This past weekend my husband and I rode the Tour de Palm Springs Century.  We were told it was one of the “easier” centuries bike rides (is that an oxymoron).  We got up at 5:30 in the morning and were anxious to get on the route.  We needed to drive a bit to the race start then navigate our way into town amongst the hundreds of riders to get the route map.  In all the hype we ended up starting at about 7:30…right when the winds were starting; then all of a sudden we were in a high wind advisory.  Well, one should be concerned if the first 20 or so miles were around wind mills…hmmm…that says something doesn’t it?!

Here we are at mile 10 or so with 30 mph winds at times…some gusts in the area up to 60mph.  I cannot remember being that frightened in quite some time.  I had to ride sideways as the wind was blowing across my body.  We saw some riders turn around saying “there is no shame in quitting”…which there isn’t.  Many were blown off the side of the rode!

Here is a valuable lesson I learned…there is an amazing power in the ability to tell yourself “you’re going to be alright.”  For about 90 min or so I kept repeating “you can do this, it is ok.”  My husband kept saying “this is no problem” to me; each of us focusing on mind over matter and believing it.

After 70 miles or so, we were close to where we were staying over the weekend,  and were seriously considering stopping and calling it a day.  It was always in us to finish, but admittedly there was a little voice encouraging me to stop!

After some food at the rest stop, we got our legs back and starting riding with some other riders who said they knew the way (side note: the route markers were only on half of the roads).  Unfortunately, they didn’t know where they were going and we ended up riding about 5 miles out of our way and had to double back; only after my husband stopped under instinct, and reviewed the map again.  Riding even an extra 2 feet is not something you want to do at that stage of the game!  I don’t know how much further the other couple rode! Thank goodness for Brad’s instincts!

Finally we were on a direct route and had about 18 miles to go…one problem though…the sun was going down in the high desert and it was getting dark!  In our day glow (which isn’t all that glowing at night I realize now), we decided to find sidewalks to navigate on.  This was the safest but slowest way back.  Unfortunately, at times, we did have to get on the road, keeping as far to the right as possible; praying cars would see us.

The happiest moment of my year (maybe decade!), I think, was seeing our car…we were alive, not blown over by wind gusts, not blinded by sand storms, not exhausted by cycling about 110 miles and not hit by a car or pedestrian in the pitch black night!

All I could think was “I am a stronger person” and wiser!  There is a lot I won’t try again; like starting a long ride late or riding without reflectors.  One never knows what will happen.

At the end of the day though, I held on to the power of the mind and what we tell ourselves sinks in to our soul and our cells.  We believe what we say in our head.

When we tell ourselves what we want to believe, then it quickly becomes our reality.  This goes for everything in our life.  I can think of daily choices where the words “no, can’t, hard, challenging, stop, quit, and I don’t want to” are ever present on the tip of my tongue.  This was and is a lesson to me that I want to pass along in hopes that we all can realize the power of “I can do this.”  And then do!