About Me

Profile

About: I'm a senior studying towards a B.F.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in History and Plan II. I'm the youngest of four, I love to be outside, and I suffer from perpetual wanderlust. I want to be a painter when I grow up, and I have a penchant for hot yoga with weights and nut butters of all kinds.

Why I Ride

Like everyone, cancer has affected the lives of many in my life: my grandfather, with whom I was very close; my grandparents on my father’s side, whom I never met as a result; my aunt and my cousin, who thankfully remain alive. I ride for these individuals, but I also ride because I can, while there are those whose physical wellbeing prevents them from doing so.

I crave physical challenges, and I recognize the privilege of possessing a body that lets me fulfill this yearning. In the case of Texas 4000, however, I realize that the bike, the ride, the ardor—all of it—is a metaphor. Rather than represent an end, the training and the ride to Alaska are the means to an end: to caring, to making a difference, to showing solidarity with those battling disease. It is a way of propagating awareness and change. It is a way of trying to change something that wrecks so much.

I ride because I have a desire to achieve with others, and because I can help to humanize an awful condition, if even just a little. Cancer is a life-sucking, individual-erasing disease, but I ride to counteract these effects and reassert the individual.