Pain. I've heard it described like this on tour, there are two kinds of pain, there's stove pain which, by touching a hot stove, you know that that's something you never want to do again, cause it hurt you, and most likely burned you pretty good. And there's bicycle pain, which is the kind of pain that you have to fight through to become stronger.
The latter of these two is something that I've had to endure pretty much from the start of tour in Seattle, more then a month ago now, but especially the last week and a half or so. Up until this past week I had pretty much ridden every mile that everyone else had ridden. That is until about 5 days ago. As some, if not all of you know, I've had hamstring pain in both legs, to the point where they both got really swollen. It got so bad that I ended having to shuttle in the van for 2 full days, and I tried riding the third day, but had to get in the van again after about 26 miles because it was getting to be to much for me to handle. As you can imagine, it was frustrating. Is frustrating, as the problems are still going on. I've been to various bike shops, a couple of REI stores (outdoor sporting goods store) to get different opinions as to what they think the problem is, and everyone is telling me a different thing. The REI stores I went too, one in Washington, and one in Chicago, both said that my bike was to small and suggested I get a different seat stem to elongate the top tube of the bike, but other hand, the 18th best bike shop in the country, said that bike was fine for my size, and that a different seat stem wouldn't fix problem, if anything it would make it worse, and the problem was the height of my seat. And then today I was able to go to a different bike shop in Indiana, and they said that my seat was a touch to high, so they lowered it, and they also suggested that I try to ride with platform pedals (the stock pedals when you buy a new bike) instead of the clipless pedals (pedals that clip to a special bike shoe to get more power per pedal stroke) that I have been using. I'm hoping that by doing those two things, the problem is fixed, cause to be perfectly honest, it's been overly frustrating to be told so many different things. Nobody really knows what the problem is, and I'm stuck trying all these different things trying to figure out what actually is the problem. So prayer for that would be greatly greatly appreciated.
The motto for Venture Expeditions, the organization that I'm riding with, is, "Benefit the world, Discover your soul". The "benefit the world" part is through raising funds, and awareness for different injustices going on around the world. Currently we're raising money and awareness for the Civil war/Ethnic cleansing going on in Burma currently. It's the longest running Civil War in history, it's going on 68 years, and nobody knows about it. The funds that we raise goes toward care centers set up in Thailand for the people lucky enough to make it out of Burma. At these care centers, they get food, an education, they learn English, and get discipleship. The "discover your soul" part comes through spending 6, 7, 8, 9 hours a day on a bike. All that time leads to some awesome prayer times...and a LOT of time to think about everything and nothing. At the same time. You find out who you really are. You find out what is deep down inside. When the ride gets tough, what's you're first instinct? When it starts pouring rain at mile 70 of a century ride, what is your reaction? In the process, you become more of who God created you to be. It's a learning experience. It's a humbling experience. It's a physical sacrifice for people that put their lives on the line everyday.
I do have a few prayer requests...for me, as well as my team as a whole. For me, that my hamstrings figure themselves out, and get better so I can ride without pain, and finish the tour strong. That, as tour comes to an end (we have about 2 and a half weeks left) that I know what God wants me to do after tour ends. For my team, that we don't take these last weeks for granted. That we press in even harder into tour, that we try to get more out of it now, then we did at the start.
Thanks!
Mark
