Migizi indodem.

Ain't nothin that migizi can't do...

The polarity of bike racer world and Anishinaabekwe life became more apparent to me than ever this manoomin harvest season. Maybe it was just sitting here, panning through the few photos I gathered whilst back in my Tribal community. Or maybe it was the lessons I remembered from the rice. After all, I spent day after day standing in the front of a canoe on a wild rice lake surrounded by fellow Natives.

While my feet pulsed with discomfort in my Birkenstock sandals, I thought about all the old-timey Natives who harvested manoomin so they would be able to survive the winter. I harvest manoomin for gifts, for sustenance, and for income. I hope to harvest more in the future for a food business. My ancestors harvested for survival. It’s a polar truth. I am of the first generation of people in my family to not merely survive but to follow my heart, educate myself, and chase my dreams. I went to college to exercise my brain; I became a bike racer to push the limits of my body. I’ve battled the darkest truths about my self-perception and soared in my lightest realities.

If you had asked me, even a month ago, why I set out to complete the Triple Crown Challenge this year, I would have told you that it was the biggest dream I’d ever had. I wanted a chance to compete against the women lining up to complete the challenge too. I felt that I wasn’t racing for myself, but as the underdog. An effort for all Native women who came from the place I came from. From a strong, enduring mother, who gave up everything to give me and my siblings a shot at a “normal” life… I wanted a chance to prove that I hadn’t won the past races by chance, but that I had won because I had developed skill, because I didn’t make excuses, and because I’d mastered racing the singlespeed.

I wanted to complete a solid singlespeed effort. The high goals included beating Andrew Strempke’s overall singlespeed record, and lower level goals involved a dream to win the women’s Colorado Trail Race for the fourth time in a row and to set a new Colorado Trail Record.

As I walked my pole through the manoomin lakes, I really contemplated the reality of how the year had unfolded thus far and what was left on the table still. I had a terrible time racing the Tour Divide, never really feeling like the effort was a polished performance. It felt more like a foggy day at work after a raging, drunken, drug-filled evening of partying, a Groundhog day that would never end. I felt cloudy, miserable and like an imposter trying to keep up with the people in front of me. The fact I’d felt so much bliss during the event in the years before made the polar difference feel that much worse. I loved riding my bike along that 2700-mile corridor, why was I having such a miserable time this go? My body wasn’t cooperating with my brain, nor were my lungs. I found more self-doubt on that trip than I’d encountered in years. I did not win the race. I didn’t even get a place on the podium, I felt like a speckle of dust amongst glittery mid-pack. It broke my heart on a magnitude of some of the biggest romantic heartbreaks of mine. The Tour Divide changed my life and opened doors previously closed to me; now it seemed the Tour Divide was closing the doors that had opened to me just years before.

I entered the Colorado Trail race questioning my identity as a bike racer. Was I really even a bike racer anymore? Did I still like it? Did I still achieve personal growth? Was I better for racing than I was before? I wasn’t sure, and because I had such an emotional experience with my effort on the Tour Divide, I shifted my expectations for the Colorado Trail Race. I was going to finish the race; I was going to be okay if I didn’t win the women’s race, and I was going to be okay if I didn’t set a new record contrary to the list of goals I’d written on my cabinet the previous winter. I had fun during the race, mostly. I had made a few mistakes that slowed me down. My asthma is a bit more challenging to deal with as I get older. But I also was racing with new eyes, a new perspective. I didn’t feel like a contender for the win this go around. I wanted to be. But I also knew, I didn’t have it in me to leave it all out there. I was still clinging to my insecurities. I was insecure with my ability to race. I raced my own race, barely looking at Trackleaders during the event. On the final day, I didn’t even look at it once, not knowing where other riders were in relation to me and I totally got passed by a geared bike racer, another woman in the minutes before the starting line. I’d thought I was solidly getting third place, but rolled in 4 minutes after the third place finisher. Not even making the podium again, in my favorite race of all time. It was interesting to disect afterwards. I’m still processing what it all means and what the future of this once-underground sport looks like. Further, what is my role here, in ultraracing land?

I look at things in this life as a Native woman. I look at life from the eyes of a daughter to a mother ripped from her community as a child. I wonder, how am I fulfilling my responsibility to my relatives? I am not simply here by happenstance, I am here today because my relatives fought to keep this place, to make this place home, these teachings and our language alive. I feel deeply connected to that truth. I could leave, I could assimilate fully; my parents provided me every opportunity to do anything I dreamt of with this life. My community reassures me, time after time, that they will always be here, no matter where I go or what I do; further they remind me, I am and always will be, Anishinaabe. My family’s Ojibwe identity could die with me and it would be okay. In a family tree that stretches back as far as we can conceive, our culture could evaporate with my dismissal of responsibility. That’s a privilege. I am privileged.

I could leave, but I don’t want to.

Isn’t that what they tell you true love is? And in that case, you should never let it go.

I’m not like the white people I line up to race against. I wanted to prove that I was. But I am not— for reasons that make me both proud and sad. I was curious if I could be a big-time bike racer chick. I wanted to know if I could compete against Lael on my singlespeed, if I could defend my CTR title against Katya. I had the chance this year, and I couldn’t.

I look toward the AZT as the final chapter in a journey. One I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to attempt another run on the whole trail! My fourth attempt. No attempt has been the same either; the trail is alive and evolving always.

As much as I know who I am, I still have no clue who I want to be.

If you asked me today what my biggest dream is; I would tell you it is to build a space where we can do as Anishinaabe do. Complete with a small climbing wall, a functional fitness gym, a gear library and wild rice processing infrastructure so that I can be here, in Anishinaabe country, with my people, my culture and traditions.