Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Ride the Divide

You guys have got to see this! A few weeks ago, I learned that a family friend of our's was pretty much a celebrity. Click here for proof. I watched the movie in which she was featured on NetFlix!

One of Maria's friends from high school, Mary, is featured in this documentary. Mary was special to us and spent a lot of time around our house during their high school days. Years later, I was aware that Mary took a crazy bike ride but until I saw this documentary, I most certainly did not realize quite what it was she was doing.

This "Ride the Divide" is referred to as an underground race. These crazy people start their race in Banff (That's in Canada!) and ride along the Continental Divide ALL THE WAY TO MEXICO! That really is crazy. That is 2,711 of the toughest miles you can imagine. Mary, our petite little celebrity, was the first woman to ever accomplish this feat. Remarkable! I still can't believe she did that.

When Mary was doing this race she called me once for medical advice. Her legs were so swollen she was having to consider dropping out of the race. I admit, the mother/nurse in me did not really encourage her to push on as I was seriously worried about her health. As it turned out, she had to be left behind the pack to try to rest and to get the swelling down. What that meant was that she then ended up doing the bigger chunk of the race  a-l-l   a-l-o-n-e!  Consider all the wild animals! What about the places where trees/snow/wind and later heat made it nearly physically impossible to move forward!

I am really perplexed by people with that sort of stamina and drive. To look at Mary, who is not a very big person, you'd never guess she could do this. Honestly, it really blows my mind. I don't understand why people would put themselves through such torture but it fascinates me nevertheless. If you are fascinated and wish to know more about Mary's experience, you can read her blog of that ride here.

Anyway, this documentary is over an hour long so if you don't have time to watch it right now, feel free to come back and give it a look. I found it also on YouTube so you don't have to be a NetFlix subscriber to see it. The scenery is absolutely spectacular!

Enjoy!




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