Up Your Cadence: 4K forever... biking and adventures beyond... also a nice trip out to the Chicago suburbs

Ok in the last post I said I would write this post in a day or two... and it's been almost a week. OOPS. Sorry about that. Truth of the matter is I have 92341241242 things I have to get done, but I just can't wait any longer to write this post.

Last time I said that I wanted to talk about how I want to keep 4K going forever in my life. But not just in a wishful or sentimental way. Rather, in a practical way that is meaningful and requires real action. The first of these, which I want to talk about now, is the most physical - to keep biking and the thirst for adventure it brings.

Now in a strange way, 4K isn't really about biking... it's really about the fight against cancer, being a team, and so many other things before biking. But for me, even if it's not priority #1, an undeniable part of 4K is biking, and biking long distances at that. It's looking at a 100 mile day and saying, well that's not so bad compared to when we biked from x to y. It's looking at 5,0000 feet of climbing in 120 miles with headwinds and saying, well hey at least we're in the Rockies so the roads won't be as nearly steep as in Pennsylvania. So to that end, I have been fortunate enough since coming back to Chicago to bike quite a bit. I've been biking to my Teach English as Foreign Language (TEFL) class and back, so I've been hitting around 25 miles a day. I had a great trip out to a Chicago suburb called Arlington Heights last last weekend (August 22-23, around 80 miles total and a great story by the way... I'll tell the story at the end of this post ). When I first got back to Chicago, I actually didn't have my bike for about a week and a half... and I have to tell you it was the longest (but in a bad way and not the good 4K way) week and a half of my life. Towards the end of the trip I thought that once the trip was over and I got back to Chicago, I would want a break off of the bike for a week or two. That turned out to be completely wrong... when I got back on my bike it felt so right and I was so happy that I honestly thought I might cry. It's not the same without teammates of course, but some of my best moments during my days post 4K are definitely while I'm on the saddle.

Plus... if I don't keep biking a ton, I'm going to have to stop eating 3000+ calories every day, and far as I'm concerned that's just not acceptable. I guess post 4K, some people learn and adjust to eating less, but far as I'm concerned, oh no no. I'm going to keep eating thousands of calories a day and just keep biking. I like being able to eat x whenever I feel like it...

Following right behind never stop biking is the amazing sense of adventure and the confidence you need to fulfill that sense of adventure that 4K gives you. It's strange, until Tillamook Oregon, I didn't realize just how far we had come. Someone at the church said, "wow you guys have been everywhere!" It's a phrase and compliment I heard many time son the trip, but for whatever reason, it didn't sink in until just then. I thought about our ride through the entire southern side of Nebraska. How many people can say that they have driven through that area, let alone biked it?

The confidence is analogous to what I said about biking on the 4K. At the beginning of our trip, I think our average mileage was somewhere around 60-75. As the trip progressed, the average also increased gradually, and in leg three I lost count of how many century rides we had. But of course the amazing thing is that every century made the next one easier. And once we hit a couple of 120s and one 133 mile day, century rides really seemed like nothing too special (ok still hard, but you get the point).

Completing the 4K really gives you this kind of confidence, a kind of confidence you never had before. For example, before 4K, my longest ride had been I think a pitiful 75 miles, maybe 80 miles at best. But now I just rode to Milwaukee and back (will be blogging about that trip in the next post I promise!), I'm planning a seven day solo tour out to Denison University in Ohio (three days there, one day rest, and three days back to Chicago). Eventually, at some point in the future, I would love to do ride across Iowa, since our team missed most of the state to go back to Maryland for Jamie's service. I would love to visit again the small towns of Nebraska and Wyoming and Idaho, where people were so kind that I didn't realize that people like that still existed in this country.

Prior to 4K, I would have had neither this kind of thirst for adventure nor the confidence to quench it. But post 4K, all of those things not only possible but quite within reach (okay a long reach, one where you really have to stretch, but you get the point).

Of course, this sense of adventure and confidence come as a double edged sword. Since I've been back, whenever I feel like I'm not doing something that is absolutely amazing and adventurous, I feel restless and bored and almost depressed. I can't help but feel like this lifestyle is unsustainable in the long run. At some point I'll have to actually get a job, bike "only" 10-15 miles a day, go back to eating a 2000 calorie diet, and stop peeing outside (well we'll see).

But right now, to go to the grocery store, to clean the house, to do work for a class, all feel somehow inadequate and mundane and almost pointless. Fortunately, I only feel that way sometimes (otherwise I think I would go absolutely insane). Maybe I'm already adjusting somewhat back to a normal way of living... but here's the crazy thing. In a sense, I DON'T want to adjust back. I want to stay crazy and feel restless whenever I'm not on my bike. I feel like I'm losing something by adjusting back to normal life, even though I know that it's inevitable. I want to stay adventurous all the time, I want to go ride to Milwaukee and back in the same day all the time, to find myself doing things that other people look at and say, "why????!!!!"

So those are my thoughts on biking and the sense of adventure and confidence that 4K gives you. Much more complicated than let's just get out there and bike I suppose....

But to lighter matters. I've been really excited to write about a bike ride I made out to Arlington Heights a few weekends ago (August 22-23), and I'm hoping that my teammates / alum will be really excited to read about it, because it resembled a 4K day so much more than I could ever have anticipated.

I wanted to ride out to Arlington Heights, which is a suburb northwest of Chicago, about 40 miles from where I am staying in Chicago. One of my old roommates' family lives there, so I thought I would ride out there, say hello, grab a snack at their house, etc. and then head back.

Things started going slightly awry when I woke up far later than I thought I would that day. I was also delayed just by having to get ready to go (getting food, preparing bike, etc.), and so instead of leaving around 10AM or so, I didn't end up leaving until about 1:30PM OOPS (4K like experience #1).

I think it still would have been completely fine and I would have made it there and back before sundown (plus once I get into the city everything is well lit and I don't mind biking at night)... except that I ran into some trouble on the way there. First, the road I took to leave Chicago was great at first, with a nice bike lane and everything, until all of a sudden I ran into some crazy construction and the road condition just became horrible horrible horrible. Okay no matter, I figured I would just reroute (4K experience #2!). But just as I figured out a better road and was on my way, it started pouring rain... with a nice side of thunder and lightening.

I ended up taking shelter underneath a 711 and waiting out the rain for an entire hour... maybe an hour and a half. My roommate's dad actually offered to pick me up (aka shuttle... for you 4K people), but seeing as he was an hour drive away due to traffic, I said no and that I would wait it out. To be honest I didn't think I would make it at that moment and I was really tempted to ask him to pick me up... let's just say it wasn't just raining, the roads look like they were about to flood (hey in my defense the forecast said only 10% of rain the whole day).

Mandatory video: the most lovely of riding conditions

But I waited and the terrible weather finally stopped, and actually in the end I was really glad I kept on riding. It was a moment that taught me to just be patient and be willing to wait when things start to go wrong. Life lessons on post 4K rides, you know.

So I kept on riding and after maneuvering my way through many many residential roads (a good ride by the way, leisurely and very safe), I arrived at the Anderluh home... wet... my cue sheet turned into a piece of pulp... and too late to bike back safely.

Well, being the kind people they are, the Anderluhs just offered to let me stay in their home overnight! So I basically had a 4K host (4K experience # 3) for the night... and as I had no clothes to wear besides my cycling jersey / shorts, John (the dad) offered to let me wear his clothing. Which is a lot funnier than it might sound, because I am about 5'5" and he is 6'3".... so I wore a very large T-shirt (XL instead of my usual medium or even small) and XL gym shorts (trust me I had to make sure to tie that drawstring very very well).

For some dumb reason I didn't take myself wearing that awesome outfit, but you might be able to see how humongous those shorts are on me... my legs look really skinny in them, and trust me I do not have skinny legs.

The Anderluhs (John, his wife Liz, and high school daughter Jamie) were kind enough to let me even wash my cycling clothes, which I thought initially seemed unnecessary, but I have to tell you it was a really good decision, because cycling in wet / dirty chamois = possible bacterial infection in the taint = no fun

So laundry at the host (4K experience #4)

If you don't think this ride sounds 4K enough... it gets better. Turns out that the Anderluhs were supposed to go over that night to a friend's house for a very informal dinner / hang out... Although John offered to let me stay at the house alone, of course that is not the spirit of 4K so I went with them! It was quite amusing to hear John say, "wow it's going to be interesting explaining who you are exactly...." But I had a great time (there was plenty of good beer there... so check) and had a lot of chance to talk to everyone there (whose names I have unfortunately forgotten already) about 4K, biking, and just everything else. It was definitely a surreal experience, but a good time in the end.

There's one additional factor I should mention, which is that the Anderluhs aren't just any family that I know. I'm really close to them... they've been kind enough to host me for Thanksgiving Dinner for two years. And maybe most importantly, they are a family that lost a daughter, Shea, to cancer just over two years ago. In fact an important part of why I did 4K was for Shea and her family (Megan is my roommate by the way, the oldest of three daughters). So to be able to talk to the Anderluhs about the 4K, cancer, Shea, and even my teammate Jamie was an amazing experience that I'll cherish for a long time.

So the next morning, after what I have to describe as a truly bizarre but 4K like experience (i.e. wonderful), I left the Anderluh's home and made it back to Chicago without incident (thankfully good weather the whole way). It was my first real ride back from 4K, and I'm glad it wasn't my last (next post will be about my single day ride to and back from Milwaukee as well as thoughts about my teammates and what they will mean to me).

Now some random photos: