regrouping

There is so much to say about the last year of my life it’s proving difficult to pin down a starting point. Some highlights are included below, but I’d like to hone in on a shift. It feels this would have been most appropriate to identify directly after graduating Ranger, but life has been fast and my brain not nearly fast enough to keep up with it. All that to say, I am very proud of the items listed below despite the valleys between these mountains.

• I finished Silk Road 2025 on a single speed. To this day, it is one of the highlights of my life. Looking back, it’s unfathomable. How, and most importantly, why, did I peddle 1,200 miles when my top speed was 11.5 (12 being generous) miles per hour?
• I passed the SIFT. I note this higher than having my flight packet accepted as it’s a true comeback story. One 2020 Annie would be quite pleased with.
• I am now going to flight school! see: massive career shift and commitment to the Army. This is not the path I imagined 12 months ago, but I am thankful I am taking the leap, this feels like the epitome of betting on myself.
• I’ve graduated Ranger School. Just typing these words feels like a fever dream. I wish I could let every version of my past know that it will be OK, that there is an ‘end’ to this quest towards the Ranger Tab. I don’t regret the pursuit, but it is intimidating thinking about all of the hours, days, weeks, months to years of concentrated effort that went into this school. I won’t pretend I didn’t give up at one point. I thought I found a version of me that was OK with walking away, but the desire to go back always lurked right beneath the veneer of everyday life- even that REFRAD packet that never routed past brigade.

The above list is a neat and tidy summation of an extremely messy 12 months. I struggled more emotionally than I ever had (let me point you to my old blog posts to see what weight this statement really holds) and agonized over past decisions to the point of emotional exhaustion. Sure, there’s the recipe for any mid-late twenty year old woman, but there were too many low-points to count – or blatantly publish, let’s say.

There’s a lot more to say on each of these, particularly Ranger school, but that may have to turn into a series type compilation. Most notably, I am off the recent failure of a 24hour bike race – well, more like ‘Everlasting Challenge (plus)’. If you were to make it to the end, you would accumulate 312 miles and over 37,000 ft of elevation gain – to put this in perspective, these are similar stats to races such as Zuri Escape or 2-3 day overnighters, tough ones at that. So, to come to the start line essentially “off the couch” or 3 weeks back to normal workouts following 8 months in Georgia and about three real bike rides since Silk Road in August of 2025, one could say it was a bit ambitious. I hadn’t ridden a road bike for years, but it’s just road… right? A beige flag included all my cycling friends absolutely balking at the above stats of the race… but again! I had my goal blinders on and claimed “I just want to see how far I can go”. Oh, yes, the race was a 15 hour drive away too, but who cares about muscle cramps anyway.

Well, turns out it was four laps (I did two additional laps for consolation) 79.88 miles and 8,990 ft up. A solid day ride I would add, but only ONE SIXTH of the total course. I cried on a voice memo to my ex girlfriend, during the race by the way, that I simply couldn’t understand why I was doing these things. Why would I sign up for something I was so blatantly unqualified and untrained for? Am I only worthy following an impressive ride? Am I only as gritty, determined, and strong as my last demanding day? Why would I force myself to cycle up and down these mountains for 24 hours (or as long as I could muster) when I’ve already done the sleep deprivation thing? Or better- why so soon? It hadn’t even been 30 days since graduating Ranger school. Throughout the six hours on my bike I surprised myself with how lonely I felt. I wanted a dinner with friends. I wanted wine spilled on the tablecloth and dishes pilled in the sink. I wanted eye contact and someone to tell me they love me, and I’m worth more than just a long day on the bike. Wow, it gets sappy, quickly, right?

So fast forward to the final lap, where I realize, in fact, I recently regained my independence to do things like sleep normal hours, eat non-dehydrated meals, talk when I want, use my cell phone! Why am I miserably mashing pedals when I simply don’t want to? And I ask again: What is driving me? Whose approval am I so desperately seeking? Is it my own? I have this pervasive thought that I am only as “good” as my last hard effort, so victories are short lived and failures cut so deeply they immediately push me to find another seemingly impassable wall. Am I looking for validation from others? For them to affirm that “yes, she can do hard things for God’s sake we see it on Strava!”. And that my friends, leads me right into my account deletion.

I, recently, less than a week ago, deleted Facebook, Instagram, and Strava. Some may refer to this as the holy trinity of external validation, I do, at least. And that is exactly how I have used those platforms in the last four years. I could ramble on forever about social media and my own toxic relationship towards nearly every corner of it. I have an inability to use these as a mere social tools of connection, but instead lean full throttle into an insatiable style of scrolling, reading, liking, hearting, kudo’ing, comparing, and judging. It feels ugly and inauthentic to admit on paper (blog) that I judge others through something as vain as an instagram story, but lets not pretend like we’re all not a bit guilty. Sorry, the reader call-out had to happen eventually.

Strava is gone – forever. This is the biggest change for me as Facebook and Instagram are used, well, at least posted on, intermittently. Strava though, oh. man. That was used every single day (save ranger school escapades) for nearly six years. I loved Strava. I probably always will, but with any true love, inward reflection can lead us in a new direction. In all honesty, the Strava reflection requires more time and more honest work without sharing it with 155 people. I instead, will text some friends, call my mom, and perhaps update the blog to tell you all about my workouts if the itch for affirmations prove too strong. I started my day journaling, and ending the paragraph with the following:

“The loss of Strava is affecting me way more than (I’d like to admit), the reason being I find I use Strava as my resume of ‘I can do hard things” and without that – what am I worth – or even better – how will I know I am worth anything at all”

Fear not reader, as my existential crisis was briefly solved by a bike, run – Smartdevice sober. Anyways, stick around for some more dreadfully over-analyzed takes on intuitive fitness and reframing and rediscovering a why.