Granted, it was never for more than 50 yards at a time, but that was OK. I probably ran a half mile, 50 yards at a time.

It was my final fitting for my running leg. Sort of a fine-tuning to make sure everything was working properly. Once again, it felt a little unusual when I first put it on. Sort of like walking around on my toes on that side. But it’s not designed as a walking leg. After a few tentative strides, I started loping. That was all I could do in the fitting room. It wasn’t long enough to really run.

So I put on my shorts, and we went into the hallway. Where I ran. Up the hallway, and back down again. Back and forth, while my prosthetist* watched me, looking for ‘toe in’ and ‘hyperpronating’ and stuff like that.

We had to make a few adjustments. Yeah. ‘We’ did. While he was tweaking my leg one time, he said, “Just so ya know…you’ll need someone for technical support when you’re doing the Ironman in Hawaii, I’m coming along.”

I smiled and said “That’s gonna be in 2014. You have plenty of time to make your reservations.”

At one time, I would have laughed a remark like that off. I didn’t this time. I don’t know which triathlon I’ll be running. Or if I’ll even make it that far. I’ve got a lot of work to do to get there.

He finished doing whatever it was he was doing, and he said, “Want to go outside?”

“Sure!” I said.

It was a cold, drizzly rain sort of morning in Rochester, with the temperature around 35-40 degrees. There were patches of ice and snow and slush all over the place. We looked around until we found a nice long patch without much gunk, and I ran. I pushed myself. I made myself pant. I was moving fast. Not sprinter fast, but faster than I’ve moved in a long time. I was using my muscles in a way I hadn’t done since 1979.

Right now, my hip hurts a little bit on the right side. And my right knee was twinging a bit while I ran. It didn’t slow me down while I was running, but I did notice it. I’ve got names of some sports medicine people who will be getting calls and emails from me soon.

But for right now, I’m just enjoying remembering what it felt like.

I’m running. Holy cow, I’m running.

*heh, heh.

In the spring I discovered that something terrific had happened: The county had put in a gate. Technically, the park was closed from sunset to sunrise, but rarely was the gate closed. Whoever was supposed to stop by and close and lock the gate rarely made an appearance. Over the winter, though, the old hand-swung gate had been removed, and a high-tech sliding gate on a timer had been installed. This gate was big enough and wide enough that it was impossible to get around.

I didn’t think this was terrific at the time, but it forced me to stretch myself. At first I just rode around the base of the hill. Because I’m so imaginative. And, also, because usually by the time I got back around, the gate would be opened.

Then the thought occurred to me that, since I was on a bike, I could ride other places as well. Hey! How about that? So, I started planning routes to ride. And the rides got longer and longer as I got in better shape (and got a better bike as well). And that ride to work on my bike that seemed so daunting was now rather commonplace. Heck, I even rode 51 miles for my 51st birthday.

But with all the riding I was doing, there was something rather important missing:

Hills.

It’s not that I was avoiding them. It’s just that the hills where I live aren’t that steep. So, after I registered for the race, I did what I always did when I had a bike issue: I talked to Bob.

“You want Miller’s Hill,” he said immediately.

“And Bopple,” said Steve, one of his employees.

“Yeah–Bopple’s a good one,” said Bob, pulling out a map. “Oh–and Gannett.”

“South or west?” asked Steve.

“Both,” said Bob, “and Hicks road, too.”

“Where are these places?” I asked.

“Canandaigua,” said Bob. “The west side of the lake, all the way down to Naples, and back.”

So, Bob and Steve mapped out a course, and I thanked them. “You may not want to thank us,” Steve said. “You’ll probably be cursing us for a while first.”

Turns out that some of the steepest roads around are about 20 miles south of me. Cyclists who have ridden cross-country will often remark that the toughest roads to ride are in the Finger Lakes. It’s not so much that the hills are steeper than other places–although they are pretty steep–nor is it that the climbs are longer–and, again, they’re pretty long: It’s the fact that the roads tend to go straight regardless of the angle, and that there’s so darn many of them.

So that was my July. I took lots of days off, and spent all of them slogging around the west side of the lake. I rode those hills, and they left me gasping. The next time I stopped by the bike shop I told them I was riding the routes they suggested. I remarked on how hard they were.

“They’re nothing compared to Mount Washington,” said Steve. Boy, did that worry me.

Another thing that was a concern was the crowds of riders. Most of my riding was done by myself. How would I fare riding in a group? So I decided I would sign up for a ride to see how I did. I chose the Tour de Thompson, which took me all over the area I was already training in. I chose the hardest ride–the metric century. (A century ride is one of 100 miles or more. A “metric century” was 100 kilometers, or 63 miles.) It was set for less than a month from the Auto Road Hill climb, so I figured it would give me a good idea of where I was in my training.

Those hills are hard. The climbs were tough. If you click on the link, above, and look at the bottom of the page, you’ll see three mountain icons. That tells me how many ‘climbs’ are on the ride. A ‘climb’ is any incline of greater than 3% that lasts 500 meters or longer. Three degrees may not sound all that difficult, but when it goes on for three tenths of a mile, it’s noticeable. The lower the number, the harder the climb. So you’ll see that on this particular ride, I did seven Category 5 climbs, three Category 4′s, and one Category 3. Or, as I like to call it, a little slice of hell.

But as tough as those climbs were (and they were tough), there were also spots on the ride that went downhill. The graph under the map shows you that. All those bumps go up as well at down. Some of the spots were exhilaratingly downhill. The best part of the ride was the last mile: all down hill, on a wide, recently-paved road with great visibility and no cross streets. I ended up going close to 50 on that stretch. I passed a Harley. One that was being ridden at the time. I came home from that ride exhausted, and pleased. It was a tough ride, and I did it. Not only did I do it, but I did it in the time frame I had set for myself. Plus I got a cool T-shirt. Maybe I was ready for that big mountain, after all.

Then I looked at this. That’s Mt. Washington Auto Road. Look at the graph underneath. No bumps. It almost looks easy. That’s because it’s all up. Up, up, and up some more. Seven solid miles of up. It doesn’t even have a category number. Just HC. I don’t know what HC stands for. I can guess.

Hard Climb?

Hardest Climb?

Hell Climb?

And I would be doing it in 20 days.

Holy Cow.

Then I went to Bob’s shop. It was to those places what a farmer’s market is to a restaurant.

Bob sells bikes. Sells and services. It’s not a place you would go for retail therapy. His shop sits next to a Mexican restaurant in a dingy little strip mall on a less desirable commercial district of the least fashionable suburb in the area. The bikes are on one wall, the clothes are on another. Accessories are on a third, and repairs are in back. The only music you might hear would be during the commercial breaks on the AM Talk Radio station playing on the old Zenith radio that sits next to the hot plate in the back.

Bob’s blunt. Not mean, or disrespectful, or condescending. Just straightforward. He’ll listen to you describe what you’re looking to do, and then tell you what you need to get there.  Every other place I went wanted to sell me a bike in my price range that was a good-quality bike. And all of those bikes were beautiful–well-designed, light and responsive–just a pleasure to ride. And when I would ask them if this bike would get me up Mt Washington, they’d do a little nodding shrug and say something like “well, come in before you leave and we’ll install a special cassette with a special gear that you can use for the climb.” The installation, of course, would come with a price.

That’s not what happened with Bob. He listened to me, then immediately went to the rack and pulled out a bike from a company I never heard of. It was clunky, and heavy. “Steel frame,” Bob said. “This will ride over anything.”

“Including a mountain?” I asked. Bob smiled. “If you don’t make it, it won’t be because of this bike,” he said.

The other bikes had shifters that were integrated into the brakes. You never had to move your hands to shift gears. This one’s shifters were at the end of the drop handlebars–and only the rear shifters were notched. “You can change it to a friction shifting system with a screwdriver,” Bob said. I’m guessing this was something important to know, so I nodded knowingly. I may also have said “ahh” while nodding. Cuz that’s what people who know things do.

While the other places were offering me sports cars, Bob was selling me a tank. And I bought it. “It will get you up that mountain,” he said, “if you have the stamina to do it.”

That’s Bob in a nutshell. He was the only person in the are who not only heard what I wanted to do, but also heard “I don’t have a lot of money,” and he was the only one who presented me with a bike in my price range that came with gearing low enough to climb a mountain as standard equipment.

Bob, it turns out, is sort of the grand old man of bicycling in this area. He’s trained every elite cyclist who’s come out of the area in the past 20 years. I’m glad I didn’t find that out until later, because I probably would have been intimidated by this. Even though I spent probably the least amount of money I could at his shop and still walk away with a bicycle, he gave me hours of advice. We’ve spent a long time talking about the best way to get the most amount of power from my right leg, and I spent a very long time on a trainer in the back room while they raised and lowered, measured and adjusted, and overall fitted my bike into me. My having a prosthesis was a challenge to him, and he enjoyed figuring it out.

After he got me fitted, he let me just hang out in the back room, riding. He watched me for about 15 minutes. Then he said something shocking.

“I have no doubt you’ll make it to the top of Mount Washington,” he said. “You won’t be the first one up, but you definitely won’t be the last.”

You have no idea how many times that phrase kept me on my bike and pedalling last summer.

Today I took my first steps on my running leg.

It does look strange, doesn’t it? It feels a little strange to wear it, to tell the truth, but not as strange as I thought it would. Or perhaps strange in a different way.

Actually, the strangest thing about it was how normal it felt. It looks like it should feel weird to walk on, but it doesn’t. When I first stood up on it, I was braced against the possibility of rolling backwards, or something. But that didn’t happen.

A little education here: every prosthesis, when it’s first put on, feels strange. That’s because each leg has to be adjusted to the individual who wears it. There’s hundreds of tiny little adjustments that can–and need–to be made to get the leg to fit and perform correctly. Things like pronation, toe angle, length, heel strike, all need to considered and adjusted so that my gait is as natural as possible.

The way that’s done these days is with what’s called a ‘check socket.’ It’s a lighter weight version of the socket on my current prosthesis, and is used to make sure the leg fits right before they make the actual prosthesis. The post and foot (the hardware of the leg) are attached to it, and the prosthetist* makes all his adjustments while I’m wearing this version. It usually takes a couple of weeks to make sure everything’s working well. Once we’re satisfied, they take the hardware off the check socket, and bolt it to the finalized version.

Technically, every time I get a new leg, we’re supposed to go through the whole process, right from the casting, but since we already knew this part was working fine, we used it to make my swimming leg, and so why not save time and do the same for this one as well?

swimming leg, with ankle extended in swimming mode

Ron, my prosthetist,** was possibly as excited as I was about it. This was the first time he’s made a running leg, so he was learning about it at the same time I was. One of the cooler new features of this leg, he was quick to point out, was the removable tread. This is so new that it’s not even in the literature.

The newest feature

It’s a covering that goes over the spring on the bottom–the ‘foot’–of the leg. It’s designed by Nike, and it’s much easier to replace than the old method.

You can see the swoosh!

The only problem with that, of course, is my running shoe is made by Adidas. Oh, well. They can fight over which gets to sponsor me. I hope it’s not too awkward.

Speaking of awkward: that’s how I walked at first, for the reasons mentioned above. I did the first few steps holding onto the parallel bars that were in the room. But the foot was placed pretty accurately by Ron. He’s been working with me for several years, and even if he hadn’t been, this is the third leg for me he’s built in five months. Within a few minutes, I was walking on it pretty gracefully.

The thing is springy. Not surprising, since it is a spring. It returns close to 100% of the energy put into it, which is a pretty amazing thing. But even though I was walking on it, I was reluctant to run.  I could tell by the way I was stepping on it that I would under-run if I tried–sort of like the feeling you get when you discover there’s one more step than you had thought while going down stairs.

This was because it was too short. I was pretty close to exactly level standing on it, but it was supposed to be a couple inches too long than my full leg. The spring compresses when I throw my weight on it, so if it’s the correct standing length, then it will compress too low as I’m running on it, causing me problems with my hip and lower back.

On the level, which means too short

So Ron went back into the workshop and added a spacer to it. Now it was too long to stand on gracefully, but when I started walking faster and faster, I could feel it compress. Suddenly, I leaned into it and started running!

…And just as suddenly, I stopped. The room I was in was only about 30 feet long. And although I did bring my running shoes, I neglected to bring along any shorts. But I did get a very good impression of how it would feel to run.

In a word: awesome. It’s going to be amazing. There’s still a few adjustments to be made, but even so, it feels balanced, and powerful and fast. And, while Ron was out of the room, I did something I hadn’t done with my right leg since 1979.

I hopped. Repeatedly. Boing, boing, boing…like a high-tech, mutant, 180 pound bunny. Felt great.

Turns out, though, that the spacer was a little bit too long. The toe of the leg tended to hit the ground on the pull-through. There’s another spacer that’s a little bit shorter than the one he had put in, but he didn’t have any on hand. That’s why I’m going to have to go back next Thursday. And I’ll bring my shorts this time. I may even bring my bike to see how it feels to ride with it. I might even ride it down to my bike shop. It’s only about 2 miles down the road from the prosthetist’s.**

After we did all we could for the day, I put my other leg back on. My ‘everyday’ leg is another technological marvel, and has what’s considered an ‘active’ foot, which means it returns more than 90% of the energy put into it. But after spending time on my running leg, it felt like it had a lead weight on it.

It’s going to be very interesting very soon.

§§§§§§

*I know–sounds kinda dirty. Heh.

**Heh, heh.

As a northerner, this use of the word ‘fix’ was new to me. It meant ‘prepare’ rather than ‘repair.’  Which, to my way of thinking, meant the question was rather silly. “You getting ready to get ready?” was redundant. You prepared, then you acted.

As a word guy, I always felt superior when I discovered redundancies. Did you enter your PIN number in the ATM machine? Then you’re impenetrably dense. Even well-established words weren’t out of my target range. One of my favorites was ‘overwhelm.’ To ‘whelm’ means to submerge completely. How can you be more submerged than completely submerged?

..and then, of course, I found out the hard way that it is, indeed possible to be overwhelmed. And I also found out that it’s possible to astonish. ‘Astonish’ is the antonym of overwhelm. Trust me. I’m a word guy.

And I was astonished to discover that it is important to be fixin’ to get ready.

That’s pretty much all I did, training-wise, for the better part of two years. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d never been one for personal awareness. What I thought I was doing was training. I thought I would get on my bike and ride for a while, then in August I’d ride my bike up a mountain, everyone would go “ooo!” and that would be it.

I don’t know if ‘arrogance’ and ‘ignorance’ are synonyms, but they should be.

Sometime in the early spring of 2009, I changed my goal of riding up Mt. Washington from 2009 to 2010. And then in 2010, I did it again, to 2011. It was more difficult than I had anticipated.

But I kept it up. Which surprised me a little. At one time, it would have surprised me a lot. In fact, it would have astonished me. But times change. I wasn’t just talking about this adventure in some abstract way. I was doing what I could to change myself. I rode my bike all spring, summer, and fall. And when winter came,  I bought a trainer, and rode my bike in the basement. 4 or 5 days a week, staring at the cat’s litter box, trying to disappear into my headphones.

Then spring came again, and I got the bike I wanted–the one with a low gear the size of a frisbee, and continued riding outdoors. I put 2,000 miles on that bike that summer. I thought I was training.

Then one day in February of 2011, out of the blue, I realized that if I was ever going to put Mt. Washington behind me, I would have to more than commit to climb it. I would need to actually climb it. You know–put myself on the bike, and put my bike on the mountain, and pedal ’til I reached the top. In other words, do what I said I was going to do.

So I went online to check to see when they would begin registering for the ride. Even though it’s incredibly steep, there are about a thousand or so people who want to ride their bikes up this mountain each year, but only 600 positions available. It’s not unusual for registration to close the day after it opens, so I wanted to make sure I knew when it would open. I was pretty sure it was some time in May.

Turns out the registration wasn’t in May. It opened at 9:00 the next day. And it would cost me $350 to register.

I was astonished. Not only at the freakish timing, but also that I had the $350 to spend. And I got scared. This was it. If I filled out the form and sent in the money, I would be honest-to-God committing to this event. I would literally be putting my money where my mouth was.

And I did it. The next morning I filled in the forms, transferred the money electronically, and giggled. Yes, giggled.

And it was then that I realized for the past two years, I wasn’t actually training for the ride. What I was doing was getting myself into good enough shape to really start training.

I was preparing to prepare.

The time for fixin’ to get ready had passed. It was time to really get ready.

I had to train. Oh, boy.

In restrospect, it was not the best idea to title the posts with the date. Oh, well. Live and learn.

In a nutshell, here’s what else I learned:

• It’s important to have the proper equipment. This includes the proper bike and the proper clothes.
• It’s important to have a routine. I need to pick times to exercise, and to commit to them. Otherwise, I just get lazy.
• I also discovered I had a misconception about how I would feel when I got into shape. I thought I would be able to go and go and go without getting tired. What I actually learned was how to be able to go and go and go while being tired.
• If a certain hill tires you out when you climb it, it will most likely always tire you out when you climb it. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to climb it.
• I get a deep, profound joy out of riding a bicycle. Much deeper than I had ever anticipated.

And there was other stuff, too. If I think about it, I’ll post it. But I want to get to what I’m doing now.  I would be surprised if I spend more than two more posts on this past summer and the ride.

Or maybe I’ll post more. I surprise myself all the time these days.

That’s what I did. Or, more to the point, didn’t do. For a lot of years. When I was younger, I’d make lists:

• Lose weight
• Dress better
• Manage my money
• Not fall in love with every gir…hey, how ya doin’?

And the like. After a while I stopped because they were vague goals and easily forgotten. And also because when I said stuff like that and didn’t follow through, I felt like I wasn’t being a man of my word.

So to prevent that happening, I pretty much didn’t give my word on anything. At least, anything that might take some effort.

That’s why it was so difficult for me to talk about my decision to ride my bike up Mt. Washingon. And also why it was so important–not only to talk about it, but to keep talking about it. Because I knew if I didn’t mention it, I would back away from it, ignore it, pretend I never said anything about it and hope no one ever mentioned it.

“Hey Brian, weren’t you planning on riding your bike up some mountain?”

“Yeah. I was just being silly. Anyone want this last jelly donut?”

Actually, that’s not what would have happened. Most likely, I would have denied I ever said it. And I would have swiped the last donut when no one was looking.

I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. I wanted to be a man of my word. I still do. So I knew I would have to commit to the goal, talk about the goal, and work toward the goal. Starting this blog was a big part of all of that. Even though I let it go dark when I got close to the goal, it was invaluable at the early part of the process. And it’s also why I’m starting it up again. I’ve got another goal, and I’m starting to work towards it. And, as always, if I don’t talk about the goal, I won’t work towards it.

Another thing I did is I got help. From a lot of places. I got the help because I asked for it. Funny how that works. I got bike advice from a bike shop, and I got head advice from a head shop.

Sorry. That joke was a bit too easy. Actually, I got it from a counselor. And also from a program of recovery. I know I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll continue to do so. If you think you might need help, you probably do. Seek it out. Ask for it.

It’s amazing what you can get in this life if you just ask for it.

§§§§§§

After I came home from vacation, I kept thinking about that voice in my head. The one that told me that I was going to ride a bicycle up a mountain. And I kept ignoring it.

Confession time: I have a lot of voices in my head. I don’t know if that’s usual or unusual, but there’s always an internal commentary going on. Sometimes it’s a monologue, other times there’s arguments going on up there. Regardless of the number, there’s always been one constant: None of these voices ever spoke with this sort of clarity before. None of them ever told me I would do something that would require the level of commitment this would take.

And it wasn’t tentative, or put as a suggestion, either. The voice said “You’re doing that.” Nothing ambiguous about it. It freaked me out. I continued to ignore it.

I got on with my life. The kids went back to school, I got back into the daily routine. I did start riding my bike a bit more, but so what? It was good exercise. So when a friend of mine told me she was going to run in the Rochester Marathon, I decided to ride my bike to the starting line, and cheer her on as she started. It made perfect sense: I figured there wouldn’t be much parking available there, so it would be a bad idea to drive my car. I’d probably have to walk several blocks from the parking spot to see her off, so why not just cruise over on my bike?

The race started, and as she and her sister ran past, I cheered them on. Yay. Then I rode home. Well, I sorta rode home. I decided since I was already up and it was barely 7 in the morning, I’d go the long way home.

And so that’s how I came upon the roadblock set up by the police. It was another point in the race. I decided to stay there for a while, and when my friend came by, I’d cheer her on again!

So I parked my bike under a tree and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And…thought about what she was doing. This was a woman in her forties who decided to run a marathon. That takes some commitment! I admired her for that commitment. I wondered if she had heard a voice similar to the one I heard in my head, or if she had decided on her own to do this. And, of course, the Itty Bitty Shitty Committee chimed in.

Could I really ride a bike up a mountain? Was that even possible? Well, what was the harm in trying? Even if I didn’t make it, the worst that could happen is that I’d get into shape.

Well, actually, the worst that could happen is that I could get run over by a cement truck while riding and taste my own blood before I died, but still…

The spot where I was waiting for my friend was at the bottom of a hill. Cobb’s Hill. A short, but steep hill just a few blocks from my house. I stared at the incline and heard that voice again.

“You’re doing that…”

Well, if I was going to climb a mountain, I’d first have to climb a few hills. I got on my bike and pedaled to the base of the hill. I dropped into a low gear and started climbing.

Then I dropped into a lower gear.

And a lower gear.

And cursed in my head because there weren’t any gears lower to drop into. I wrote ‘in my head’ rather than the more commonly used ‘under my breath’ in the last sentence because I had such little breath left that there was barely any breath under which a curse could be muttered.

I struggled and wheezed, but I made it to the top of the hill. I was gassed. This was hard! I rode down to the bottom again, and surprised myself by turning around and riding back up again. Wasn’t any easier that time. And when I got to the bottom, holy crap–I started back up a third time. My legs were pudding by now, so I headed for home.

So I didn’t get a second chance to cheer on my friend that day. Turns out this was the route of the half-marathon, and she was never going to be running past it. Story of my life. Up to that point.

Because at that point something changed. I decided to commit to something. Something hard. Something waaaaay out of my comfort zone.

And then I did something harder. Possibly the hardest thing to do on this quest to do a very hard thing:

I started talking about it.

There’s a point in every adventure where you realize you have to commit to going forward. Sometimes, there’s more than one point. This is one of them. Once I get this, there’ll be no excuses. Kind of scary.

§§§§§§

I believe I first met Gordon in 1975, or maybe 1976. His family moved in down the street from me. Gordon was quirky and brilliant. Just like me, except for the brilliant part. He and I were in the same grade at high school, and since we rode the same school bus home, we tended to hang out together a lot. We slowly became fast friends.

After graduation, we went to different colleges, but in the same town, so our friendship continued, although we did start to grow distant at that point–mostly because our lives were taking us places where we rarely interacted. We did still have some contact with each other, mostly letters and phone calls, but the last time I had seen Gordon was 1993, at my wedding.

So, in the spring of 2008, I was a bit worried about calling him and asking if we could come stay with him for a few days. Gordon was now a high school English teacher and a poet, but he also had a farm. I hadn’t seen, or even talked to him, in years. Turned out I needn’t have worried. “Why not a week?” was his reply.

Gordon’s farm is much like Gordon: quirky and brilliant. He and his wife raise Gypsy Cobs, but the farm also includes purebred short-hair collies, dozens of free-range chickens in all sorts of brilliant colors and sizes, and guinea fowl, which are not only beautiful but useful, as their idea of a delicious meal is as many ticks as they can find. Their only drawback is their call, which sounds like someone’s cutting sheet metal with a jigsaw. Plus, they had a large patch of land that they converted into a vegetable garden.

Me, and G., and baby E

Someplace in the mid ’80′s, Gordon was diagnosed with MS. He didn’t like the way the medication was making him feel, so he decided to stop taking it, and start a program of diet and exercise to combat the symptoms. It worked. He started riding his bicycle competitively. And, he became a vegetarian. So, between the eggs his hens lay and the garden, he and his wife were growing a portion of the food they ate.

His wife was also new–well, new to me. One of the things he had done since I got married, was get married himself. I had never met her before that day. She was as quirky and brilliant as Gordon, and their affection for each other was obvious. Plus, she was a cut-throat Scrabble and Boggle player.

One afternoon while we were all hanging out, I asked Gordon to tell me the story of how they met and how they got together. It’s one of my things: I like to hear proposal stories.  Gordon told me that they had met in the late ’90′s, at the height of Gordon’s bicycling career. When they met, he had already climbed Mount Washington twice, but both times he had been stymied by that last 50 yard 22.5-degree climb, having to stop, and push his bike across the finish line.

I’ve mentioned before that the Mount Washington Auto Road is so long, steep, and winding, that you are not allowed to ride your bike back down the hill. Everyone who climbs it has to have someone at the top with a vehicle to carry both rider and bike back down. For his third ride, Cheryl agreed to be at the top for him.

This time, Gordon didn’t stop. He dug down deep, and with the last bit of strength, made it to the top, where Cheryl was waiting for him. “I collapsed in her arms,” he told me, “and while she was holding me, I asked her to marry me.”

“It’s a good thing you fell to your right, rather than your left,” I told him. “Otherwise, you’d be married to some random volunteer dude.”

That’s what I said. But his story did something else to me. As he told it, I heard a voice in my head. “You’re doing that,” the voice said. “You’re going to do that.”

The voice startled me. I have no idea where it came from.

I ignored it.

For a while.