Moment of Clarity

By Amber Pierce

Last night, I arrived home in Graz after a week of training in Valencia, Spain. The journey home from Spain went something like this:

Wake up. Load enormous bike bag (an old double Bike Pro) and large luggage bag into rented Citrön C3. Drive to airport. Unload Stuff and haul it to the terminal. Check Stuff and board RyanAir flight in the usual manner of livestock. Fly to Treviso. Deplane and pick up Stuff from baggage claim.

Haul Stuff across the street to bus stop. Hoist Stuff onto small city bus. Receive gaping stares. Stand awkwardly with Stuff, holding on for dear life through the city streets. Unload Stuff at bus stop. Receive more stares (but no offers to help).

Haul Stuff across the street and down stairs of the train station, through subterranean tunnels, and up stairs onto train platform. Receive gaping stares. Sit with Stuff. Realize I am hungry. Decide in favor of starvation over hauling Stuff back down and up stairs for food.

Hoist Stuff onto train. Realize Stuff is too extensive to warrant dragging through the train car to find a seat. Stand awkwardly with Stuff between rail cars for an hour until stop in Udine. Haul Stuff off train. Haul stuff down stairs, through tunnels and up stairs.

Drag Stuff across the street to bus stop. Decide against stopping for food in fear of missing bus. Good decision. Load Stuff onto bus. Wish for food. Sleep. Get off bus in Klagenfurt. Unload Stuff.

Haul Stuff across the street to another bus stop. Load Stuff onto next bus. Sleep. Dream about food. Arrive home in Graz. Unload Stuff. Eat (finally). Collapse into bed.

This glamorous journey home was preceded by a week of training just south of Valencia in Spain. I stayed with fellow racer Liz Hatch (of Lotto Ladies Team) in Oliva, and we spent our days training along the coast between Valencia and Calpe. The full-gas training sessions, while not exactly conducive to proper sight-seeing, were all the same rewarded with the excitement of new routes and landscapes.

On a typical day, we’d warm up through citrus orchards before reaching the sandy beaches around Dénia. From there, we’d climb through the national park of Montgó, dramatic cliffs over the sea to our left, and rows of terraced stone reaching up the mountains to our right. Dropping down into Jávea, we’d hit the undulating roads along the coast south to Moraira and Calpe, climbing back over the hills further inland past orchards and dormant vineyards. Inevitably, we’d hit a long corridor of headwind on the last leg of the ride, perfect for hard tempo work.

Returning home on a small side road, we’d pull over and hop the low stone wall bordering the orchard. Walking rows of fragrant mandarin trees, we were like kids with low blood sugar in a candy store, sampling fresh citrus wedges. We’d ride the last kilometer back to the apartment with jerseys stretched over a stash of fresh-picked mandarins, a sweet reward for the day’s efforts.

Prior to my visit in Spain, David and I had spent a couple weeks in December and early January training in Italy. As usual, our visit left little time for regular vacation-type activities. We spent at least four hours a day on the bikes and the rest of our time struggling to lift a fork at mealtime or watching movies in a zombie-like state, which is to say we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

On New Year’s Day, my regular training partners had rest days, so I was on my own for a big ride. I rolled out in the chilly rain and made my way south to Monte Serra. I had been going full gas all week, so I knew my legs would be tired for efforts on the climb. But I thought wrong. The harder I pushed, the better my legs felt, and I had that sweet sensation of carrying so much speed through the switchbacks that I had to counter-steer going uphill.

If you ride, you can probably relate to this feeling: you’ve been training hard, feeling the effects in sore muscles and general fatigue. Then one day—bam! Your body has adapted, and in place of soreness and fatigue are Good Legs. I hadn’t had Good Legs in more than a year. Sure, I’d had Fit Legs and Pretty Good Legs, which if raced with cunning can still yield a win. But that day, for the first time in a long time, I really (as affirmed by my powermeter) had Good Legs.

I didn’t want to stop riding, but began to lose daylight. I hit one last climb and paused near the top. Below me rows of olive trees cast lavender shadows across the hill, sloping down to the Mediterranean. The sun hung low on the horizon, its glow refracted red across the Tuscan landscape, which slipped into warm hues as New Year’s Day 2011 ebbed slowly out to sea.

Visions of the past twelve months flashed through my mind—pushing a walker through the hospital in Qatar, tedious hours of physical therapy, my first race win of the year in Bischofshofen, among others. In many moments I’d felt utterly crushed and hopeless, but with a lot of support and stubborn perseverance, met each challenge, and finally here I stood—happy, grateful and on Good Legs.

I have to admit that I got pretty darn emotional as I thought back on how far I’d come over the past year. Life is funny like that: countless small moments slip by, but it’s those small moments that lead to big moments, small victories that lead to big victories. And in the end, each is still just a moment, another in a long string of moments that ultimately create our past and determine our future.

That moment on New Year’s Day felt big, a breakthrough culmination of small personal triumphs. Who knows what it might mean for 2011, because after all, it was only a moment.

Follow Amber's adventures as an American cyclist and expat in Europe and beyond, as she shares the journey through her own words on Anywhere Road.

Amber Pierce - An American expat living in Austria, Amber has made the leap across the Atlantic in pursuit of her dreams on the road. After making a name for herself as one of the top road cyclists in the US, she now faces new challenges in her life on the road in Europe.

Amber's path to full-time racing in Europe has been anything but linear. From high school valedictorian holding national swimming records, to scholarship athlete at Stanford University and researcher on the open ocean, she has found herself in countless adventures all over the globe. With 53 career victories under her belt, however, Amber appears to have found her calling on the bicycle.

Photos: © Amber Pierce

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