Acceptance 11/4 Walking from the clinic on my lunch break, I called back the number I missed just minutes before. Kristopher Novak, a 2017 rider whom I met at interviews, was on the other side. At my interview, he waited with me by the door and calmed my anxiety as I vented to him about how […]

Being from Austin, the Trail of Lights is a staple to my holiday experience. However, I have always approached it from an enjoyment standpoint and have never volunteered for it. Volunteering was a completely different experience and one that I greatly enjoyed. I volunteered at the start line of the race with some of my […]

Today was the last day of classes for the Fall semester. 2016 has been a… rough… year for me, in a lot of different ways. I wish I would’ve spent more time checking in with myself. I wish I would’ve spent more time doing what I’m doing now: sitting down, reflecting, and forcing myself to […]

We spend our moments together singing, dancing, and laughing. It is the epitome of vibrancy. We can also cry together, speak softly, and just be. It is gentleness and love. Never before have I seen a community of such radiant individuals. In the face of adversity, each gives encouragement to one another. In the face […]

When I think of Thanksgiving, the first thing I think of is family. Actually maybe gravy. Kidding, I think of family. Most of the time. My family has always been a top priority in my life. I talk to my brothers every day and my parents at least three times a week. But to me, […]

When I think of the idea of digging for buried treasure, I think of a tourist walking around the beach with an old fashioned metal detector waiting for it to beep. Once it finally does, they fall to the ground and dig as fast as they can to dig up whatever made the beep happen. […]

Coming into Texas 4000, alumni of past rides would often say to me, “After a certain point in the year, your T4K team will be the closest friends that you have ever made.” When I first heard this bold claim, I very much doubted its validity. How could I build friendships in this organization greater than […]

Every Texas 4000 meeting, we have Ride Dedications where we sit silently as riders tell the team who they ride for.  People speak only when they feel the need, but there are always many who do.  It’s a reminder that we ride for our families, our friends, and people we’ve never met before. It’s a […]

  This Saturday, my teammates and I set out before 5am and drove out to Fayetteville, Texas for training camp. Fayetteville is a town roughly in the middle of Houston and Austin with a population of ~250. The kind residents of Fayetteville were kind enough to allow us to spend the night in their school’s “Cafetorium” and […]

This weekend was our training camp. This was a weekend that I was excited about but that I was also really nervous about. I knew that I would ride the most that I had ever at one time, two days in a row, and probably on a route that was the most difficult to date. […]