Inspiration on all Fronts. Rebecca Rusch. Food For Thought

Whether You Think You Can Or Think You Can’t, You’re Right. 

~ Henry Ford

Today is my Partner's Birthday, He is a Triathlon Coach and Inspires me every Day. I dedicate this post to him, For His Birthday. To his adoptive parents who adopted him in Canada 54+ years ago. To his parents and Birth Mother who gave Birth to him. To his creation.To his incredible resilience, and to his dedication to our Family. I love his depth of being beyond the Universe. His love for life and his people is incredible.
To Dr. Ted Geddis, your organization, grit, perseverance and kindness is unfathomable. 

Something to think about…. I just read and am sharing this because of the breadth of this woman’s soul. 

CTS. 
The Audio Version. PODCAST HERE. https://trainright.com/rebecca-rusch-finding-comfort-in-discomfort/?
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on Rebecca Rusch:
She's Known as the Queen of Pain  
Her sense of Adventure, and just saying Yes to Opportunity has brought her to amazing places, and taught her to Trust Herself.

I will say I’m not motivated every day so we can break the myth that professional athletes are continually motivated. It is hard and we do need to rely on help and coaches and other people. Honestly, when you asked that question what really gets me up every single day is my dogs, coming to the edge of the bed, wagging their tails, being so excited that it’s a new day. I really do try to take motivation and lessons from my dogs. They wake up happy, they want to run outside, they take lots of naps.

Rebecca Rusch:

Whenever I’m in doubt, it’s what would Diesel do? What would my dog do? And really having an appreciation that we’re alive and we get to do this and how lucky we are to be able to run in the mountains or play outside or take a nap. What would Diesel do is always when I’m lacking motivation.

Totally. Diesel has never, and Gracie, they’ve never caught a squirrel but yet every time they see one, they chase it with this abandon and this motivation of… They don’t think, “Oh, I suck. I’m never going to get a squirrel.” They just go after it. So I try to be that way when I’m going after stuff.

from the self exploration and not being afraid to go to those deep dark places and learning to trust yourself to find a way through.

Rebecca Rusch:

When you have your mission statement, your personal mission statement, feel free to share it with me. That’s my challenge to you.

Rebecca Rusch

Be good.

DIVERSION IN INSPIRATION. An incredible person here. Use this to get your Awesome on!

The mission statement is using the bike as a vehicle or catalyst for healing, empowerment, and evolution. Some of my projects like MTB-LAO where I take a group back to the Ho Chin Minh trail specifically goes towards clearing bombs along the trail.

And, Private Idaho for example is all about getting bikes in the people’s hands who need them like World Bicycle Relief that provides bikes for healthcare workers and students in Africa or PeopleForBikes that work on bike infrastructure or our local Idaho Cycling League.

This is a good read on what you can do if you don’t label or define lines. 

Rebecca Rusch:

“There were not these separation of traditional male-female roles in our household which was great because I grew up thinking, “Anyone can do anything.” I’ve never thought of myself as a female in sport or a female firefighter or a female business owner. I’m just all of those things without the gender.'

Rebecca Rusch:

I think a lot of that came from my upbringing and my first running experience, my first sports experience was on the cross country team which was the girls cross country team. Immediately, I was thrown into a peer group of female athletes and we had a male coach and a female coach. I was lucky at a very young age that I saw strong women in my life and that’s what I have emulated.

Rebecca Rusch:

Fast forward to rock climbing and paddling and all those things and adventure racing, I definitely was the minority female but I had this confidence just from being a kid growing up and having to fend for myself. My sister and I have to fend for ourselves a bunch that we grew up pretty independent and pretty strong minded.

You might be scored separately in a race like Leadville but you’re all riding together and that has been a really great showcase for me to finish top 20 at Leadville one of the years or to beat a whole bunch of guys and then people are like, “Oh.” It’s this instant respect when you can put everybody on the same playing field then you do really see, especially in endurance sports, how the difference between men and women’s performance. The longer it gets, the smaller that difference is.

The Be Good Foundation and the idea from it came from my ride down the Ho Chi Minh trail and Be Good are the words my dad signed his letters home from the Vietnam War. That’s how he signed off and it’s become a bit of my mission statement and I definitely feel like he asked… He brought me there to show me what I could do with my bike and really the impetus for the foundation came from seeing all the unexploded ordnance that still exists along the Ho Chi Minh trail and a war that ended 50 years ago is still killing people because the bombs are still there and they haven’t exploded.

https://youtu.be/XCzVqiN950M
Blood Road follows the journey of ultra-endurance mountain bike athlete Rebecca Rusch and her Vietnamese riding partner, Huyen Nguyen, as they pedal 1,200 miles along the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail through the dense jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Their goal: to reach the site where Rebecca’s father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was shot down in Laos more than 40 years earlier. During this poignant voyage of self discovery, the women push their bodies to the limit, while learning more about the historic ‘Blood Road’ and how the Vietnam War shaped their lives in different ways. Starring: Rebecca Rusch Huyen Nguyen Directed By: Nicholas Schrunk

INSPIRATION, parental discretion advised as she says her motivation is finding where her Dad's plane was shot down. This is a mission to find her Father's wreck who was shot down in Vietnam. The Movie Below, Blood Road.

Rebecca Rusch
….all these trophies and these things I have which are great sitting on my shelf in my house and they’re nice to look at and they’re great memories and I’m really proud of them, but they’re actually this launching pad that is allowing me to maybe inspire the next world champion or somebody in Africa who wants to get to school and study to be a doctor. Suddenly, my individual trophies have taken on a much bigger meaning through the foundation. It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty exciting.

….Rebecca Rusch:

I think when people get a master’s degree or they become a doctor or they get an education, then they go on to use it for something else. That’s how I look at my sport and my trophies and those things is they’re meant to be used for giving something else to somebody. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not done racing or chasing trophies, but my mission statement includes challenging myself but also challenging others to be good.

THINGS THAT INSPIRE ME, Eliza. This long article, on this Amazing Female Figure and her exceptional outlook and her Fortitude, ultimately, do/be good, and give back.

A little background here. I’ve always been an athlete, the regular kind, check back to post 1. This article inspires me to be more, on all fronts. This year I got into CycloCross/Gravel Bike riding, thanks to my partner’s part time work at the bike shop and the great people who work there. This is an article about an incredible woman I didn’t know existed until this morning. If you need a pick-me-up I would recommend reading the whole article. If you think you can’t relate, think again, we can learn from anyone we decide to give the time to hear about their life's experience. I hope to start a Little Bella’s Mountain Bike Group Mentoring, ages 6-17 group in my community in the spring of 2021. You can do anything as long as you can “live” the moments through that experience.

Incredible will and grit. Worth the Read.

Interview. From Train Right Podcast. from Chris Carmichael and CTS Train Right coaches. with Hillary Allen.

Rebecca Rusch

I think when we really will have arrived somewhere is, like I said, when you no longer consider somebody, “Oh, she’s one of the best female athletes in the world,” or “She’s one of the best…” whatever, you’ll take out the gender qualification and just say, “She’s one of the best.” Or “He’s one of the best,” or whatever. Then we’re judged on our ability and what we can do instead of our genetic makeup or our gender.

…I absolutely feel like the trail is my teacher. I go out on these long things in these journeys to learn and the lesson is different every time. This is where I evolve and learn and meditate is out on these really, really long rides. Something like the Iditarod Trail is essential for me to continue to grow and learn and find out more about myself.

….But absolutely after a cold race like that, I want to come home and have a nice warm shower. It really is a balance between comfort and discomfort. There’s this quote that I really love by Viktor Frankl that says what is to give light must endure burning. It points out that you need to do hard, painful suffering things to really see your light or shine your light. Sports are a small example of that in a way that we can actually learn about ourselves in a palatable, easier way than having to go through a war or do something unchosen.

Endurance Bike Legend

Rebecca Rusch:

When I’m talking to people about taking risks or doing something, I had a backup plan. Didn’t seem that risky to me because like I said I didn’t owe money and I always felt like I could always go back and get another job and had a safety net. I think it’s important when you’re considering those things that are going to be uncomfortable. I’m not going to lie. It was really nerve wracking to not be able to afford health insurance or not know where the next paycheck was going to come from. But absolutely the rewards that have come from making that sacrifice have been pretty amazing.

Rebecca Rusch:

People ask me all the time like, “Why do you torture yourself? Why do you do these long events? Why have you chosen basically the most difficult road that you could have chosen?” Honestly, it’s because I really feel like the trail and these adventures are my teacher and I learn about myself and I learn about the world and what I’m capable of when I’m in the middle of these really hard, uncomfortable things. It’s really who comes out the other side that is the addiction for me and the evolution of who I am on these trails. I don’t love pain or I don’t want to be uncomfortable but I really do love how I grow from those experiences.

Many races. One below

Hillary Allen:

I immediately think to… I have been following you for a while but this race that you did in Alaska, the Iditarod. I first learned about this race literally when I was a little kid while watching Balto. I was just like, “Wait. What? People can do this on a bike? Not with dogs? Not a dog sled race?” Basically self-propelled. I was thinking of this and I’m just like, “Oh my gosh. How in the world…” Just to be able to not only push yourself through and… How long is the trail?

Iditarod, on a bike, Multiple times.

Trust of Self

Rebecca Rusch:

Yeah, Iditarod Trail Invitational, the human powered version of the Iditarod Trail, it’s actually something I said I would never do because I’m not good in cold. I don’t really enjoy cold. I was really scared by that environment. I didn’t think my body is suited for it but my mind also wasn’t suited for it or excited about it. For years, I know friends who’ve done it but it was so far off my radar and to say, “No way, no way, I don’t want to go do it.” I went last year for the first time really at the prompting of my friend, Jay Petervary, who’s done it 13 times and won it multiple times.

And…

Rebecca Rusch:

What I realized in my excitement of… Fear and excitement are very close in emotions. I started to realize that I hadn’t done a really big expedition like that where I really was intimidated. I hadn’t done that in quite a while. Because like you said, I’ve done a lot of expeditions. I’m confident in my abilities to navigate and complete long distance things but I hadn’t really scared myself and gotten outside my comfort zone for a number of years and I realized I missed that and I needed it.

Rebecca Rusch:

So I went to Iditarod last year and I finished. My only goal was to finish with all my fingers and toes and complete the course. I did that. I was the first female to finish, only 20 people finished, and this was even the short course. But I was a mess. I only completed it because of my grit and determination and endurance experience. But I didn’t eat well. I didn’t train properly for it and literally I was a crying, sobbing mess on the finish line. Physically and emotionally battered. I put myself at risk because you’re right, those elements are life or death and you make a mistake out on Iditarod Trail and it might be days before somebody can get there to help you.

Rebecca Rusch:

You really are your own safety net and your own first responder and you do have to self support and take care of yourself. I vowed after last year that I knew I wanted to come back. I fell in love with that adventure on that trail and the history and the dogs and how hard it is to race out there and to survive out there. I really became addicted to that and fell in love with it.

Rebecca Rusch:

I vowed to go back this year more prepared and that’s where I got really serious with my coach and set up a training program, did a lot of actually upper body strength and weights. I did a bunch of research on nutrition to make sure that I could eat and drink better. I made a bunch of my own food and dialed in my equipment and practiced sleeping out overnight in the snow in Idaho.

Rebecca Rusch:

I did the preparation and the result, it was pretty awesome because this year’s, I will tell you… Last year took me three and a half days to do 350 miles. You do the math. It’s not very fast. This year it took seven days to go the same distance and the reason was Mother Nature really unleashed on the Iditarod Trail this year and the conditions were horrendous with snow almost every day, the trail was blown in or gone, 50 mile an hour winds, minus 40-degree temperatures.

Rebecca Rusch:

It was insane and intense. If those conditions had been there last year, I wouldn’t have completed it. But because I’d done the preparation this year, I crossed the finish line this year not a complete crying, blubbering mess and feeling really proud of myself. Even though people were like, “It took you twice as long and you didn’t win.” It’s like I’m so proud of my achievement this year versus last year because I did it well and I did it in style and I did it safely. I was able to really survive in those elements and sleep out at night and melt snow to make water and ran out of food a bunch because it was longer than expected.

Rebecca Rusch:

We are all a work in progress and we’re all evolving and who we are today is this lovely mix of every experience we’ve had in our life. People ask, “Why did you change sports so many times? Or even within cycling, why did you change from 24-hour racing to stage races to now ultra-endurance self-support bike packing?” I think it’s important for everybody to think about your evolution and what excites you in the moment and that you are a work in progress and you’re building.

Rebecca Rusch:

Yeah. I think that is super important. Even as a little kid in Chicago suburbs, I had this curiosity to see what was on the next block or I wanted to camp out in the backyard. That really has guided me when I’m like, “Oh, I wonder what it would be like to do a 24-hour mountain bike race.” Or, “I wonder what it would be like to do this.” Listening to that little voice that’s like, “Hmm, I wonder…” is I think really important and people have said to me, “Oh, how did you know when to pivot your career and stop doing Leadville and doing this other stuff?” I listen to myself but it’s also other people around me.

Rebecca Rusch:

When I was doing Leadville full on, Dean Gorlich was my coach and he was really great about even my weekly workouts. We had these free days where I could go back country skiing or hiking in the woods because I think he knew that there was this little part of me that had to go exploring. That allowed me the freedom instead of saying, “Oh, I have to do intervals every day,” or “I have to do this.” There was a little bit of time in there for me to be that little kid who wanted to camp out in the backyard and play.

Rebecca Rusch:

I think when people are pivoting whether it’s in their career or in a sport or moving somewhere else, it’s important to listen to that little voice inside your head. If you can’t always hear that little voice, then perhaps your coach or a friend or other people who invite you to do things like me getting invited to Eco-Challenge and somebody who’s like, “Hey, do you want to go try this?” Or Alaska and my initial thought is, “Hell, no.”

Rebecca Rusch:

But then I thought about it a little and then it kept popping back into my head and Alaska kept popping back into my head and like I said, I started looking up movies like Balto and getting intrigued. That was a message to myself that it’s like, “Hmm, there’s something to this. Maybe I should explore a little deeper and do a little more research.” Ultimately, that led to me going to the Iditarod Trail. It’s important to listen to that little, tiny curiosity voice.

Hillary Allen:

Another thing I wanted to circle back to, we touched on it a little bit, I was curious to ask you this question in particular, just about women in sport in general. You definitely got into ultra-endurance cycling and just sports in general where women were the minority definitely in adventure racing. Still, the construct of a team in an adventure race is you have one to a four-person teamer, at least one woman present. But getting into the sport, did you have other women role models? Or was it even a factor in you getting into sport?

Rebecca Rusch:

I was super lucky in some ways in that I grew up in a female only household. My dad was shot down in the Vietnam War when I was really young and so I grew up with a single working mom, older sister, and it was really the three of us.

Rebecca Rusch:

My mom became this high powered computer executive. My sister is a general in the air force now. Our household growing up there was never like, “Oh, girls don’t do that.” If something needed fixing, we got it done. I mowed the lawn as a kid. There were not these separation of traditional male-female roles in our household which was great because I grew up thinking, “Anyone can do anything.” I’ve never thought of myself as a female in sport or a female firefighter or a female business owner. I’m just all of those things without the gender.

Rebecca Rusch:

I think a lot of these races and the traveling I’ve been doing, it was always onto the next thing, onto the next thing, and chasing all these goals without really understanding why or understanding my motivation and that ride on the Ho Chi Minh trail and the subsequent years that followed, required me to do a lot of soul searching and think about what am I doing all this for? It really answers some super hard personal questions that I had never taken the time to explore.

Rebecca Rusch:

That ride really is I felt like I found my home in my heart and my soul, but I also found my purpose and the physical place I wanted to be which was Idaho and bonded more with my husband. It really was a sense of home is. Yes, it’s physical but it’s also emotional inside you. For anybody who hasn’t sat down and written down their own personal mission statement or their own core values that they live by, I would encourage you to do so because what that’s done for me, that introspection is it’s giving me guidelines of how I want to live the rest of my life. Just like in business, every business has a mission statement and core values but very few people actually do that for themselves.

MISSION STATEMENT

Rebecca Rusch
That ride really is I felt like I found my home in my heart and my soul, but I also found my purpose and the physical place I wanted to be which was Idaho and bonded more with my husband. It really was a sense of home is. Yes, it’s physical but it’s also emotional inside you. For anybody who hasn’t sat down and written down their own personal mission statement or their own core values that they live by, I would encourage you to do so because what that’s done for me, that introspection is it’s giving me guidelines of how I want to live the rest of my life. Just like in business, every business has a mission statement and core values but very few people actually do that for themselves.

Hillary Allen:

Oh, man. I was just so touched when I watched that, when I watched your TED Talk, and then subsequently I encourage everyone to go out and watch Blood Road. This was basically the documentary of you going and finding where your father’s plane was shot down on the Ho Chi Minh trail. It’s just that sense of finding home but then at the end of the day it’s really looking inward and I feel like maybe you have to go, you did go, to a really extreme place to do that. But I think it’s something that, and correct me if I’m wrong, do you get to re-experience that every time you have a tough endurance race or an adventure that you have planned?

check it out.
Thanks for stopping by,
Eliza