Essay --

The sun was beaming on a hot afternoon in July of 2017. We were almost to the finish line. It was hard to believe we had started the race about 10 hours earlier. by pedaling until our legs felt like they were about to fall off, by drinking water like we had been in the desert for weeks, and by believing that we could make it to the end, Alex and I made it, to my Ithaca, Portland Oregon. My odyssey was a tough one, not only the 200 mile race, but also the decisions we had to make on our way up the the race. My family and I had just spent the week in Portland, and we were headed home. When out of nowhere I saw a big group of cyclers going down the opposite side of the freeway, â€Å"What are they doing?† I asked my older brother. â€Å"Is that Seattle to Portland?† he asked my dad, and my dad said â€Å"yes†. I found the very interesting so I just had to tell my best friend Alex, who is equal to Hermes from the odyssey, his encouragement being my molu flower. He said he had heard about it before, after talking about this for countless minutes, but we set a goal to participate in the race before we went off to college in 2017. After a few days we realized that we wouldn’t stand a chance at finishing that race without practicing. We decided starting in the spring of seventh grade, every time one of us would go to the others house, we would bike there. Eventually we noticed that even that wouldn’t cut it. We assured ourselves that every week we would bike somewhere, and then the next week we would bike a little further, and further. Until we thought we had reached our preferred distance. We started off by biking to 7/eleven which is about one or two miles away, we struggled at first, but after biking there a few times we got the hang of it. B... ...ints knowing that we had the resources to make it for a while without a major break. we passed an abundance of the other bikers, but After mille 100 I was getting really exhausted, and every chance I got I would try to convince Alex to take a break, but I knew that if we took too many I would lose faith of getting to the finish line in Portland my Ithaca, which was only 100 miles away, but a simple thing could stop me from getting there. Alex and I were only about a minute away from the finish line, we heard the cheering of the people waiting at the finish line, then it happened, both of us crossed the finish line, beating the other contestants like Odysseus beat the Suitors. We had completed our journey, where we drank all our water, where we battled the thought of giving up, and where we witnessed amazing scenery, and we had just made it to Portland, my Ithaca.