Mike Across America

We got back home on Wednesday, June 23.  I was off the bike for 10 days after I stopped on June 12.  I rode on Wednesday night with Jason Cox – a nice 40 mile ride and then did 50 miles on Thursday.  My legs/quads are still a bit sore, so no hard efforts – just riding.  Today I got in 75 miles and it felt pretty good.  Now I will  ease back into training and plan on racing the Gutcheck “to hell and back” division – across the state of SD and then back again in less then 96 hours.  That race is slated for August 11-15.  I’ve received many notes of support and encouragement since dropping out of RAAM and I really appreciate them.  I’ve reviewed what happened many times and with the benefit of hindsight, would make some changes if I do something like RAAM again.  Here is an example of the encouragement I’ve received.

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze that should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, that a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” Jack London

“It must be borne that the tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but is is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.”  Benjamin Mays

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the [person] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt
“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910