Against the Ropes…

A new friend of mine is in the struggle of her life.  She is fighting two different cancers, has had two surgeries in 2 months and just found out she may need another surgery.  The day after she found this out she was very down.  We chatted and I tried to bring up her spirits.  She started talking about Muhammad Ali and how he would be down, or appear that way to his opponent, against the ropes, tired, taking punch after punch, then just when his opponent least expected it, he would unleash all hell fury on his opponent.

My friend said she’s up against the ropes now and will remain that way for a few more days, then she plans to ditch the pity party and unleash all hell fury on the cancers that have brutely taken any aspect of normalness from her life.

So relating this to my own life, I myself was feeling a little less then strong this week.  A cold had set in and I just felt weak for the first time in a long time.  I was kind of against the ropes you could say.  I was really doubting myself.  Thinking maybe I won’t race this year.  I wasn’t riding strong.  I wasn’t playing volleyball well.  I just felt off.

Funny thing was, I was trying to motivate my friend to stay strong and fight and in turn she ended up motivating me.  I woke up this morning feeling like the cold was gone.  Got on the bike thinking of her and her struggle and my silly worries about not being fast.  Started peddling and the cadence just came.  Listening to my normal punk tunes over my head phones… things just fell into place.  The right songs, the right thoughts, in the zone so to speak, riders ahead in just the right places to pull me faster.  My riding ap reporting my splits over my head phones.  As the times came in I realized “wow, I’m setting record times here”.   Doing this in the off season is kind of unheard of.

My 2012 PR on this loop of 43:30.  I stomped that in 2013 at the peak of training season by putting down a 41:15.  Pretty fast!  Today I managed a 40:39!!  Doing this in the off season is… huge!

This time put me 7th out of 938 riders on my Stava Ap.  A top 10 on Strava is a very big deal, to anyone like me ;-).  The fastest rider on Strava is only 4 minutes ahead of me.   And I personally set 26 top 3 PR’s on this ride for various segments and 11 PR’s.  Maybe its time to train harder…

So I hope this display of effort and determination will in turn help my friend unleash all hell fury on her cancers!!

If interested you can check out the ride here:  My Ride