Round We Go

It's been way too long since I've done a Parkinson's update. Perhaps because it's been so long since we've accomplished a hard-fought goal.

We've been trying to pedal all the way around the nearby reservoir for two years. It's hilly, hot and crowded in summer, slippery in winter and sometimes plagued with flying bugs that get in our eyes, our ears, our noses, our mouths, our clothes... Sometimes we even find leftover bugs in our hair the next day!

But last weekend, Lizard accomplished the goal. It wasn't the planned ride, and riding all the way around wasn't our initial objective. Lizard was having a very good day and a very good ride, so he just kept right on riding.

We had to take six rest stops in 12 miles. Part of the three hours the entire journey took encompassed his downtime, when the Parkinson's medication has worn off, and he has to wait an hour or more for the next dose. He had to take the next dose on the trail. (We took bike path and trails all the way around. He does not ride on roads with traffic anymore at all.)

Typically, his downtime is his worst time, and it happens four times a day every single day. During that downtime, he typically is incredibly miserable. We've known since the beginning staying active is the key to managing Parkinson's. Let this ride be a testament to all. Riding really does help in the battle against Parkinson's!

Two years it took to accomplish this goal! 24 months of refusing to give up! 730 days of often grueling battle! Well, probably at least a couple months more than precisely two years; I will have to look up the exact day we set the goal. I recorded it in my journal.

The 2021 Ride the Rockies was approaching, and we had swallowed the bitter pill of knowing we might not ever be able to do anything like that again. We'd been slowly, patiently trying to work up his mileage, often only a mile or two per ride. I came up with the idea to do our own RtR... Ride the Reservoir. We would do a couple of miles each morning before I had to begin working, and by the end of the week, we'd have looped the reservoir. However, riding five or six consecutive days in a row turned out to be more than Lizard was able to accomplish. We never finished our own little RtR.

But now we've done something even bigger! My Lizard never quit trying! We rode all the way around the reservoir in one day!

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