One might assume that living with cancer and going through multiple lung surgeries would be more daunting than a seven-day, biking journey down the California coastline.  Well, now having experience with all of those things, hands down the California coastline wins the title of most daunting!  Seven days of cycling not only challenges your physical fitness, but your mental determination and will.

For example, imagine a full day of riding.  Riding your bike up and down beautiful, yet long, curvy and sometimes steep stretches of coastline.  Imagine how incredibly exhausted you would be.  Now imagine that there is just a few 100 yards between you and a massage!  EUREKA!  However, that last few 100 yards is one of your steepest climbs of the day!!  Well, not exactly the steepest, but yes at least three of the days of riding ended with a nasty little climb up a steep drive to the hotel!

The mental barriers arrived well before the ride even began. As I trained for the ride, I had quite a few set backs that got me extremely discouraged.  I even thought at one point I might need to withdraw from the ride, because I didn’t think I would be ready.  So I entered the week with one goal in mind – ride at least 50 miles a day.  The ride leaders were so amazing.  They worked with me each morning to identify the best sections to ride for that day.  It was perfect.  I ended up averaging about 55 miles per day, so well over half of the total 620 miles! 🙂

There are so many, many stories from the 2014 Challenged Athletes Foundation’s Million Dollar Challenge (MDC) ride down the California Coastline.   This one is about my favorite ride of the week…

I think it was the morning of the last day, and I was eating breakfast with one of the ride leaders, Sully.  He asked me which day had been my favorite so far.  Without hesitation, I looked at him and replied, “Big Sur day. Hands down.”

He looked at me with a little disbelief and surprise, then asked me why.  My answer was simple, “I completely surprised myself in what I was able to accomplish that day.”

Big Sur day is one of the most challenging days with the amount of climbing as well as it being the first day of over 100 miles.  This was the first century ride for many of the riders.  For me, I promised my mom I would do 55 miles for her. 🙂

As I mapped out the day with Hooter (one of the few ride leaders that has done every MDC since the inception nine years ago), I told him that I wanted to do at least one section of the climbing as I needed to “earn my stripes” on the ride.  I couldn’t just ride all the easy miles during the week!

We picked the second section of climbing.  So the fabulous Willie (we challenged athletes are special and had a personal “handler” for the week to help us along the ride!) drove me up the course to the first SAG stop (support and gear stop) to wait for a group of riders that I could join.  Once they arrived, refueled and refilled water bottles, we all set out.  I think I was able to keep up with the group for maybe a half mile, if that.  I was quickly dropped from the group!

Fortunately for me, Tom, one of the two ride leaders assigned to us challenged athletes (yes, we got our own handlers as well as ride leaders…we weren’t spoiled at all!), was riding to the lunch stop that day and coached me through that pretty rigorous 18.5 miles of climbing to the next SAG stop.  But maybe not so fortunate for him as he was stuck with me and my fabulous slowness! 🙂

During one of my many, many stops to rest during that stretch, NBA legend Bill Walton pulled his bike over on the side of the road where I was resting, and insisted on taking a picture.  He encouraged me to keep at it and that I was doing a great job…that was a pretty awesome moment.

By the time I reached the next SAG stop, Bill was just finishing up his rest and refueling.  Before he left he was telling me how the next section was one of his absolute favorites of the ride.  But as I learned as the week went on, EVERY part of the ride was one of his favorites!  Bill LOVES his bike and LOVES riding!

We had initially planned that I would just ride to that SAG stop, then catch a lift with Willie to the lunch stop.  However, the super infectious enthusiasm and encouragement of Bill convinced me that I needed to see the next section from my bike and NOT from a car!

So, with that, Tom, Jimmy (one of the routing guys who rode the course each day after all the riders had gone through to pick up the signs from the course…so, yeah, I was that slow!) and I headed out for another 20.5 miles of breathtaking coastline.  Slowly, but surely, we made it to the lunch stop where I enjoyed probably THE best tasting BLT sandwich I have ever consumed!  Seriously. Bacon really does make everything better!