Long Distance

This weekend I drove to Jamestown to spend friend-time with Chaz. We went for a run, looked over our trip-budget and ordered our large-cost equipment items (tents, sleeping bags, panniers). We are 8 weeks out from our flight to Portland. It feels like a breath before a plunge, or the moment where you can see your shoes poised on the edge of an airplane, ready to jump out. I know what that feels like thanks to Tim Schmell being an adrenaline nut, (we went sky-diving this summer for his birthday).

Anyway, here we are, training and dreaming and watching it all come together. In a few short weeks we’ll be caught up in a whirl of activity: graduation, traveling, packing, and flying off to a coast none of us have ever been to before.

Long distance is all over this trip. We’re biking a long distance, we are all long distance friends right now, and 3 of us are long distance runners. On our run yesterday, Chaz and I talked about long distance runners. Back in the day we were “running buddies” and it felt natural to meet up for a run and remember all of our good times running 8+ miles together in Houghton. Are runners the unsung heroes? The underdogs? We couldn’t quite put a name to it. But we both agreed, there is a toughness to putting in the time and effort every day, no matter what the weather was like. It is this discipline that has kept us motivated this winter to train for our bike trip. Just like putting in the training for a big race, you have to work every day and continually imagine that distant hope of accomplishment. We’ve been training since September (it has escalated this year certainly), going out on long bike rides, and encouraging each other in our group chat.

I edited this picture last night for our bike-team Instagram (@hc_biketeam). To me, this illustrates the winter for our team. We are training hard on our own, occasionally we can meet up, but primarily we’ve got to do our training solo. But we’re working towards our community this summer on the road. We are training solo for the sake of the team. That takes trust and commitment. Anyway, a big thank you to all of the friends and family who have encouraged us in this dream. It is slowly taking shape and becoming more and more real as we get closer to our departure date.

The whole process has been an illustration of the nature of faith for me. It starts out as a seed, and through encouragement and dreaming it grows and grows and finally flowers into something glorious. Thank you to the encouragers and the dreamers who have kept us going.