Ornoth

I usually start feeling apprehensive even before I’ve finished the Pan-Mass Challenge ride. I guess most people would wonder why, since I’m on the verge of completing a noteworthy physical achievement that also represents a meaningful contribution to cancer research. I have three reasons.

The first is the easiest: the PMC takes place the first weekend in August, which makes it a marker of the seasons. It falls on or near the cross-quarter day that is halfway between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, marking the middle of astronomical summer. It is also the date of Lammas and Lughnasadh, festivals observing the beginning of the harvest season, and the beginning of autumn as traditionally reckoned. So for me it means the peak of summer—my favorite season—and the beginning of the long decline into the many cold, dark, desperate days of winter.

The other two reasons feed off one another, and thus require a bit more verbiage.

It’s not uncommon for athletes to suffer malaise after completing a big goal event. Really, it’s no different for anyone: if you’ve been working toward a goal for months, putting everything you’ve got into it and deriving a lot of meaning from it, then it only makes sense to ask “What next?” when the event is done.

On one hand, it’s a simple time-management problem: from April through July, almost all my free time is devoted to the training and fundraising work necessary to participate in the ride. When the ride is done, I suddenly find myself with a surfeit of time on my hands. Filling that newfound free time, particuarly when unemployed, can be a challenge when you’ve grown used to looking toward training and fundraising as the answer. But that’s not the worst of it…

The whole reason why Billy Starr founded the PMC was to give average folks the ability to do something truly meaningful in the battle against cancer. The PMC mission can give one a strong sense of meaning and purpose; but when the event has ended, it can leave a big void in one’s life. Compared to finding a cure for cancer, our everyday lives simply cannot provide the same kind of purpose and meaning.

This becomes a real problem when you combine the two: a sudden increase in free time, and nothing very meaningful to use it for. And with summer winding down, it can be a recipe for what I’ll call “Post-Panmass Depression”.

I didn’t have a big letdown after last year’s ride, but 2008 was complicated by an offshore work assignment that prevented me from fundraising or training until Memorial Day. I basically only had two months to gear up and get the job done, so it wasn’t as much of a shock when I returned to daily life afterward. I was also preoccupied with a project at work, as well.

But this year was different. From January 1, when I borrowed an indoor trainer and started working out, my eyes were fixed on the first weekend in August. I spent seven whole months planning and executing a fundraising campaign, riding the bike, controlling my diet, stretching and learning self-massage, and keeping tabs on media coverage of the ride. I was pretty singlemindedly focused on preparing for that one event; doubly so, since I have been out of work that whole time.

So with the event now passed, the official photos posted, my ride report done, and my bike in pieces spread across three continents, I’m asking myself that question, “What next?” I plan to renew my job-hunting effort, get back into my daily meditation practice, and resume joy-riding once my road bike has been overhauled, but that still leaves a lot of free time and few deeply gratifying ways of spending it. At the same time, life is in the living, and I hope to find other ways of enjoying what summer has left to give us.

But I thought I’d share that bit of the postride experience.