1019_BO

Page 23

A<B? <3 0.963<?;6.

?430; <4CC;4 The author in less harrowing times.

4;8I014C7 B4F0A3

=^c B^ 4Pbh AXSTa The 100-mile confessions of a rad mama By Dani Burlison

8

Âş

don’t think I can finish. I need a nap,� I panted over my cell phone, my dorky white shoe still clipped into the bike pedal, a gust of wind blowing against me as I stood on Vine Hill Road in western Sonoma County. “Mom, you can totally do it,� replied my teenage daughter. “Just don’t puke, because that would be hella gross.� I was choking back tears, embarrassed to admit that I may possibly fail. A complete newcomer to the road cycling scene, I was only 35 miles into a 100-mile bike ride with 2,499 other cyclists in the Santa Rosa Cycling Club’s Wine County Century. I had never before spun my wheels farther than 50 miles of mostly mild hills and had struggled furiously on nearly every ride. How was I going to finish this? I had no idea. My daughter was just handing the phone to my boyfriend so he could come pick me up when swarms of brightly colored spandex-clad men flew past with shouts of “Car back!� and “On your

left!� I decided that I had to keep on keeping on. After all, I had made it to the first rest stop after 25 miles, including a decent climb up Graton Road with what I later learned were mostly deflated tires. The rest of the day, I told myself after my tires were full, should be smooth sailing. I hung up the phone and pushed onward.

8

t had all started on a drizzly, shitty morning last fall. As the days grew cold and short, I was fleeing another failed relationship and recovering from a bout of swine flu. I was mopey, underweight and discouraged from a year of emotional and physical sucker-punches involving my health, more than one suicide and a ridiculously stressful job as a social worker. I peeled myself off of my living room floor, where I had spent the last few weeks wrapped in fleece blankets, hacking my lungs out and assuaging my loss of self-worth with Wes Anderson flicks. I forced myself to stop in for a chai at my neighborhood cafe on my way to another doctor’s appointment, hoping I’d run into someone who

could cheer me up. I sat, poorly postured and depleted in a plastic chair while the drizzle outside turned to rain and tore the last leaves from the trees along the train tracks. Everything sucked. I was a miserable, sniveling wreck. My friend Chris Wells, an always upbeat Midwestern ball of sunshine, arrived by bike, grinning from under his rain slicker. He pulled up a seat next to me. “Oh, man!� he blurted. “You don’t look so great.� Desperately fishing for encouragement, I explained that I had to set some sort of tangible physical and mental goal for myself in order to avoid sliding into a winter of solitary doom. I also told him how badly I wanted to start cycling again. I just didn’t know how or when to start. My days were full of single-parenting my two daughters and trying to make a living as a depressed freelance writer. An avid cyclist, Chris sipped his coffee and encouraged me to train for a local “grasshopper� ride in the early spring. After his explanation of the mountain bike and cross bike rides, which sounded too intense for a frazzled little wimp like ') THE BOHEMIAN

05.12.10-05.18.10

23

Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.