Climbing, Motherhood, and the Path to Self-Discovery with Beth Rodden

The race, Transylvania Epic.

The last time I did that race, I suffered a cooking accident the night before the race and had third degree burns on my chest, on my arms, a little bit on my face that I was nursing during the race.

And yet I was still winning the race, except on the second to last day, I crashed and I broke my frame.

Then I borrowed a spectator's bike and finished the stage, received an hour time penalty for accepting outside support.

And then I borrowed another bike so I could finish the race on the final stage.

So I had some redemption.

I did not get that redemption because I was sick.

Yeah, I got sick the week before the race started.

I was sick at graduation, sinus infection, couldn't breathe through my nose.

It was pretty bad.

And I almost didn't even race.

In fact, I was at the start line and I said to Matt, I tried warming up.

I could barely stand up next to my bike.

And I said, I want to make good decisions.

I don't want to set examples, um, doing dumb things, racing when you're sick or broken, because those are things I used to do.

But he said, just, just give it a start and see how you feel.

And then you can decide to drop out.

He said a DNS and a DNF are not very different.

So.

I made that decision.

I started and I tried to stand up on the, the, the climb just out of the camp.

It starts at a boy scout camp and I couldn't even stand up to pedal on my bike.

So that was a problem, but I decided to just ride.

And whenever I felt good, I would push a little bit, um, which wasn't very often.

And And I thought there's no way that I would be starting the next day.