on their Icelandic horses Segall and Hrollur.
Segall, Felicity’s horse, got a pink ribbon on his hind flanks in honor of the day.
Segall, having a snack, sporting a painted pink ribbon for breast cancer research.
Other horses were decked out for the occasion.
This pink tutu’ed horse and rider won for best pink outfit.This woman’s horse had things to say during her interview with the local news.Bigger and smaller people took part in the charity ride.
If you want to watch a short video clip about the event, check it out here. Felicity herself says it was an easy, fun ride. If I find myself with horse transportation next October, maybe I’ll do it, too.
Looking this up online, there are (unsurprisingly) other horseback riding events for charity around. One of them is coming up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (where I graduated from high school): it’s the 41st annual American Heart Association Beach Ride, scheduled for early November. Wish I were there, with saddle and trusty mount. In the meantime, this will have to do…
Pretty impressive horse costume for bike, with rider dressed as jockey.
Hey readers– have any of you done horseback charity events? This was the first one I had heard of, but apparently they’re out there…
