We asked to be INSPIRED and boy, did YOU DELIVER! Entries poured in from all over, all ages, all walks of life, all kinds of experiences. It was nearly impossible for our committee to decide which 5 stories to choose as our TOP 5. Ultimately, we aimed for five very different challenges these women faced, and the joy and release they each find in cycling.
Please read their stories and then pull up the LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD FACEBOOK page to vote for your favorite. Help your favorite INSPIRATIONAL HERO win a new bike! How do you vote?? Just look for her name and picture on our FACEBOOK PAGE and 'LIKE' that post. The person who receives the most 'LIKES' on our Facebook page is the lucky winner.
So what are you waiting for? Get comfortable, read on, and prepare to be inspired...
From Amy Hanson
This is difficult to write, so I'll just start. I am the mother of
a mentally ill child. We brought our 10 year old daughter home from a
Taiwanese orphanage at 16 months. We were so excited! She was the answer
to many prayers. From a very young age we knew something wasn't quite
right. She did things all children do but in a different way. She did
everything to the extreme. By the time she was in school she was acting
out in ways that were constantly getting her in trouble. I was getting
calls from teachers daily. J would do anything to get a reaction from
people and the best way was to misbehave. She thrived on shock value and
learned when she was bleeding, she got the most attention. She
self-injured. Every. Day. She was miserable. I was miserable. I had no
idea how to help her.
By the time she was 8 life
was unbearable and we sought help. She was diagnosed with Severe
Reactive Attachment Disorder. We learned many children adopted from
orphanages and foster care have this disorder. They weren't given love
during crucial brain development as infants. They don't learn to trust
adults to care for them. They've known hunger and how it feels to need
soothing but not receive it. They learn if they're going to survive it's
all up to them. But they are babies.
When we
learned why she was the way she was it helped us have more compassion
but it didn't help the problem. By this time she was raging and
self-harming every day, most of the day. It affected our entire family
and most of all me. Being her primary caregiver I was the most
threatening to her need to survive on her own and she took that pain out
on me. Loving a child who doesn't know how to love you back can be very
lonely.
About that time I rediscovered my
bike that had collected inches of dust. It felt so good to leave my
troubles at home and let the wind blow my cares away. They'd be there
when I came home, no doubt, but for a short time I could leave them
behind.
J still struggles. She always will.
She has a long road ahead but we're looking forward and we are in this
with her. Forever. She's worth it.
From Janna Jensen
For the first 28 years of my life I was overweight and there were always reasons for it: I had lupus so I couldn’t be out in the sun, my family was all genetically predisposed to be overweight (we were big boned), and, finally, when I was 18, I ballooned. I gained sixty more pounds over a four month period when I was put on a new medication. My doctor told me I needed to eat less and work out more. And so I did. I started eating around 500 calories a day and trying gym after gym looking for success. I never found it.
In fact, it wasn’t until two months before my 28th birthday that I actually lost a single pound. After ten years of pleading my doctor finally changed my prescription. Within a month of being off the medication I had lost 20 pounds. It was amazing. I had toes. I had a neck. I had ankles. And, at last, I had hope.
With the initial weight loss I became motivated to loss it all and to get into that magical area on the weight chart that wasn’t labeled “Morbidly Obese.” I joined a gym and I set out to become healthy. I tried it all: ellipticals, rowing, BodyPump, Body Combat. I kept losing weight but I still looked like a blob in the mirror. One day I passed the spin class. I was really intimidated. Everyone looked amazing and they were drenched in sweat. I decided I would go to the class the next day and stay for the first 10 minutes. I lasted the full hour and it was REALLY hard. I remember leaving, getting into my car, and sobbing because I couldn’t believe how much I hurt. I felt muscles I never knew I had and I could barely walk for a week. But I knew if it hurt that much, it must be worth doing. I signed up for a pass and started taking classes on a regular basis. Each time I was amazed at how much further I could push my body and it didn’t take long before that blob in the mirror began to take shape. My muscles became leaner and more defined. When summer came I bought my first bike ever and I hit the streets. Today I go for a ride every weekend of at least 60 miles and I never get bored.
The more success I've had, the more I want to learn about improving my health in alternative terms to what had been drilled into me my whole life. I learned that I could eat more than 500 calories a day and still lose weight. I learned that being at a healthy weight isn’t a number on a scale. I learned that there is nothing I can’t do if I set my mind to it.
Since losing half my body weight, I have gotten cancer three times, in three different parts of my body. I think the mental and physical benefits of a healthy lifestyle allowed me to overcome it each time, making me stronger.
I see biking as that thing that changed my life. I want to help others to discover the benefits of biking, to challenge them to be the best versions of themselves.
By Jane Nicholson
WHY I RIDE???
I am a 64 year old widow.
I have been an enthusiastic bike rider my entire adult life. In my twenties, I had the chance to take
three summer/6-week long bike trips to
Germany with a small group of my German language students (usually 10) and my
husband. I think my husband is the real
reason those trips ever happened. He had
a confidence and curiosity that propelled us all. As a teenager in the 60’s John had worked as
a bike mechanic and had owned one of the first 10 speed bicycles in the city of
Lawrence, KS. On those trips we stayed
in youth hostels, cycled the back roads, and covered about 50-70 miles/day. I truly think those trips changed ALL of
us. We returned home stronger, more confident,
and with an incredible European adventure under our belts!
John and I rode often together after those early European
cycling trips. He was a very active, fit
59 year old man who never smoked a cigarette in his life, but was diagnosed
with lung cancer the summer of 2008. The
diagnosis was devastating, but he was amazing throughout the 2 years of
grueling treatments. Depending on the
season, he got on his bike and continued to ride or strapped on his skis and
logged many trail miles during radiation and several different rounds of
chemotherapy. The power of exercising in
Utah’s beautiful nature was profound. It
always helped both of us to face whatever challenges had come or were coming.
I first rode the LRRH
the summer of 2008, two “innocent” months before we knew about his lung
cancer. It was a good, fun ride and I
probably would have done it again. But
after his diagnosis, it became so important to me. I rode it 2 times when he was able to cheer
me on, and then last year after his death.
Last year I rode briefly with several of the Huntsman nurses
we had met in the chemotherapy lab.
Sometimes nurses in that setting don’t know what has happened to a
patient who has simply stopped coming – moved, died, found a different
treatment center…?? It felt good to complete the story for them and I think
they felt better knowing what had happened.
I love riding in the LRRH – I feel John is with me. The experience strengthens me in every way!!!
By Sara Aird
Sometimes a pain exists in your heart that isn’t easily
recognized and more often than not goes unnoticed, but still requires healing
in order to live a truly satisfying life. Two years ago, I watched my little
brother cross the finish line of the Wasatch 100 Endurance Run and felt
inspired to do something great that was just for me. I was feeling depleted and
depressed, despite having many great blessings in my life, and knew I need to
make some big changes. I started out running and trained for a 10K. My body
totally rejected this form of exercise; I was diagnosed with ischemic bowel and
told to find something else. At the time it felt devastating, but it led me to
my bike and thus my rescuer. My amazing husband got online and bought me my
first real road bike, and I got into counseling to begin a long journey to make
sense of a lot of pain that was holding me down. Things usually get harder
before they get easier and this experience for me has proven no different,
except that during it all I have felt like cycling has acted like a healer.
When I first started counseling, I would go out on rides and as soon as my feet
hit the pedals it was like something inside me would just let go. My rides
would be so emotional, full of tears, yet somehow it felt like the ride was
restoring me and making me capable to move forward. Cheesy, I know, but the
truth. I like to call my bike my therapist even though I already have one.
Something about being on the bike makes me feel like everything is going to
work out and be okay. I feel so renewed after I ride. I feel like I belong on
bike! I know that a lot of people say it but…my bike is saving my life! It’s
making me whole-hearted again! It continues to be a process. I am just glad to
have a bike for the journey.
Riding
is PERSONAL! No really, I know everyone says that, but for me, I ride my bike
because I CAN – literally and figuratively. I wish I could be one of those
stories where I’ve lost 20 miraculous pounds over the last year, or somehow
reduced the size of my thighs. But this is not that kind of a story.
My
story begins with years of struggling through exercise and a lot of bone pain
throughout. I didn’t actually get my first “adult” bike until I was 46 years
old. As soon as I bought it, I tore my ACL, MCL and Meniscus that same week
(skiing, not biking) and was pretty much out for the summer. I was recovering
from 3 sets of surgeries and generally feeling profound fatigue and constant
leg pain in both legs. I was rapidly loosing all energy to rehab and knew the
problem was way beyond the ligaments in my left leg.
It
was through the MRI on my knee prior to surgery that my radiologist found abnormal marrow in my long bones – mine was red and
diseased and of course not producing healthy cells. Everything was “stuck”.
Though
a bone marrow biopsy, I found out I had an EXTREMELY rare genetic disorder called
Gaucher’s Disease (pronounced Go-Shays). Gaucher’s can be variable, ranging
from few outward symptoms to severe disability and death.
More
importantly -- although it cannot be cured -- there is a treatment consisting
of an infusion (IV Therapy) to deliver drug for a couple of hours every other
week. I call it my bi-weekly “tune up” where I am forced to spend some quiet
time. This treatment is life long.
As
I began treatment 2 years ago, I also began to ride my bike again. It’s truly
the one thing that gets me out and increases my energy. All the studies show
that exercising out in nature has so many remarkable beneficial effects. Even
though I have done Little Red in years past, last year was my greatest year of
getting out to ride either alone or with my girlfriends. I dream about riding
while I’m getting treatments. I constantly bug my girlfriends to go out for a
quickie, and I take time to ride for myself. Riding has become as important a
treatment for me as the drug that keeps me alive. And my friends agree! I’ve
had several of my friends buy bikes so they can ride with me!!
My
treatment will be life-long, but so will my love of riding. Last year capped
off an incredible first year of all women rides – each one was very personal
for me as a small victory --each ride was a new milestone. And believe me, my
fat thighs LOVE it, too!!
Yep. We know about the Registration mix ups, the merchandise that hasn't shown up, the incomplete packets, etc... And we are as frustrated as you are. Probably more!
