For Cathy’s first post, click here.
Hello, this is Cathy McCreadie, Credentialing Services Manager here, out of Team Music City, with some final thoughts about my ride of a lifetime. Well, as we completed day two and three things just got better and better, what an amazing sense of community and purpose that just seemed to surround all of the riders. Nothing, however, could compare to the final day of the ride into Team Music City.
We awoke to a cool crisp morning at our campsite in Thompson Station, TN after many of my fellow riders had pushed it hard the day before through some difficult terrain. Most of us were ready to get the final 20 miles from our campsite to Team Music City under our belt. My legs were burning the first few miles, but I made it the eight miles to our first rest stop at the Williamson County Administration building in Franklin, TN.
From there we all felt like rock stars as we got a full police escort all the way into Team Music City. I do not know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I’m from here and knew exactly where I was the whole trip from Franklin to Brentwood. The bad thing was I knew there was still one BIG hill to climb. The good thing was after that hill I knew I was home free all the way into our final staging point at Brentwood High School, so the adrenaline kicked in and I rode like the wind. No, actually I was fighting the wind the whole way, but I knew I had made it to my final destination. We rode into Team Music City and were greeted by the cheers of fellow teammates, families, and friends, and there was no greater feeling in the world.
All of us came to know the spirit of the ride over our time out there on the Natchez Trace, and we may all define it a bit differently, yet all of those definitions would be interrelated. For me the spirit of the ride is about humanity. It is about all of us as human beings making a conscious choice one day that we are going to take a risk and we are going to step out there to boundaries that may be uncomfortable, and test our limits to possibilities within that we never imagined. It is about doing something individually and collectively for such a wonderful cause and I thank our Mayor for letting me experience the ride of a lifetime.
I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes that I really feel captures the essence of the spirit of the ride: “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
Create, Respect, Remember the spirit of the ride…
