According to Strava I’ve ridden 726 miles in the month of July.

Most of those miles had to do with helping people work towards their training goals. We were lucky enough to have 13 different riders who registered for the Triple Bypass come through our doors this year, and the last week beforehand, four different needs wandered in: everything from a new saddle that had to be put on, to a new bike needing to be fit, and an old bike that needed to be dialed in.

13 different reasons for going far out on a limb, risking the stability of home life to find the hours to train outside of professional commitments as well, planning for (guessing at?) what needs must be met in order to spend 118 miles of suffering glory to finish, and figuring out exactly what should and could be the motivation when everything seemed to say “just quit”. Some of these riders had similar reasons, a memorial ride, some were asked to “help” because they had done it before, while others were just looking for the next challenge. Each rider who made it to the start line that morning, achieved their goal of making it to the finish line. Ahhh-mazing. Only one didn’t make it to the start line because of illness. A couple of others had to pull the plug because of a different illness that had hit them earlier in the year, and they weren’t able to get the riding in.

So, now what?

The ride is over, the moment has passed, the structure that was created to carve out the time in already busy days melts away as the glory, and certainly the adrenaline, fades. The body starts to recover by three days after the event and asks “what will be required going forward?” because it craves the discipline and predictability. The mind says “maybe we need to take a little break”, it’s tired from juggling all the timelines and motivations. The spirit, which soared to receive the medal of achievement, is chomping at the bit, anxious to go for more.

What will you do to maintain the mojo of these connections? Who do you want to be in the next chapter?

Cheers.