adventure daily.
I'm beginning to get used to my life being dictated by the chemo cycle. There are always unknowns, and each two week period between treatments has been a little different, but there has also been a level of consistency to hold on to. The first 4-5 days after each treatment are still a bit of …
Four days out from my second treatment, I couldn't imagine doing another three or more months of this. The side effects seemed a little more heightened than after the first time around. I'm not sure if they really were or if my expectations were different. I expected to feel bad the first time, and when …
My first chemo session (which, for lack of a better word, is what I’ll call the 2 weeks following each treatment) has been a breeze physically compared to what I expected. The day of treatment I started to feel a little weird a couple hours after my infusion ended. My stomach started to hurt and …
Mammoth Endurance Gravel had been on my radar all winter, so when Evan mentioned that he'd volunteered to sweep part of the course, I decided that would be my big spring ride. 140 miles and almost 15,000 feet of climbing -- not the longest ride I've ever done, but the most elevation gain in a …
You don’t think it’s cancer, do you? I asked my brand new primary care doctor after she’d examined the swollen lymph node I'd come in about. No, she answered, but we need to do all the tests just to make sure. I felt a little silly calling a doctor about the small lump that had …
That was the theme for most of February. See-sawing temps and storms that dropped more sleet and ice than powder kept convincing me that conditions would be terrible for skiing, fat biking or just about any other activity in the woods, but every time I was (delightedly) proven wrong. February 14: Single digits sunrise at …
There is a sense of urgency that comes with having good snow for skiing and fat biking that I don't feel at any other time of the year. I love a gorgeous 65-degree, sunny, low-humidity day as much as the next person, but the fleeting nature of snow is different. It isn't guaranteed to last, …
Continue reading "Fat on the Front: Prince Gallitzin to Black Mo Snowmobile Trail."
Zwift, for those unaware, is a cycling app that allows users to interact and compete with others and ride through a variety of virtual landscapes with a bike on a trainer. It's basically like a video game, and it's taken the cycling world by storm. These days, as we're deep into January, my Strava feed …
This year, I decided I wanted to get back into paddling more regularly after spending the past several years not doing it much at all. It used to be my go-to sport before I got into running and then biking, but more recently I had become a lot more anxious about swimming (the boat going …
It's been so long since I've written on this platform regularly. I think about making writing a regular part of my life again just about every day, but an endless list of excuses get in the way. I don't have time. It's not productive. I sit front of the computer for work and don't want …
helena kotala 