You can’t move away from ALS
I’ve never cried so much at the end of a Bike Race as I did today.
Sometimes I cry because something is so hard, that it puts me in tears, literally crying to my Momma.
Today, it was very different.
It’s the kind of experience that will leave you thinking, “Damn, I am so blessed, the hurdles in my life, are small compared to some others.
Like the Team in Expedition Impossible; No Limits, with the blind dude.
Like the Blind dude that did Xterra World Championships the year before I did it.
Like spending an hour post race crying about a friend, I have not yet met, who’s family and friends touched me so much that, even now, I may cry.
ALS is a neurological disease that causes paralysis of every neuron in the body, that is a long slow death, that ends with the inability to eat and the inability to breathe.
http://www.bing.com/health/article/mayo-125974/Amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis?q=als+disease
I saw this guy at the Bike Shop picking up his packet for NM Championship, and I said to the girls, look at that retro bike dude. Getting into a magnum, the same car my old man drives.
Then, today, I got a taste of how much the cycling community in NM cherish’s this man, this man who, a year ago, was diagnosed with ALS. He can’t move away from ALS.
http://web.alsa.org/site/TR?px=2991999&fr_id=7545&pg=personal
Doug Schneebeck
http://www.golobos.com/sports/c-track/mtt/schneebeck_doug00.html
http://osohigh.com/166_Days_to_Leadville.html
All the proceeds to the race went to the ALS Foundations.
Here’s a guy, who once won XC Cat 1 races, raced Cat 3 today, and plans on racing Leadville Trail 100 next weekend, with love support. With a man whom can race a sub 9 Leadville. What a team.
What an inspiration.
So I feel blessed to have been inspired by a man who plans on living every day to the fullest, in the midst of such tragedy.
What a blessing, and an experience to have been a part of.
Even the dudes, today, were crying like chicks….
And the chicks…well, most of us were crying too.
Thanks for the inspiration, and touching my life.
-Zoe