Resiliency

If you've been keeping track (but why would you?), you'd know that I watched the documentary Inspired to Ride three times in two months and topped it off by watching its predecessor film, Ride the Divide. They both are about endurance racing - one involves mountain bikes, while the other is about road riding.

In Inspired to Ride, the viewer meets Juliana Buhring, who began riding in 2011, set the first Guinness world record for fastest woman to circumnavigate the world by bike in 2012, was the only woman to race the inaugural 2013 Transcontinental Race (London to Istanbul) and placed ninth overall, and raced the 2014 inaugural Trans Am Bike Race (Oregon to Virginia). I won't tell you how she did - - - you should watch the beautifully filmed movie, regardless of whether you ride a bike.

Juliana explains in the documentary that she grew up in a cult, and that her ability to survive that experience helped her persevere as a endurance rider. She added that when she left to ride around the world, with very little experience or training, she didn't care what happened to her on the road.

For Christmas, my sister-in-law Sophie gave me the book that Juliana and two of her sisters wrote about their survival and escape from the cult. I am way more of a fiction kind of girl, but read the book in two nights. I don't really have adjectives to describe the mental/emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that they endured - and overcame. I can't imagine how I would've fared under those circumstances and have only read about some of them over the past two days, but in reading Juliana's account of withstanding beatings from adult cult members while a small child, I can better appreciate her statement about how she is able to focus and keep going on her bike when the going gets tough.

I am amazed at people's resiliency, but wish that they only had to demonstrate it when in engaged in voluntary recreational activities, not to survive abuse, overcome racism or xenophobia, house and feed their families, or fight illnesses.

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