It’s all Karla’s fault. And I should throw multiple sclerosis in there, too. If my friend Karla Zielke didn’t have this wicked disease, and if there wasn’t a dire need to find a cure, I’d be spending weekends on the couch streaming some lame series on Netflix instead of bicycling on Austin-area roads until my butt was raw and my quads felt like reinforced cement.
But one year I made the mistake of going to the Capitol in Austin to watch Karla and a human ant trail of 13,000 other cyclists roll across the finish line in the BP MS 150. These riders had pedaled 150 or more miles from Houston to Austin over two days. It was damned impressive.
Photo courtesy of Pixus.com
Some roll in with their teams, some roll in solo.
“So you’re doing the ride next year, right?” Karla asked me that first year, proudly sporting an orange and white “I Ride with MS” jersey. She smiled widely with energy and passion. Her body odor hinted that she’d been riding all day, yet she stood solid—fresh and alive.
I mumbled an unintelligible excuse, but she planted a seed.
Every April afterward, I went to the Capitol to watch Karla and the other riders roll in. I met more and more people with MS who shared stories of their struggles.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) damages the coating around nerve fibers in the central nervous system, disrupting signals between the brain, spinal cord, and the rest of the body. Symptoms vary. One day a person with MS may feel tired and dizzy, and have blurred vision. The next day they may be in constant pain and unable to walk.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) damages the coating around nerve fibers in the central nervous system, disrupting signals between the brain, spinal cord, and the rest of the body. Symptoms vary. One day a person with MS may feel tired and dizzy, and have blurred vision. The next day they may be in constant pain and unable to walk.
I also met hundreds of sunburned, fatigue-faced riders—many of whom had love ones with MS. They rode for the same cause: To find a cure.
One year I finally accepted Karla’s challenge.
Peer pressure can be was an unexpected gift.
Photo by Mare Kretschmar
The moment I made the commitment to ride the MS 150--with a witness.
SPIN CLASS HELL
Training for long distance biking began via a one-hour spin class in an unremarkable room at a local YMCA. The Instructor barked orders like a Marines drill sergeant. She had to. Otherwise, her voice would be drowned by the vibrating bass of Van Halen’s “Jump” as it boomed from the old stereo speakers. At the front of the room, she rode high on her mechanical horse, going nowhere, yet with an earnest urgency. Not one drop of sweat apparent. I hated her for that. She made the work look so easy. It wasn’t.
Others on the Monday night spin class crew groaned yet kept turning their pedals faster and faster. As ordered, they cranked up the resistance on their cycles a quarter turn. Pedaling maniacally, I tried to forget that we were in a small, rectangular-shaped, teal-walled room, masterfully built to encourage a rise in body heat. Instead, I tried to picture a sunny open road with a cool breeze in my face, Texas mesquite trees to my right, and an occasional mamma cow with her baby calf grazing green pastures. But I could never stay in my dream world; the blare of Van Halen isn’t compatible with the image of scenic, serene country roads.
Photo by Cathy Chapaty
Spin Class bike from hell.
The class kept up a brisk pace. Another bubble of sweat emerged at my temple and weaved its way down the curve of my exhaustion-red cheek until it dropped on the lap of my gray gym shorts.
“Turn it one full rotation!” the Instructor yelled as she rose from her saddle. “Charge the hill! You should feel this climb in your legs. If you’re not feeling it and you’re not out of breath, you’re not working hard enough!”
Before long, it was time for “up and downs,” eight rotations on the saddle, eight rotations off until quads and hamstrings threaten to divorce the body. Though I could see my classmates perspiring and wincing—even the bulky pimple-faced guy whom I suspected was on steroids—I felt alone in my struggle.
I hadn’t been serious about biking since childhood days freely touring the neighborhood on my banana seat bicycle. I loved that bike. When I was on that bike, I was free from the chaos of our alcoholic home, in which Mamma yelled unrelentingly at Daddy every night for coming home drunk again. But one day, my parents decided that financial security was more important than my personal freedom and sanity, and they sold that bike so that I could open a savings account. We got $12 for my banana seat friend, and I remember feeling sad when the bank teller asked, “What can I do for you today?”
Get my bike back for me, I thought.
A jarring techno tune brought me back to spin class. I settled in for an imaginary flat road, starring at a worn decal on the riderless bike across the room. The edges of the decal were weathered and peeling, much like I imagined I would be at some point on the MS 150 route.
“We’re on another incline,” the Instructor shouted. “Turn up the resistance!”
I repeatedly wiped sweat from the slippery handle bars with a spare hand towel that I snagged from the bottom of the kitchen drawer at home. The towel was old, long ago made off-white from years of use, and its edges were frayed. I avoided using the towel at home because it wasn’t perfect. Yet every time I searched the linens for donations to the latest fire, tornado, or flood victims, I couldn’t part with it. I might need it someday. Like today.
If that towel could talk, it might encourage me to keep pedaling. It might tell me that I would survive the upcoming ride. It might remind me that I’m riding for a worthy cause. It might even make a laundry joke that everything will come out fine in the wash. But it just lazily hung there, limp and silent, over the black handle bars.
“Last hill!” the Instructor yelled over a Beastie Boys song. I wanted to give up, but I couldn’t. As a Taekwondo teacher, I had drilled the mantra “Don’t Quit” into the minds of my young students. That mantra was now my dry-land life jacket. I put my head down and pedaled as fast as I could.
When my eyes finally rose, I realized that Toned Lady was staring at me from across the room. Toned Lady was everything I loathed and loved: trim and fit with sculpted biceps, defined calves, and a tiny waist. She looked so young and alive in her tank top and Spandex shorts. Spandex made me feel like a fat walrus. And I couldn’t risk wearing a tank top either. My flabby arms might push more of my body odor around the room.
“Are you O.K.?” Toned Lady mouthed, her voice well-drowned out by the thumping music.
I immediately felt self-conscious. Do I look all right? Does she think I’m about to faint or throw up? Or die?
I pedaled faster to prove that I wasn’t yet dead and gave Toned Lady a reassuring nod, trying to smile. Then I began to compare my insides with Toned Lady’s outsides—always a dangerous venture. While perspiration flooded from every pore of my body, Toned Lady wore a glittery, pristine sparkle. While I struggled with every grind of the gears, Toned Lady seemed to pedal with ease, sitting blond and pretty in her saddle. I hated this woman, and yet wanted so much to be like her.
Finally the moment I always prayed for arrived: Prince sang “Purple Rain” on the stereo. I’m not a Prince fan, but that song had become one of my favorites. It meant that spin class was winding down, and that I’d survived another grueling challenge. As the class rolled into the relaxing cool-down phase, my Negative Nancy mind shut up for a while and I felt calm. Accomplished. Peaceful. I knew the post-ride high wouldn’t last long, but it was a priceless gift nonetheless.
Photo by Mare Kretschmar
I rarely looked forward to training rides. I was often a Grumpy Greta.
TRAINING THROUGH GRIEF
My mom died in August the year I signed up for the MS 150, and at some point on every long-distance Sunday training ride with teammates Mare and Diane, I blubbered so hard that snot ran down the front of my bike jersey. Bike jerseys are made from a synthetic microfiber material that’s meant to wick away sweat from the skin and keep riders cool. But I don’t think jersey designers accounted for a continuous, thick drool of mucous.
Those first days out on the road were hard. Even though Mare and Diane were with me, I was afraid. Afraid I’d get a flat. Afraid I’d run out of water. Afraid I’d die of heat stroke. Afraid I’d have to pee with nowhere to go but behind a bush in front of God and a pasture of cud-chewing cows.
I felt naked out on a country road with just me, two wheels, two friends, a water pack strapped to my back, and some salted smoked almonds in my jersey pocket. It provoked a terror that was not unlike being thrown in the deep end of a pool the day after learning to swim. Every Sunday I prayed for rain. Every Sunday I prayed for an ache, sniffle, touch of fever, pulled muscle, or jostled joint. And every Sunday, I was healthy.
So I got out of bed, made coffee, ate a banana with peanut butter and a bowl of oatmeal, then pulled on one of those body forming bike jerseys that showed my tummy’s fatty bulge without apology.
How can I wear this? I thought. I look like a stuffed sausage.
I put it on anyway.
The bike shorts were even more revealing, magnifying the size of my squatty-body legs and buttocks. I knew its gel seat padding would be a welcome comfort once on the saddle, but I always felt like I had a load of poop in my shorts. In time, I’d get used to the standard bike wear. In time, I’d learn to add “anti-monkey butt” powder to the short’s crotch to prevent chafing.
And in more time, I’d learn that no amount of powder or gel padding would prevent my butt from hurting after long miles on a saddle.
The cartoonish image is misleading. This stuff works wonders. Seriously.
Hills instantly became my nemesis.
“These are just rolling hills,” Mare often said uneventfully.
But they were still hills, and they were still hard. I slowly grunted upward in my hybrid bike’s lowest “granny gear” as Mare rode circles around me, waving one arm side to side to whatever song was playing on Pandora through her cellphone. She looked like a Pentecostal believer, lifting her hands up to the sky, singing and praising the Ride God. I loved yet deeply despised her with every heaving breath.
There was one particular hill on our usual route that I just couldn’t climb. Out of breath and out of gas, I always got off the saddle of my bike and humbly trudged on foot the rest of the way. That bike never felt so heavy. But one day I made…it…up. I felt a strange push on my back despite the absence of wind. I felt Mamma’s spirit. It was a welcome visit, yet odd. She was never an athlete. Her idea of exercise was speed blotting multiple bingo cards. But Mamma was out there with me that day—and every day since—helping me climb those dang hills.
Photo by Mare Kretschmar
One day I rode over the Houston Ship Channel bridge. Now THAT was hard.
Some days, though, Mamma’s spirit simply watched, careful not to intervene. Much like the day when I was six years old and she took off the training wheels of that banana-seat bicycle, then pushed me forward for my first solo roll. She had to let go at some point, so she did. I had to learn to ride unaided at some point, so I did.
Forty years later, Mamma watched me learn the hard way how to use clip-in pedals. Mare and Diane bought me slick black clip-in shoes for Christmas. I loved clogging around the house in them. Though they made me sound like a Clydesdale horse, I finally felt like a real biker. Once on the road, though, the shoes, pedals, and I were at odds. And there was nothing Mamma would do about it.
One Sunday my front wheel rolled into a gap in a worn country road. I tipped over into gravel: Thunk. My right tricep took the hit. A couple Sundays later, I slowed at a red light in traffic and didn’t clip out fast enough. I tipped over as if in a slow motion film: Pllllllunk. Again, my flabby arm took the hit. I tipped over another Sunday when Mare and Diane slowed in downtown traffic—and I didn’t: Clunk. But one good thing about having trained in judo in the past is that every time I fell, I instinctively lifted my helmet upward and let the big muscle groups bear the brunt of the impact. My martial arts instructors would have been proud.
Though slightly embarrassed, I chronicled my falls publicly on Facebook. Turns out that those spills helped me generate much-needed donations to the National MS Society. I had already raised more than $2,000 via my MS 150 fundraising page.
Eventually, I rode steadier and stronger, but it took about a year before I could concentrate on anything but the road.
“Awe, how cute!” Mare said one Sunday.
“What’s cute?” I asked.
“The calf and her mamma in the pasture back there. Didn’t you see it?”
“No,” I replied, lowering my head in self-pity.
“Oh, wow! That’s huge!” Diane said.
“What’s huge?”
“That big hawk that just flew overhead. You didn’t see it?”
I missed all the good scenery. I was too focused on the road, on not falling, on maintaining my mantra: “Just keep pedaling. Just keep pedaling.”
But one day I gained just enough confidence to lift my head and look around. I saw eye-popping wildflowers, gorgeous green pastures, a donkey, and some chickens. I didn’t even panic when a Chihuahua tore out of a yard to chase me. I just kept serenely pedaling. I slowly felt more confident and was finally enjoying the meditative movement of turning pedals end over end. Before long, we were knocking out 20 miles, 30 miles, 40 miles, and I was saying crazy things like, “Let’s just do an easy 25 miles today.”
Easy?
It hadn’t been that long ago when I believed that 5 miles was life-threatening.
I still cried occasionally—because there were rough patches of steadily inclining hills, because I missed Mamma, because I tipped over and landed on my funny bone—but even those crying bouts became less common.
DONATE NOW! Please help me make a difference in the lives of Karla and the 2.3 million people worldwide who suffer with MS by making a donation here: http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Bike/TXHBikeEvents?px=9394915&pg=personal&fr_id=27003
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