Twenty-five years of February 11ths, and the same restless thread keeps weaving through... the push and pull between structure and surrender. In 2001, I was hitting a wall with training, ready to trust the universe over my own muscle. A year later, that gut feeling had ripened into something deeper, diving into the cosmic playbook and finding peace in letting go of the control pedal.
But the body still wanted to move. Same day in 2002, I was freezing through an hour of mountain biking in Connecticut, questioning life choices in the cold. And wrestling with Flash websites and feeling bewildered by adulthood... at least pizza helped.
Fast forward to Montana, 2007, and there I was at Lolo Pass on tele skis, ankle screaming, still pushing toward that blue bird ridge. By 2009, I was hawking dream bikes for friends, and 2010 found me thoroughly fried but still showing up for the Poop Luge on Woods Gulch.
Then came the stranger visions... 2012's mystical encounter on cross-country skis at Chief Joseph Pass, and 2016's hard-earned wisdom about expectations from bikepacking races. "You don't need to be anywhere but the place you are right at any given moment."
And by 2023, just tools of vision. Maybe that's where decades of February 11ths lead... learning to see clearly what was always there.