By Land, Sea, or Air by Emma MacEachern

Emma MacEachern is from Montreal Canada and has lived in Temple, Tx since 1999. She is a rising sophomore. 

Man have I had a summer chocked full of adventures with routine training every morning…most of the time…

To start off, less than 36 hours after arriving back home in Temple, Texas, my parents and I started our 1,656 mile road trip to New Jersey to go see my sister, Sarah, graduate form Rutgers University with a bachelors in Evolutionary Anthropology.

Why take a car across the country and opt out of the much less time consuming air travel? Well my mom is an avid cyclist and has been wanting to do a bicycling trip in Canada for ages. So back in early 2015, her and I sat down and planned a summer cycling trip around Niagara Falls in Canada with a company called Velo Quebec. Also, my mom hails from Montreal, Quebec and has really missed the city and all her family that still live there. So to add another level to our plan, she would drive the car to Canada and stay in Montreal one month visiting friends and family and exploring the city on bike while my dad, sister, and I returned to Texas by plane to work and take care of our eight animals. I would than rejoin my mom mid July to do our bike tour.

Therefore, we drove our 2008 Nissan Sentra with our two rode bikes hitched on the back to New Jersey where I got to be one proud sister and see Sarah walk the stage and receive her diploma.

Since we were so close to NYC, we also planned to stay one week in the big apple. We rented a fabulous apartment from air b&b one block away from the west side of Central park. I ran there every morning and saw sooo many awesome dogs and people that the miles just flew by and it was hard to stop. By the end of the trip I knew my way around that park pretty well. My family and I did a lot of sightseeing by foot and went to comedy shows, ate awesome food, saw the High Line, went to a few museums, and of course visited Ground Zero. All in all it was a great trip that went by really quickly and before I knew it I was back in Temple ready to start work as a lifeguard.

Central Park

The Brooklyn Bridge

So this period before my cycling trip and after getting back from NJ and NYC was when I really built my foundation for both the upcoming XC season and my fabulous lifeguard tan. I ran every morning and occasionally did a circuit workout incorporating some injury prevention and core exercises we did during last school year. After my morning run I would go to work at the water park in my hometown. I worked about 45 hours a week and loved every minute of it. It was boring at times sitting on stand watching people the whole time but the people I work with made all the difference and there wasn’t a day when I didn’t enjoy myself. Plus I received the award of Lifeguard of the Week and saved three little kids from drowning, By the time I was ready to leave for my biking trip I had a very nice tan everywhere besides where my suit covered me and had reached about the 45 miles a week average for running.

Me as Larry the Lion at work, our mascot. The lion head is missing

This was my award for guard of the week that I had to carry on stand

So now comes the epic cycling adventure! But before that, I spent four days in Montreal with my grandma, mom, and aunts catching up in broken French and trying my hardest to converse with them even though most of the time I spoke in Franglish and looked to my mom to translate. Finally on July 11th we made our way to St. Catharines in Ontario to meet the group we would be bicycling with. Denise was our guide and would be the one driving the van with our luggage and Marcel was our bicycle expert that would be there to fix any flat tires or issues of any kind. There were also 32 other people who would be accompanying us on our journey. They were all bilingual, SUPER nice with very distinct personalities, and raged from 9 to 79 years of age. Over the next week I would come to learn a little about everyone during our ritual called 5-7 or beer hour when we would all talk about the days ride. Members of the group also naturally asked my mom and I about living in Texas and the stereotypes of our great state of Texas are very real and strong in Canada. One of the people, called Luca (very outspoken 12 year old) asked all about racism, marriage equality, and guns. It made me laugh… a lot.

As far as cycling, the roads we went on were very nice and we had wonderful landscapes of grape vineyards and farmland. It only rained once but besides that the trip was smooth sailing and very enjoyable. I was quite sore though in the backend, if you know what I mean, and had to take a break from training. Niagara falls was of course amazingly beautiful and very impressive.

Striking a pose with all the gear

The beautiful Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

We left early Friday for the 1600 mile road trip back to Texas. All was fine and dandy until we entered Kentucky and our Nissan overheated. Than all hell broke loose.

So, we had to stop in the small town of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, which was a very small town with a Nissan dealership that would only see our car Wednesday… and it was only Saturday. Not wanting to stay that long, my mom and I rented a 17 foot UHAUL truck with a dolly attached that towed our Nissan all the way back to Temple. We both took turns driving and by Monday at 4 pm we were safely back in Temple and I was back on stand working at the water park. This ordeal taught me how to hook up a trailer to a truck, how not to back up with a dolly, how to drive a large vehicle with no center mirror and a giganto blind spot, and how to hold it together when everything seems to be going wrong. Oh and I’m good for road trips for quite a long time. 

After I got back, the City of Temple held lifeguard Olympics for all the guards in town. I was on team America and we won first the first prize trophy! The events include fanny pack twerking, a slide relay, and the human knot in our wave pool. 

Team ‘merica!

Next thing to come was my 19th birthday. So my superpower if I could have one would always be to fly and I’ve wanted to go skydiving for quite sometime now. Knowing this, my family surprised me with ten minutes of flight time at IFLY Austin, an indoor skydiving facility. I had a GREAT time and it made me only want to go actual skydiving even more. Luckily, Temple has a well-rated skydiving place so I signed myself up to go Tandem skydiving at 11:00 on Thursday August 6th. It was the best experience ever and I’m totally addicted and want to train so I can go solo. ( I know coach Daum will looove that idea☺)

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At IFLY in Austin

Actual skydiving, That’s the plane I jumped out of below the sun.

So that’s my summer in a nutshell. My training was pretty boring. I ran by myself every morning and doubled sometimes by myself in the evenings. I can’t wait to get back to Trinity and have running buddies! Oh and see little nugs/Emma!!