Chapter 4: I Can and I Will

Have you ever tried to do something so far outside your comfort zone that you thought it’d be impossible? I have, and I discovered I’m capable of more than I give myself credit for.

There has always been one physical activity that I’ve loved since I was a little kid: biking. I started off riding my bike up and down the block where my parents could see me, quickly graduating to short trips around my neighborhood, and eventually taking our bikes for longer trips to fun destinations. Riding my bike helped me stay active while also giving me a sense of freedom, being that I was too young to drive a car. I also have a long history with asthma, which has meant that I was never one to be able to exercise for long periods of time, yet I found that biking changed that. Biking allowed me to build my respiratory strength and bring my heart rate down. To be clear, I am NOT an athlete, like at all. Being 6’4″ I get asked a lot if I play basketball, the answer always being a solid “nope, I’m terrible at it.” I’m not trying to rag on myself, I just want to paint a clear picture of my history with athletic activities. Biking has long been the way I choose to get exercise.

My mom and I had grown particularly fond of taking bike rides together. Having moved to Queens in 2014, we would take our bikes out and ride to any number of neighborhoods near us, but our favorite place to go was Flushing Meadows Corona Park. There are some excellent areas to ride there and the park was easily accessible from our apartment. We had become accustomed to riding 5-10 miles each time we went out. Then, one day, my mom decided it’s time for us to take biking to the next level. The TD Five Boro Bike Tour.

For those of you who are not familiar, the TD Five Boro Bike Tour is an annual cycling event that traverses the five boroughs of New York City on a 40-mile route featuring over 30,000 riders. The event culminates with a ride across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the US. The ride happens the first Sunday in May, which also means the day of the ride is typically overcast and rainy, making the trek just a little bit harder.

In 2016, my mom decided that we should sign up for the tour. Neither of us were professional cyclists and we certainly had not been training for the ride. I don’t think we had ever done more than 15 miles at once before the ride, let alone 40! Oy vey…

I really don’t know what possessed her to do such a thing. She had a couple friends who regularly partook in the ride who told us it wasn’t that bad, but they trained for long-distance rides and had no problem riding the 40 miles. We, on the other hand, were not prepared for the ride. The ride, uh, didn’t exactly go so well. We started off fairly strong, but by the time we made it into Queens it was cold and raining hard and we were exhausted. We decided we weren’t going to make it much farther and called on my sister to rescue us. She met us at a Dunkin Donuts around mile 20 and that was the end of the ride for us. For first timers that wasn’t bad, but neither of us really wanted to push ourselves past our limits. Reaching the finish line was not going to happen that year.

Many months passed and I know that neither my mom nor I could stop thinking about the ride. It was an unspoken understanding that we were determined to try again and finish. As soon as registration opened in January 2017, we immediately registered but with an addition to the lineup: my sister. She had seen us attempt the ride the year before and decided she wanted to give it a go as well. Despite our warnings about the ride, she was determined to try as well. I cannot say I thought this was the greatest idea.

Before I go any further, I need to paint a clear picture of the team. First, there’s me; the skinny 6’4″ kid with bad asthma. The race takes place in the middle of Spring, not a great time for someone with allergies. Then there’s my mom, who was 57 at the time and didn’t spend much time exercising, at least not to the extent typically needed for an event like the Bike Tour. Finally you have my sister. Many people don’t know, but my sister has a condition called POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which is a form of dysautonomia. My sister had struggled with her POTS particularly in college, but I was concerned the ride would be too much for her. That being said, we gave it a go.

We were determined to make this ride happen. We got our bikes tuned up, took many practice rides including resistance training, bought appropriate riding gear (bike shirts, bike shorts, good shoes, etc), and made sure to have snacks and hydration ready for the ride. That fateful day in May rolled around and we were as prepared as we could be. I think.

Like the year prior, we started off strong. I think having the three of us together made all the difference, we were our own cheerleaders. Five miles turned into ten miles, Manhattan became the Bronx and then Queens, and soon enough we were in Brooklyn far past the 20 mile mark we had stopped at the year prior. We had broken our personal records and that alone was an accomplishment worth celebrating. My mom had made it her goal to reach Brooklyn, her birthplace, but I was feeling a bit more ambitious. I wanted us to reach the end. It felt like we were loosing steam quickly, but I wanted us to push ourselves further.

We crossed the 30 mile mark and entered the last sprint of the ride, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. By this point, the dense crowd of riders from the beginning had thinned out. The more experienced riders were long done, the less advanced riders were hanging on somewhere along the route. Then there was us, tired and soggy, but on a warpath to the end. We reached the on-ramp to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and began to climb. As we stared up the climb to the apex of the bridge, it seemed less likely it was going to happen. My mom and sister opted to dismount and walk the ramp, they were determined to finish after getting this far, but not at the expense of their health. I, however, couldn’t stop. It was my intention to finish the ride on my bike. My asthma had held me back for far too long and I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. It was foolish to some degree, but I just couldn’t bring myself to stop trying. So I lowered my gears and pressed on.

It. Was. Hard. It felt like no matter how far I went there was just more uphill to go. I suppose when you’re traversing the longest suspension bridge in the US it is quite a distance to the top. There was a point at which my legs were burning, my lungs were exerting all the energy they had left, and my heartbeat could not have been faster. I started to think that maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Nobody would judge me for walking the rest, many others had done the same. I was slowing down and ready to dismount when I suddenly looked down at the road underneath me. For the first time, I noticed something had been spray painted on the roadway by the ride’s organizers. A series of motivational phrases along the course of the bridge. The one beneath my feet had the most important message of all; “I can and I will.” The time to push myself past my limits had come.

I really don’t know what came over me in that moment. It was like someone had flipped the switch for the Nitro boost in a race car. Instead of dismounting I picked my head up, took a deep breath, and kept peddling. I can and I will. The words echoing in my head as I squeezed every last ounce of energy in me to make it to the top. I can and I will. Thinking about all the times I’ve let someone else tell me I couldn’t do something and I believed them. I can and I will. All the times I told myself I couldn’t do something and believed it. I can and I will! I am capable of more than I give myself credit for and I am stronger than I’ve ever known. I can and I will. And I did. Before I knew it, I was at the top of the climb and was starting the descent down. I was cruising faster and faster, the wind pushing fresh air into my lungs, giving me a rejuvenated energy. Soon enough I had reached the exit ramp and rode off to the famed final step of the ride: the finish line. People everywhere were cheering and crying as I finally dismounted to receive my foil blanket and finisher medal. I could not believe what had just happened: I made it to the top without stopping.

I did it. I completed my first ever 40 mile bike ride. But more importantly, so did my mother and sister. They rode through the finish line not long after I did. They looked wiped and ready to take a long nap, but I was beaming with pride. We did it. A rag-tag team of under-prepared nerds completed the TD (FOURTY MILE) Five Boro Bike Tour. I felt a rush of confidence that I had never felt before. Not just for me, but for the two of them as well.

In my very first blog post I used a Hebrew phrase I adapted from an earlier quote. “L’avor b’yachad ha-gesher tsar me’od, v’ein lanu fached k’lal” – “Cross the very narrow bridge together and we will have no fear at all.” In hindsight, that quote really applies to the story here. I would have not made it through the ride without my mother and sister, we made a team that supported and cared for each other. I would not have made it across the literal bridge without the support of the others on the ride. For a long time, I was afraid of what my body was (or wasn’t) capable of handling and I nearly gave into those fears. Crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge (get it? narrow bridge) was only possible once I let go of the fear that I wasn’t capable of that level of endurance. I could and I did. Sometimes it takes crossing a literal narrow bridge to address your self-imposed limitations. I can’t say I always push past my fears and limits, but I’ve learned to try believing in myself and giving myself credit for what I am good for. Sometimes it works and you achieve new records.

Creating this blog was another example of I can and I will. I doubted my writing skills for a long time and put off the blog because I thought it would turn out poorly. As it turns out, I’m not such a bad writer. I’ve not only created a blog that I am proud of, but reinforced the idea that I can apply myself to something and succeed. You just have to try, sometimes by climbing the hill or putting pen to paper, and you will really surprise yourself.

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