I started writing this post in March. It was supposed to be a response to current events. The pandemic. Self-centered skiers objecting to the season’s premature end. Ignorant hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement. The failure of people to understand the purpose and importance of face coverings. Tech companies profiteering from anxiety. I kept meaning to write something. But I could not add anything meaningful by doing so.

So I continued my journey. I turned my attention inward and tried, as best as I could, to shut the world out.

I was fortunate to never be furloughed. My only sacrifice was a temporary 10% pay cut. I waited… the store manager of a retail store whose doors are shut and staff cut loose. What is the purpose of a retail store without customers? It was the most serene three months of my professional career. It was the perfect launchpad for identity transformation.

Without self-imposed work related stress, I could more easily eliminate unhealthy habits. I began changing my identity. I stopped drinking soda and eating junk food. I stopped ordering take out. I stopped drinking (not that I drank much). I cut my daily caloric consumption by over two thirds. I starved myself, but still gave my body what it needed. I renegotiated my relationship with work. I got back on the bike.

My response to the pandemic has been life changing. I lost 65 pounds. I am healthier and in better shape at 41 than at any time during my 30s. I am setting personal bests on my road bike across all categories; riding faster, longer, and more vertical than my previous personal bests from ten years ago.

I got back into road biking in 2010. By the end of that year, I was mapping out routes for the following year that would take me over mountain passes throughout the Whites. I never attempted those planned rides… until this summer. After biking up and over the Kancamagus Pass twice (as planned), I would add on Franconia Notch just because I could. I was riding routes that I literally had not yet even dreamed about.

I rode my bike very little during the previous four years. An apparent physical malady was causing deep exhaustion and muscle fatigue. After many medical tests without positive results, I concluded that either the issue was between my ears or it was something I just had to live with. It was easier to assume the latter. I could deal with work, adversity, nature; but I couldn’t deal with myself.

When I was getting into road biking during high school, I loved to explore. Before leaving home, mom would ask me where I was going. I would cavalierly reply “I don’t know, I will find out when I get there.” I was philosophically flippant even with my mom. Bike riding as a metaphor for life. I would like to think that my teenage self would appreciate where this ride led, for better and, even more especially, for worse.

Almost a year ago, I began to change my narrative. I chose to control what I could. I chose to recast my tale. The tale continues to be recast into whatever powdery depths this season may bring.