First "Group" Ride Ever...Fail

Today I went on my first group ride ever. It was supposed to be a 63 mile loop from the foothills up to the mountains, which summited at Caesars Head. This trip did not go as I had planned...but I learned a few things.

1. A steel touring bike with wide tires (my bike) is about 5 times slower than a carbon fiber road bike
2. Even if they may have a $5,000 bike and are in decent shape, it's no fun to get passed by a 75 year old guy
3. Its also not fun to get passed by a 45 year old guy who looks pregnant
4. I really want one of those fast road bikes so I can actually see what I'm made of!
5. The directions are important to figure out before you start riding. You could take a wrong turn and end up cyling 20 more miles than expected (Oh well, it was nice to get 80 miles in)
6. I wish there were break stations on all of my rides that were stocked with delicious food
7. Cyclists make all sorts of crazy hand signals when riding together in a group...I have no idea what any of them mean

Even though I was inconsistent with my speed and wasn't able to stay with a pack for most of the time, the experience was nice.

A couple other nice things from this past week...

1. TTR bikes hooked me up with some new tires and a tune up for an amazing discount! My new friend Micah from over there is about my age and has a cool story. His dad is a missionary in Thailand who started making extremely nice bamboo bikes over there so that he could employ some locals and reach out to the community. Check out their website at www.bamboobikemaker.com Here is one of their bikes

2. I have now lived in the same city as my girlfriend for a week and a half :)
3. While finishing up my ride today I saw on a church sign the verse that I wanted to be my theme for the recovery of my achilles. "Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers work in vain" Psalm 127:1...so again, praise God for a great recovery so far!

8 days until Bike for Burundi! Make a tax deductible donation at http://www.bikeforburundi.com/

The scariest thing that's ever happened to me on a bike!

So long Seabrook Island. The beach front resort where I have lived for the past 1.5 years can no longer be called home. Although I will probably never live in a place as beautiful again, more so than the daily dolphin sightings and the pristine maritime forest, I will miss the people. I was blessed with an incredibly encouraging atmosphere to work and teach children in, but it was time to say goodbye to dear coworkers and welcome a new phase of life...the phase of full time missionary (aka unemployment).

I'm now in Greenville, SC and am training for the next 2 weeks to prepare for the Bike for Burundi (http://www.bikeforburundi.com/) challenge. It's an exciting time, but after only 2 days, the mountains have humbled me. The Appalachians are probably 1/3 as tough to ride as the Sierra Nevadas, but I have been huffing and puffing nonetheless.

Yesterday, after I climbed Sassafras Mountain, the tallest mountain in SC, which measures in at a "whopping" 3560 ft, I almost died on the descent. This mountain did not have switchback roads. This mountain road also had springs next to it which leaked onto the asphalt. These factors did not phase me when ascending, but when I started back down I was in for the biggest adrenaline rush I have ever experienced on a bicycle. It was not that my brakes stopped working, but that they worked too well. Since it was not raining, my rims were dry. The road, however, was not. As I plummeted at 40 mph I tried to pump my brakes, but my touring bicycle does not have as nice of an ABS brake system as my old Subaru Legacy did. My rear tire locked up and it whipped to the left, then to the right. My heart stopped as I thought I was going to be thrown from the bike and would slide down the road face first...somehow I recovered and made it down the mountain. My adrenaline was rushing for the next 15 miles or so and I was pretty afraid.

Lesson learned = Fishtailing is scary = avoid braking too hard on wet roads = avoid wet roads whenever possible, especially if you are going downhill at a 45 degree angle.

That experience on Sassafras Mountain was more frightening than when I severed my achilles tendon in a crash last summer. The achilles accident happened so quickly and then I was in shock. With the wet road situation yesterday, I actually had to think about the reality of what almost happened. But anyway, speaking of the achilles injury that happened on the Swamp Rabbit Trail, I bought a Swamp Rabbit Trail cycling jersey yesterday! It was a bit on the expensive end, but I had to buy it as a sort of souvenier, or a "take that, stupid stinkin trail! you didn't keep me down forever, and now I'm going to ride across the country!" sort of thing.

Here is an example pic of the jersey.

I actually love that trail, and 100% of proceeds go towards trail maintenance. Hopefully they use the dollars I gave them to smooth out the trail edges!

18 days until the ride! Help the orphans and pygmies in Burundi by making a donation dedicated to Jeff Hennessy at www.bikeforburundi.com/donate/

Blessings? Yes Please!

This past weekend was pretty standard at first... on Saturday I cycled 100 miles and then consumed about 8,000 calories. The weather was unreal for January! I can't believe that it was 70 degrees and that I am still able to train in shorts every day. The warm weather made me happy and so I rode the 100 miles faster than I have since I started training in late October; 5 hrs 48 mins.

The morning session was actually quite different than usual because David Strauss, the man who will be making a full length documentary about the Bike for Burundi trip, came out to shoot some video. It was quite strange to have a man driving closely to me with a camera strapped onto the roof. Every now and then he would zip off into the distance and then I didn't know when I would see him again. One time I was having trouble finding him and then I realized he had his camera set up in a crop field about 200 yards from the road. Ha. Since I am not used to having someone video anything that I do, I thought it was hilarious to be followed by David. Every time I passed him I started laughing. I suppose I am a bit camera shy. At lunch he interviewed me for a few minutes and then he left. He said he is not sure what the focus of the documentary will be, but that he will gather lots of footage and will then decide on a story.

Later on Saturday night I went to have dinner with Bonnie Turco, the woman who is organizing Bike for Burundi, and her husband. They were great and they gave me the Garmin GPS that will be attached to my bike during the trip. The only problem is that the map software we will use to link our maps to the GPS requires a computer with a CD player. My computer died a few months ago, so I realized now was the time to buy a new computer. Bonnie had a little computer that she wanted to give me, but then we saw that it did not have a CD player. Bummer! On Sunday morning I told the people at breakfast that after church I was going to buy a computer. When I came back for lunch, right before leaving to go downtown to buy a computer, Jack Rankin, the weekend manager at St. Christopher, said that he and his wife Ardy wanted to give me one of their barely used computers so that I can blog during the bike ride and have a computer to use afterwards. What?!?! Huge blessing! I was extremely excited. Later in the night my buddy Daniel Dunn donated an Under Armour cold gear shirt and a pair of nice cold weather tights for the ride. Whoo hoo! This past weekend was great was a great! I can already see tons of ways that God is using people to bless this trip.

Less than 5 weeks until the ride.

It's Really Happening...on March 5

There has been a bit of change in the past few months. In early December I asked my boss, David, if he could find a replacement for me so that I might be able to ride with the Bike For Burundi crew (www.bikeforburundi.com) I told David that I would not leave my position unless they found a replacement before January 9. I was praying hard that there would be a good candidate to replace me, but surprisingly, not many people applied for my job. There was, however, a great candidate who applied and was offered the job in early January. I was super excited, but then he rejected the position! I was slightly discouraged, but still had hope. It was a huge blessing and relief when my boss David called me on January 3 to tell me that he had hired someone!

This, however, left me out of work until at least the end of the bike trip around early April. The people out here at St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center were great to me however, and they said that I could live and work out here in the facilities department until the bike trip. That's what I am doing now. My temporary job pretty much now consists of painting, fixing random things around the camp, and moving equipment for people who actually know how to do technical things such as carpentry and plumbing. It's pretty great to have a 2 month temporary gig out here.

Around Valentines Day I will be leaving here and will be moving to Greenville, SC for 2.5 weeks before flying to LA to begin the ride. The point of this is so that I can see my valentine :) and then train in the mountains of the upstate. It will be much more effective training up there because if you are not aware, Charleston is about as flat as it gets. Even though my legs feel pretty fit from the training here, the low country is not exactly preparing me for successive 100+ mile days in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

In other news, I'm getting really pumped up about what we are raising money for in Burundi. The man Simon that I will be riding with wrote a great book called Dangerously Alive, which is about his experiences there for 10 years as a missionary. It truly inspired me to ride so that more people in that nation can know the love of Christ. Check out the book Dangerously Alive here.


Exactly 6 weeks until the trip. Let's do this!

Changing Plans

 My Great Great Grandfather Reginald Selmer Plummer. He used to take this bike out on the weekends and ride 100 miles! Whoa!

Over the past month or so God has changed a lot of my plans for my cycling trip. While praying about my planned trip this summer, I kept thinking that I needed to contact Simon Guillebaud, a man that I met last spring. Simon is a missionary to Burundi, and when I met him last spring he told me that he would next summer be riding his bicycle across the USA in hopes of raising $1 million for the missions of his non-profit organization, which is called Great Lakes Outreach (GLO). When he told me about this trip he was taking I was immediately interested in joining his team, but when he eventually decided to move his trip back to early March, I thought that I wouldn't be able to recover from my severed achilles tendon quickly enough to join his team. My job also would not permit me to leave in March.

Over the past few months, however, I have been preparing to ride across the country this summer to raise money for Water Missions International. I have not been able to find anyone to ride with. Although I love what Water Missions is doing, I kept feeling a nudge to speak with Simon about joining his trip. There are many reasons why I felt that it was going to be a better idea to ride with his group. If you want more details on how that thought process developed, please ask me. When I started considering Simon if I could join his team my physical recovery was going more quickly than I expected, but my job was still not permitting me to leave. I eventually figured that since my boss David is a Christian man, it would be a good idea to speak with him about all these ideas and passions I was praying about. When I eventually spoke with David he told me that if I felt called to the Bike for Burundi trip that he would look for a replacement for my position. After some prayer and deliberation I felt freed up to ask if I may leave my job so that I could ride with Bike for Burundi. My participation in the trip is still pending, as I am waiting and praying that someone will be able to fill my role here at the Barrier Island Environmental Education Center. We need a replacement Naturalist by January 9, so please pray for that. 

It is pretty obvious to say that if it is God's will for me to partake in this amazing adventure, He will provide a great replacement for me at my job. I will miss everybody here enormously, but I do also believe that it is time for me to move on. To be completely honest, I only have a little bit of an idea of the situation that Great Lakes Outreach is dealing with in Burundi. All I do know is that last spring I had a burning desire to ride a bicycle across the country. During prayer I felt that I should buy a bike. Since then, God has really been putting together the pieces. I am not saying that this is necessarily why I severed my achilles tendon while riding my bicycle this past summer, but I do think that my injury was a huge reminder to me that God wants me to use my passion for adventure not entirely for my personal gain, but more so to worship Him and bless others. My injury was a reminder that my strength comes from Him. When you lose your ability to walk, you realize how much God has blessed you in the past. Now I am excited to serve God with the blessings he has given me by allowing me to be able to use my leg again. I'm excited that God put me in contact with Simon. I'm excited to learn about the work that God is doing in Burundi. I'm excited to spend a ton of time with three older and wiser British guys while pedaling for 100 miles / day for an entire month. Basically, I'm excited.

......now it's time to pray

-jeff

The Road to Recovery

The boot came off on September 1, 2011. Immediately I wanted to swim, cycle, and run. Over the past two months, however, I have been slowly regaining muscle and my ability to walk correctly. Running and jumping is still not a part of my life, but it will be very soon. Due to the cycling that I have been doing for the past month my calf is almost not a veal anymore.

So yes, I have been cycling for the past month. Initially I was extremely afraid of getting back on the bike. Ya know, if I were to sever the achilles again I might be a little bit sad. But I have a cool little story about why I don't have to be afraid to ride anymore. The Bicycle Shoppe in Charleston looked for a chain or bash guard for my bike that would protect my leg if it ever collided with my cogs again. After lots of research that led to dead ends, The Bicycle Shoppe took a bash guard from another bike and made custom cuts on it so that it would fit my bike. They made the cuts on the bash guard, attached it to the cogs, and gave me my bike back for only $10! Wow! What a great deal! I suppose they felt bad for me after the accident. Here is a picture of my new custom bash guard.

 
After my bike was fixed I started training again. I have been riding 5 days a week and am hopefully going to be strong enough to take a few days over Christmas break to ride across South Carolina. I am also anticipating being perfectly healthy this spring, so I am also training to ride across the country this summer to raise money for Water Missions International. I made a promotional video to advertise for partners that you can check out here.
                                                                   Cycle with Jeff!

I learned how to use Imovie on a mac to make that video in about an hour. It's a really cool program that I'm excited to get much better at using. I'm thinking about making a documentary to show what God does on this cross-country cycling trip this summer. Anyway, my prayer for the trip right now is for continued healing of my leg and 1 or 2 partners that are willing to commit to the trip. Within the next few weeks I will probably start fundraising. Yay God! Boo Devil!

-Jeff

6 Weeks After Surgery & 1st Adventure Since Surgery!

I had surgery on my achilles tendon 6.5 weeks ago. This is what it looked like before the surgeon repaired the tendon.

                                           This is what the surgeon did to repair the tendon

                           This is the scar that is now on my leg 6.5 weeks after surgery...not too bad!

               This is what a leg looks like after not walking on it for over 7 weeks...like a chicken wing

6 weeks after surgery I went straight from not putting any weight on my leg to walking on it with my boot and without crutches. I should be in the boot for 4 weeks and then I will be able to walk in hiking boots for 2 more weeks until I am completely cleared. That means 10 weeks after surgery I will hopefully be walking freely. The doctor says it will probably be between Halloween and Christmas before I start running or jumping.

This is amazing and I am extremely happy with the speed of this recovery. I feel enormously blessed to be able to walk again. I now realize how much I have taken for granted having the ability to walk.

God has taught me a lot during this strange summer in my life. First, I didn't realize how much of my identity was in my ability to move, work, and stay busy. This injury caused me to have to quit my summer coaching job, which has made me slow down tremendously and has freed up tons of time. During this time God has taught me a lot about solitude, spending time meditating on his truths, and seeking him even when discouraged. I have had friends around, but I have also had more alone time this summer than I have ever had. This is tough for an extrovert like me, but this summer has been a great lesson in learning to wait and listen.

Over the past month and a half I have been able to read some great stuff, I have learned a bunch through some interesting documentaries, I have written a ton, I have gone on many great dates with my now girlfriend Sarah, and I have painted a bit. Here are a couple of 20x16 inch paintings I have done so far.

                                            This is Sarah on the left and Heather on the right.

These are my roommates for the summer. Kelsey and Corey "Goose" Gheesling.

So this blog is not supposed to be about painting, but adventures. Without functioning legs, however, painting can be a pretty great adventure. But I was cleared to walk with a boot on August 5. I knew that my leg was seriously weak, but when I heard I could walk I wanted to go climb a mountain...so I did.

Sarah suprised me from Kentucky for my birthday on August 8. On the 9th we decided to embark on my first true "adventure", besides kayaking, since I was injured. We drove up to Brevard, NC to check out the town and find some mountain waterfalls in the area. Brevard is in Transylvania County, which is the county with the most waterfalls in the USA. I was pumped about walking around to the waterfalls but I was terribly afraid that Dracula, or one of those vampires that all the teenage girls in the country have pictures of hanging from their walls, was going to jump out from behind a tree and suck my blood. Soon after those fears came, I decided that it would be awesome if Count Chocula jumped out from behind a tree and gave me some tasty cereal. Then I remembered that the Transylvania where vampires live is in Romania. I was instantly relieved that I wouldn't have to battle any fierce vampires, but I still wanted some chocolatey cereal. Oh well. At least I was hiking around with an awesome lady.

                                              We hiked about 3 miles and found 4 waterfalls!

                                                                      Conestee Falls

                                                                         Triple Falls

High Falls

                             
                                                                         Hooker Falls

                                                                          
This day was incredible! Beautiful weather, great conversations, walking, and great stuff that God made! "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." -Psalm 42:7

Everybody who passed us on the trail this day had something to say about my leg. It was either along the lines of "You're a nut, kid!", "Wow, now that's dedication!", "What did you do to make her hurt you like that?", or "She should really be carrying you up this mountain!" Ha. It was ridiculous and funny...and even though my foot got a bit swolen, it was definitely worth it.

                                                                Life is good. God is better. :)

- jeff