3/4 of a Colon and a Pancreas (Determination versus Adversity)

This title may be confusing to some.  Let me explain.  I had the pleasure to recently have a colon cancer reunion with a group of colon cancer survivors, one of which I have talked to online for a number of years, but never actually met in person.  His name is Brian Novak.  He’s a Colondar Model like me and I was his Imerman Angel (cancer big brother of sorts) when he was diagnosed.  So why the title?  Well, Brian had 1/4 of his colon removed due to colon cancer (I had all of mine removed) and he also has Type I Diabetes, so really a non functioning pancreas while mine works fine.

Well, we met up in Breckenridge, Colorado and since both of us are mountain bikers we decided to do some riding.  The first day we took it kind of easy and only road about 12 miles on a single track trail that climbed from about 9,500 feet to a close to 11,000 feet.  This was a fun ride and slightly challenging at times climbing steep forest trails with roots, rocks and snow.  Brian quickly showed he was no newbie leading the way through these technical sections.  We finished the ride with a fun 2 mile downhill bombing the trail in unison.

Day two came and we were looking at trail options.  It seemed all of the good rides consisted of at least 17-20 miles of single track with lots of climbing over 11,000 feet.  We picked one and went for it.

The ride started with a 3.5 mile climb to over 11,000 feet.  This was no joke.  The elevation was way different than riding at sea level.  At times it was necessary to give it everything to push up 100-200 foot technical sections only to stop at the top and take about 30 deep breaths before recovering.  Brian always seemed to be recovered before I was (we’ll just say that was due to his home being in Denver).  This particular ride was to be about 23 miles long.  At home on my trails that was a medium length ride.  At over 11,000 feet on mostly singly track where speeds are lower, it ended up proving to be a little more substantial a ride.

About 60% thru the ride we were feeling pretty good and we reached a fire road climb.  This climb started mild but just kept on going.  We stopped for a bar (we each packed one) and continued on, getting directions and a little extra food from another rider we met on the trail.  We hadn’t really packed enough food for such a long ride.  I noticed Brian looking at his insulin monitor quite a bit.  We started to discuss our options.  The rider that helped us told us we needed to get to the top of this 5 mile fire road then make it up over a steep 1000 foot climb then it was all downhill from there.  The problem was, we were really starting to bonk about 2.5 hours in on this fire road climb.  We took turns leading, mentally pulling the other one along until we got to the top of the fire road.

I took a moment to ask Brian if he was good, did he have enough food to maintain his levels and did he think we could get up over this climb and finish the ride with no food.  I wasn’t sure how careful he had to be being diabetic and all and to be honest I was not feeling all that great.  We both really wanted to finish the ride though, as the only other option was to turn around and go back down the fire road and call for a pick up.  That just wasn’t cool and didn’t really seem like a viable option.

So on we trudged and the last climb was a tough one.  Steep, rocky, snow covered sections.  We walked, we rode, we walked, we rode.  And finally we reached the top.  And with a sigh of relief we bombed down one of the most amazing downhill forest trails ever.  We made it out to the road and got in the car to drive back into town.

We each kind of looked at each other and were amazed we’d just completed a 23 mile ride with 4000 feet of climbing over 11,000 feet elevation and about 3:45 minutes of pedaling.  We bumped fists and headed back to the lodge to put down some much needed calories as it was about 3 pm by this time.

Were we able to complete this because of our past adversity?  Did it make a difference?  Maybe the challenges we’d faced in the past drove us on.  Maybe quitting was not a word in our vocabulary.  Brian with his Diabetes and Colon Cancer and me with my FAP, lack of  a colon and Colon Cancer.  I guess will will never know.  But one thing is for sure, I gained a new riding buddy that day and someone I will call my friend for life.  Cheers Brian.  Well done!

Never Give Up!