Anne Marie Miller

Category: Ride:Well

  • Riding my Bicycle All Around the USA

    We leave tomorrow from Faith Chapel (after the 10:45 service if you live around San Diego and want to come out) and head up almost 80 miles to Anza Borrega State Park for our first night (we’ll be camping! And this is…no joke…my first time ever sleeping outside).


    Today we went to the Pacific Ocean for photos and to actually “begin” the Pacific-to-Atlantic ocean trip. The cold water splashed up on our bikes and I can’t believe that in just two months we’ll be rolling our bikes into the Atlantic ocean.

    I was told to expect the unexpected on this trip – and that has been so true, even in our few days of training. I wasn’t able to ride our full ride today and instead drove our support van (with gigantic trailer!), but that’s just one part of the trip…being flexible…letting my plans and expectations fall away when they need to for the benefit of the team (or in some cases, our own health).

    This is an area I need some serious growth in, so I am trying to learn to welcome the unexpected instead of become discouraged by it. How I let it affect me also affects my team.

    Thanks again for all the supportive tweets, comments, and the like…they play part of the energy that keeps us going.

    I’ll probably have internet again later next week, so until then…

    Please enjoy this song our team has created especially for you. I believe it truly speaks the heart behind this trip.

    Get a Kleenex out because this rap will bring tears to your eyes….

  • Spandex, Janitors and Lemon:Aid

    After a long van ride from Minneapolis, The Ride:Well tour leaders arrived safely into San Diego Wednesday night and slowly, the cyclists are arriving today. We’re being hosted by the fabulous Faith Chapel church who have generously allowed us to take over their campus with our bikes, sleeping bags, and spandex.

    It’s been great getting to know each person as they come in and hear why they’ve decided to donate their summer to riding bikes for Blood:Water Mission. There are definitely some serious cyclists on our team (the south team) as well as some newbies, like me.

    We’ll be spending pretty much every minute for the next two months with each other, and with that comes cooking for each other, cleaning up after each other, and doing each others’ laundry. We rely on the generosity of host churches and homes, and sometimes with that, surprises abound.

    That’s where the part about the janitor and the wake up call comes in.

    One of the other leaders, Erin, and I volunteered to do laundry last night for the people who needed it (we have a very limited amount of clothes with us so laundry is almost a daily task). The church has a laundry area — it just happens to be pretty far from the area we were sleeping. We decided it would be easier for us to sleep in the classroom next to the laundry area so we could keep the laundry going into the night and first thing in the morning.

    We planned on waking up around 6:30a to finish the last load, but at about 5:45a, the door to the classroom opens, and a very sweet, older man walks in the room. He turns on the light, sees us passed out in our sleeping bags, apologizes, and leaves.

    I bet he wasn’t expecting that.

    We went back to sleep and five minutes later, he returns with another man — a tall, muscular, Harley-Davidson looking guy with a big beard and bigger biceps.

    “Are you ladies supposed to be sleeping in here?”

    Oh crap. We are so busted.

    “Well…” (I said, stammering)… “We thought it would be easier for us to keep the laundry going if we were in here…” (I continued, trying to dig my way out and wondering how crazy my bed-head looked.)

    “It’s no problem,” the Harley guy continued. “I just feel bad for you guys sleeping on the floor when you could have been in the Bridal Suite down the hall. It’s so much more comfortable in there.”

    So, our Harley guy ended up being a very sweet teddy-bear of a guy and even as I walked by later with our sleeping bags, he explained how badly he felt that we were sleeping on the floor.

    And so begins the journey.

    We’ll have a few days of training and cycling here in San Diego, and then Sunday, we’ll be leaving from Faith Chapel church (time is yet to be determined, but if you’re in the area, I’d love for you to see us off and will update my Twitter and Facebook Page with the details when I know).

    Thank you so much for all your prayers. This is going to be an amazing journey for an amazing cause!

    Oh, and just because you’re not doing a bike ride, did you know there are some easy and super fun ways to help support Blood:Water? Make a “lemon:aid” stand, coordinate a water walk, or….click here for some more awesome ideas.

  • I Could NEVER do That!

    “I could never do what you’re doing!” I told a guy named Cody at a church in Dallas. I was speaking there and he had just cycled in with the Ride:Well team, a group of fifteen or so people who were biking across the country.

    Rattling off a list of reasons (including a very legit heart issue) he told me to one, get my heart fixed…and two, do the ride.

    So last summer I made the vow. If I could get my heart fixed, I’d do it.

    And my heart got fixed.

    And I signed up for the ride.

    We begin the ride across the country for Blood:Water Mission on June 6, but as part of my training, Thursday I, along with two other cyclists will be riding 100 miles (also known as a century ride).

    They’ve done it before. In fact, one of them just rode 165 miles a few weekends ago.

    I’ve only gone 50 miles. Once.

    Most of my rides are 15-25 miles long. I think I had a 36 miler in there too.

    But 100?

    I twittered about it Wednesday and had so many people say, “I could NEVER do that!”

    Yeah – me too! I’m still thinking this is a crazy idea!

    But here’s the deal.

    I CAN.

    YOU CAN.

    If me, a non-athletic, pasty white, nerd-author girl can ride a bike 100 miles, so can you.

    Or maybe it’s not cycling, but there’s something you’ve been putting off.

    But you need to do it.

    You have a choice – say YES to the unknown, the scary, the uncomfortable, the exhilarating, the embarrassing, and you will be saying YES to an adventure you could never in a million years dream up.

    So, you may not be riding 100 miles today (in 90* weather, with 60% humidity — not that I’m paying attention to my Weather App…) but in solidarity, would you do SOMETHING a little out of the norm today?

    If you’d like to see where we’re riding, you can click here.

    If you want to donate to our ride (the money doesn’t go TO us, it goes to support Blood:Water mission) you can click here.

    And for the love, tell us what’s one crazy thing you want to do, or one crazy thing you’re going to do today!

    I’ll be back as quickly as possible to continue the series on slowness and let you know how the ride went! You can follow my Twitter here to know the latest!

  • Someone Who Goes Before You

    Now that the weather has been nice, I’ve been spending time outside on my bike preparing for the Ride:Well Tour. My first ride out was a few weeks ago. Last week, I went out with a friend (also a new rider) and mainly rode around some of the areas I had been running before. With one of us leading the way, it wasn’t so intimidating not knowing what was around the corner – say, if the shoulder disappeared or there was a dead squirrel.

    Monday, I went out by myself and took a road I had never ridden on before. It was a stretch of about 8 miles on Highway 96, and then you make a simple turn around at the Natchez Trace and ride back. I’ve driven this path before, and it looked like it had a decent bike lane (so the signs said) but when I was actually out on my bike, 75% of the time this “bike route” wasn’t even really paved (it had something on it, but it wasn’t asphalt) and was full of patches of slick gravel.

    Add to the mix an inexperienced cyclist, a 20 mph headwind on my first climb, and drivers of cars that do NOT comprehend the “cyclists get 3 feet of space” law and it ended up being a good ride to get under my belt for the sheer confidence-building element.

    —

    People my age often share the complaint that we lack mentors. We didn’t have them growing up and we’re either afraid to ask someone to play that role (or are afraid because we don’t exactly know what a mentor does) or we move into a mentality that figuring it out on our own is more beneficial to our learning.

    Here’s the thing. I believe anyone of any age can be, and needs to be mentored. But while we’re trying to figure out what to do in our own lives, there is a generation of children who are growing up without fathers.

    These are the children who have potential that can either be turned good, or turned bad, depending on the type of relationships surrounding them. Who will they be influenced by? Who will go before them so they can navigate down the dangerous paths they’ll find along the way?

    It doesn’t seem like a pressing matter now because we see them as children. They don’t really “contribute to society,” so to speak. They go to school and play sports and eat and annoy us in movie theaters.

    We really need to shift our mindset and realize they may be children now, but in twenty years…thirty years…these children will be making decisions for our country.

    They will be making decisions about the law and our health care.

    They’ll be the ones engaging in negotiations with countries at war.

    They’ll be forming new companies and developing technologies.

    They’ll become parents themselves.

    There are 27 million children in America growing up without fathers. These children are more likely to commit crimes end up (repeatedly) in prison, statistically speaking. We don’t talk about this much in the church (I don’t know why…maybe it seems too unsolvable?) but it’s an issue the church should – and could take lead on.

    I have been supporting The Mentoring Project financially for about a year or so. There isn’t a way for me to be directly involved in the mentoring process yet as they operate currently with churches in the Portland area, but here in Nashville I can do something. I can financially help this organization continue to grow, and I can tell people about it.

    I’d like to share with you a couple of videos. The first is of Don Miller explaining a bit of his heart behind The Mentoring Project and why he started it, and the second one is just an incredible (and short) mini-documentary on what The Mentoring Project looks like in real life.

    Watch the videos. If you live in the Portland area, check into being a mentor. If you don’t, consider financially contributing. It’s amazing what $10 or $25 will do to push this amazing organization forward. And share. Please share these videos with the people around you and share what The Mentoring Project is doing.

    Fatherlessness is America is a crisis. But it’s one that we can put an end to. It’s a story that can be rewritten.

    —

    Just to be clear, this is not a sponsored post in any way, shape, or form. I saw this documentary yesterday and wanted to share it with you.

  • Lightning100 Interview on Ride:Well & Blood:Water Mission

    Chase, who is a rider on the Ride:Well Southern tour and I did a short interview with Dan Buckley for Lightning100, a local Nashville radio station.

    I wanted to share it with you guys since his show is at 7 am on Sunday mornings, and I know most of you are asleep or getting ready for church.

    And most of you don’t live in Nashville.

    So here we are. Talking about why we’re doing the ride, what we’ve learned about the need for clean water and HIV testing, and other bits and pieces along the way!

    Just wait a moment for the audio player below to load and press play. RSS and email subscribers may need to click here to get to the interview.

    [audio:https://annemariemiller.com/audio/ridewell.mp3]

    —–

  • The Weight of It All

    I know it’s going to be a rough day when, within five minutes of leaving my house, I see a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am.

    It’s a rather odd thing to say, I realize, as I’m sure if you see a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am you probably don’t give it a second thought.

    For me, a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am reminds me of him.

    The one I trusted.

    The one I loved.

    The one, who I thought, loved me.

    But it wasn’t a real love, the way he loved me.

    It was a twisted “love” that made me believe it was okay for a man – a pastor – of his age, nearly ten years my senior, to love a girl like me…a sixteen year old.

    He drove a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am.

    Fortunately, many American cars don’t make it past their tenth birthday, so a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am sighting is a rare occurrence, but when I caught a glimpse of one as I pulled onto I-65 yesterday morning, I knew it was going to be a bad day.

    Instantly, I was pulled back into a time warp of my heart. I was 16 again. And 17. And I found myself innocently in love, and at the same time, unknowingly losing my innocence.

    —

    I steered my car mindlessly to the mall. A distraction.

    I needed socks.

    Wandering into Eddie Bauer, I ended up in a rather long conversation with a chatty salesman. He wasn’t trying to sell me anything. He was just really nice. And really conversational. I welcomed the distraction, but felt badly for not being fully present.

    Most of me was still back in 1996.

    I lost an hour in the mall, and popped over to Target. For what? I don’t remember, but I walked out with a cheap T-shirt.

    More distraction.

    I managed to swing by the post office, make it home, and get ready for a meeting with my manager about my new book’s release.

    Still, I was only half-present.

    That damned Grand Am.

    How can it still take me back?

    Back there…with him?

    I felt sick to my stomach.

    After my meeting, I drove back to Target.

    Cat litter. I forgot the cat litter.

    With my iPod on shuffle, I got lost in the winding roads of rural Franklin. An hour passed. Maybe two.

    I couldn’t find myself.

    Back to my house.

    I attempted to make myself look presentable.

    —

    Honestly, I wanted to bail so badly.

    I wanted to throw on some sweats and stare mindlessly at the television for hours until I fell asleep and it was a new day. But I had committed myself to doing the Blood:Water Mission Water Walk.

    I love Blood:Water.

    You guys know that.

    But I didn’t want to go.

    I didn’t want my half-present, half-missing self to go.

    Selfishly, of course.

    I didn’t want anyone to know anything was wrong.

    I didn’t want anyone to realize I wasn’t really there.

    I didn’t want anyone to look too deeply into my eyes and see the vulnerable, ashamed, naive sixteen year old who was currently inhabiting my insides.

    But…I needed to go.

    I needed to pull what was left of me out of my head and just do something outside of my own self-consuming and destructive introspection.

    I don’t even remember the ride. I took my buckets, ran into some friends, and shared some good stories as we walked a mile down to the river to fill them up.

    More distractions. It was good.

    At the river, after everyone had filled their containers with river water, Dan told us for our walk back, to try and keep silent.

    “Silence? No…anything but that, please,” I pleaded in my head.

    And, he added, we should try and keep the water inside since if we were really African, every drop of water that’s carried is a drop of precious life.

    The first fifty steps or so were easier than I imagined.

    With each step though, the bucket became heavier.

    The wind, colder.

    Keeping balance in order to not spill the water, more difficult.

    I stared down at my bucket, watching the water float back and forth and side to side.

    Finally…

    The weight of the water – this small act I was doing simply to represent a necessary and daily time consuming task for so many people around the world – had transported me back from 1996.

    I became present again.

    Me.

    Here and now.

    And my bucket felt so much heavier.

    I lost track of where my friends went. I took off my mittens to experience the sharp pain of the cold wind.

    I wanted to feel the pain.

    It wasn’t fair what these women and children had to do every single day.

    I tried to imagine carrying a bucket ten times heavier than mine for ten times longer than I carried it.

    How?

    How do they do it?

    It wasn’t fair.

    It’s water.

    Why is it so difficult for hundreds of millions of people to access it?

    I realize the goal of these events isn’t about what they can do for me. It’s about what we can do for others. And I don’t know what it was about the mile back carrying a small bucket of Tennessee water but something inside me healed.

    Something inside me was restored.

    Just a little bit.

    But that little bit was just enough.

    —

    Was it the community around me? A blend of friends, acquaintances and strangers coming together in such a powerful way?

    Was it simply pushing myself to pull out of the selfish cycle of negativity I had been dwelling in all day?

    Was it realizing a common, broken thread of humanity and a same common need for rescue?

    I don’t know.

    Maybe it was all of those things, and things I didn’t even see or feel or realize.

    But something happened underneath the weight of it all.

    The weight of my past and the most broken part of my soul.

    The weight of poverty and the most broken part of the world.

    Redemption only can be recognized when the broken is let out.

    And it can happen unexpectedly.

    And I am grateful.

    —

    The reality is 325 million Africans don’t have access to clean water. That is more than the population of the US. $25 provides an African clean water for life. Please take a moment and consider making a donation here.
    —

  • I Thought It Was Love, But I May Have Been Wrong

    I thought it was love, but I may have been wrong.

    It started out like any romance.

    Hopeful.

    Idyllic.

    A thrill of newness.

    Feeling like I had something to prove.

    —

    I’ve been working out on a fairly consistent basis since November 17th. In addition to my indoor cycling workouts during a very cold, very damp, very grey winter, when I’m not traveling, I’ve been training twice a week at Franklin’s own Chadwick’s Fitness.

    To provide some context, when I was in school (anytime between elementary school and graduation), I was extremely athletic. I could out-sprint just about anyone, guy or girl. In junior high and high school I played basketball ALL the time — in school, in summer leagues, in church leagues, in my driveway.

    Sometimes, my friend Julie and I would go up to a local college and flirt with play ball with some of the college guys. I exaggerate not when I say they were actually impressed by how good we were. Julie reads my blog. She can vouch for that.

    I loved to run in high school. It was a great way to rid myself of anger and frustration. My favorite route was about a mile. I’d take off from behind our house and sprint as fast as I could seven blocks to the closest elementary school and turn around and sprint back. It was a fierce kind of run, but tremendously cathartic.

    After I graduated, I still would run when time would allow.

    —

    Seven years ago I started having heart problems. I would try and exercise, but try as I would, I couldn’t get past half a mile without my chest exploding in pain. I didn’t really want to die, so…I stopped.

    For those who are new here, after six years of trying to get my heart condition diagnosed, I finally found a spectacular doctor in Nashville at St. Thomas Heart who found the problem and a month later, fixed it. I had a condition called AV Nodal Reentrant Superventricular Tachycardia (or SVT for short). For you who are click-averse, that means my heart had two more electrical pathways than a normal heart (you have two, I had four) and during times of exertion (or after too much caffeine even) my heart rate would escalate from a normal resting rhythm (60-100 bpm, mine is typically 80-85) to 220 or 240 bpm.

    Your body doesn’t get oxygen distributed properly when your heart beats like that.

    Anyway, I had surgery to fix it, it was successful, and I began exercising on my own. However, I lacked the same love for running that I had formed in my earlier years. I joined a gym, and found a trainer who pushes me to no end. I’ve been riding my bike to train for Ride:Well, and just trying to make up for six lost years of lost cardio.

    —

    I have a lot of friends who are exercise junkies. People who do things like triathlons and marathons for fun. I even met a guy a few weeks ago who did this ultramarathon thing. He and a friend ran 26-28 miles a day for three days, took one day off, and then would repeat it until they made their way from Mexico to Canada or something.

    REPEATING: THEY DO THIS FOR FUN.

    When I began exercising, I thought surely I would fall back in love with it. I remember how, when I was in high school, my feet would hit the pavement so hard when I was upset and how good I felt with the air moving through my lungs with each deep breath.

    I thought that love would come back.

    But it hasn’t.

    It’s not that I dislike exercise. I know it’s good for me. I know that even though I still haven’t lost much weight (two pounds in five months!) I am stronger and leaner than I ever have been. I know my heart and lungs are healthier. I know that there isn’t much I couldn’t accomplish physically.

    And all those things are great.

    But I still don’t love it.

    —

    I believe this may be one of those defining moments in life where I look at a situation and say, “Yeah, this isn’t the most emotionally wonderful thing in the world for me, but it’s what I need to do.”

    This may be a place where true discipline falls into play. I know every Tuesday and Thursday that I’m in town, I’m in the gym for at least an hour, about to throw up and gasping for air, and Brandon doesn’t let me stop. When I’m home during the week, I’m getting out and running up the hill by my house, or taking my bike out and not stopping when it’s “just enough” but truly pushing through that extra bit because it’s what I need to do.

    There are so many areas in my life outside of physical fitness that this story could plug and play.

    My relational life? Absolutely. I’d rather be a recluse, so to reach out and place myself in social situations is difficult for me sometimes.

    Emotionally? We’ll save that for another blog post, but let’s just say it’s hard to ask for help when you face the same demons over and over again.

    Spiritually? Paul eloquently describes that struggle in Romans 7.

    —

    I know one thing’s for certain – all of us have our broken pieces. The things we really want to do, and we really want to love, but we just can’t seem to get there. I’m not sure what yours might be, but I want you to know you’re not alone in it.

    It’s a fight. A big, fat, hairy fight. And it will be ’til the end.

    But that’s where relationships come in. And things like trust, and encouragement.

    Brandon, my trainer, has heard my fair share of complaining. He has witnessed my stubbornness and has seen me lower the weights on a machine so it’s easier on me.

    And he’s not one to let me get away with it. He adds the weight back on and keeps telling me to push.

    “I said 12? I meant 15! Three more! Why? Because I know you can.”

    The thing is…he’s always right.

    Is your motivation gone?

    You just can’t find that place inside yourself to continue on?

    Push through it.

    Why?

    Because I know you can.

    I know we can.

  • A Candid Interview on Addiction, Confession & Transparency

    A few weeks ago, I was invited to be the guest on the Samson Society podcast with Nate Larkin & David Mullen.

    We talked about everything from cycling across the country, to life as a former preacher’s kid, to women and porn addiction (as well as drug and alcohol abuse), confession, and living a transparent life.

    Most interviews I’ve done in the past don’t dig this deep – an uncomfortable deep – but Nate and David did a fabulous job asking questions and responding with truth and grace.

    You can stream or download the interview here.

  • Just Imagine

    Imagine what it’s like to walk down to the river that’s a few miles from your house.

    With a 20 gallon bucket, you let the water slowly spill in, filling it to the top. Lifting the bucket over your shoulder, you carry it back home.

    This is your water supply for the next day. You’ll use it to cook and clean and bathe and drink.

    You know it may make you sick — it has before, and every time you have a sip is like rolling the dice.

    But you also know you need water.

    Your baby needs water. He’s getting dehydrated because he has diarrhea. You question yourself.

    “Is it making it better…or worse?” as you look over at him. He lays quietly on a blanket inside your home. You can see the goose flesh run up and down his warm skin. He has a fever again.

    —

    Yesterday, we raised over $5800 for clean water.

    $1 provides 1 African clean water for a year. So, if you used that statistic, we’ve provided clean water for over 5800 Africans for a year.

    Next year, on my 31st birthday, we’ll do the same, to ensure this necessity doesn’t go away.

    5800 people with clean water.

    Some, maybe for the first time.

    Lifesaving, life giving, clean water.

    Water without hesitation — without risk.

    —

    Thank you guys for your sacrifice. It’s never too late to give.