150 words about 500km and the Festive 500

The challenge of riding 500km in eight days isn’t about distance. And it’s certainly not about a modest finishers’ patch. It’s about time. Parceling out time in the year’s final week just to pedal. And it’s about what you do with your time once you’re in the saddle. For me, solo, it was 18 hours of internal monologue, virtually all of it along Florida’s “Forgotten Coast.” I demanded something new of each ride. Another city. A route through a forest called Tate’s Hell. A remote island park at the end of a rutted, rocky sand path. These weren’t soul-less miles in pursuit of a sum total. Each had a purpose greater than its number. But even off the bike it’s all about time, isn’t it? It’s relatively easy to find purpose for 18 hours; the real challenge is finding an even greater purpose for the other 8,742 hours each year.