Paris 1200k (761-Mile) Bike Ride

I am an avid yogie and have been with Suze since 1999 where she offered her yoga through Eric Mattingly’s Cross-Training Center at Midway & Trinity Mills. Prior to yoga I had been a runner, cyclist, kick boxer, and aerobics person. I was taking a kick boxing class in Eric’s studio and either before or after class I would sit and watch Suze teach her class. I think what intrigued me the most was the shape of the bodies in her class — DYNAMITE!

After a couple of months of watching I decided to try the class. What a humbling experience. I thought that I was in the best shape a person could possibly be in. I had no idea what was in store for my core!!! I signed up for six months after the first class. I still remember how I was for the first couple of months while taking her class. I would lay on the mat in corpse thinking to myself, “I have never been this tired before, what is going on?” This is what happens when a person dares to strengthen their core.

As a cyclist I am considered a randonneur. A randonneur is basically a crazy person with a bicycle. Actually the definition is a person that rides long distances without support and not for competition. I am a member of a randonneuring club in Arlington, called the Lonestar Randonneurs. Our weekend ride may consist of a 200k, 300k, 400k or a 600k brevet. We do these rides for medals and points. The points are our way of staying competitive, since the organization that we report to is nationwide. We compete with other clubs in the United States.

Most of our brevets (times long distance rides) are ridden as qualifiers for bigger events called 1200k’s. There are 1200k events offered all over the world. I participated in a 1200k event in France in 1999 called Paris-Brest-Paris, a 761 mile bike ride from Paris France to Brest France and then back to Paris, all in under a 90 hour time limit. I did another similar event called Boston-Montreal-Boston, same scenario. That was 2004. Then in 2005 I did Cascade 1200k in Washington state that took us down the west side of the state, through the gorge, up the east side of the high desert and then back over the high cascade mountains. Same type of ride, 1200k in less than 90 hours. All of these events attract people from all over the world.

This year I again repeated the Paris-Brest-Paris ride (only happens once every four years). We had rain for 80% of the ride and a quartering head wind for the first 600k. I had a BLAST on this ride. I never felt like I wanted to quit, never felt beat up or defeated. I had a positive attitude in spite of the weather and enjoyed the time spent with all of the people that we met from different countries and cities. We slept in 30 minute intervals, had a total of three hours sleep during our 88.5 hour ride. We slept in the back of a truck, on a cafeteria floor and in a bar one rainy night at 2am.

I truly enjoyed the experience of seeing so many human emotions at different times by the same people. The elation when we entered the controls at midnight in the pouring rain to see hundreds of towns people standing at the barricades cheering us on, to the person who was so racked with exhaustion that he had to pull over and lay on the side of the street for just ten minutes (amazing what a ten minute power nap can do for a person). These rides are absolutely 90 percent mental, and I attribute my “mental” to Dynamic Power Yoga PLUS!

I am the only person I know in my club and for that matter in any of the clubs that I have ridden with, that rides only on the weekend. I do not ride at all during the week; I am an anomaly. People ask me, “how can you ride these long rides (and I am not real slow), and not do any training during the week?” I tell them that I do Dynamic Power Yoga PLUS! during the week. That is mostly what I have done since 1999. I have found that during those long rides, when I feel like I am getting tired or nearing my “edge”, I call upon my core to give me additional strength and carry me through the tough times; and it does! It is amazing, I do not have the back, shoulder, arm problems that other people seem to have. I get the occasional aches and pains, but never the constant complaints that others seem to suffer during these rides.

I am a firm believer that this class could enable a person to do whatever they want physically and mentally. Cross training is the key to any successful athlete and there is no better cross training event than Suze Curtis’ Dynamic Power Yoga PLUS!!! (Rani Freeman)