How Zwift Gave Me Back My Life

I can honestly say that 2023 was the most difficult year of my life, and being as I’m 68 years old, that’s saying something.

When life is good, my go-to is the bike to enjoy life. When life is a struggle, my go-to is the bike to cope with life. When life is mediocre, my go-to is the bike to lift my spirits. Since I was 10 years old with my trusty Schwinn 3 speed, being on a bike has been an essential. It’s like breathing to me.

Around 2017 I heard about Zwift from my LBS, but I just didn’t have the room in the little bungalow I had been renting for years. In July 2019, I had the opportunity to buy a 1400-square-foot ranch house that, to me, seemed like a mansion. Cycling really helped my arthritic knees, but in the colder months it was counterproductive and made them hurt more. So, in November 2019, since I now had plenty of room, I started on Zwift. Little did I know what a huge impact that decision would have on my life in the future.

In January 2023, I was emotionally torn and grieving the loss of my dog Morgan, who had died in my arms unexpectedly a little over a month before. She was so much more than merely my dog to me. It was just the two of us for years until we brought my cat Brian into the picture in 2021. When Morgan left us, Brian had a rough time of it. He was lost without Morgan. He had looked up to her and began imitating some of her habits and became a “dogcat”. Morgan was loved by people all over the world as a result of her portraying my coach on my YouTube channel I had started in 2020, Zwifting with Granny. I received hundreds of messages of support on Facebook, saying how Morgan had touched their lives. Losing Morgan was a major blow. I felt broken and went into a deep depression. To be honest, it still feels like she just died.

There were other stressful issues in my life going on as well. I fully understand that millions of people in life have it much worse than I did, but it just felt like constant pressure 24/7 and it was not easy for me to handle. Fortunately, one of the issues was not work. I work for and with some great people and we truly are there for each other inside and outside of work.

One issue that puzzled me was why I was always tired. I noticed it the most when I would get on Zwift on any course other than Tempus Fugit. I attributed it to my age, even though in retrospect, I had been lying to myself, inwardly knowing something had been wrong for years. I became the ostrich who hid her head in a hole. 

Of course, my first thought when I got really stressed out was always to get on the bike. But I was noticing that sometimes I didn’t even have the energy to do that. I tried getting up early to ride on Zwift before work. Sometimes I could, but mostly my rides would just have to wait until the weekend. If I did ride before work, it was maybe 5ish miles. Weekend rides would be 15 and more sometimes. But that was a push. When I was able to do that, I was physically done the rest of the day.

In March it became apparent that something was very wrong. I went to my doctor, who, to be honest, I had never been totally truthful with before because I have a distrust of doctors. I kind of trusted her. But I knew anything I told her would mean I would be redirected to see another doctor. However, now things were getting scary. As I told her what was going on, her expression became alarmed. She immediately ordered a bunch of tests and sent me to another doctor.

And so began the merry-go-round of doctors and tests in April, May, and June. I was told it was uterine cancer. We wouldn’t know what stage until the uterus was removed and biopsied. I was told that the uterine wall had become dangerously thin, and surgery had to happen quickly so that the cancer didn’t break through the wall.

I started thinking in terms of dying within the year. I accepted it as a distinct possibility. I took care of having my will, power of attorney, and a living will drawn up. But my main concern was Brian. Fortunately, both of my next-door neighbors offered to adopt him if the worst-case scenario occurred, and Brian was comfortable with both of them. It felt like an anvil came off my chest.

I tried to ride on Zwift as much as I could during those 3 months. Mentally, I felt like I was suffocating. I’m pretty much a lone wolf by choice. I like my solitude and freedom, but sometimes just one person handling everything gets tough. There were weeks I had spurts of energy, and there were days when I pushed myself to get on Zwift, hoping I would feel better afterward thanks to exercise and endorphins. Riding on Zwift and going to work had become my priorities to maintain some semblance of normalcy.

My surgery in July was difficult. A 2-hour procedure turned into 5 hours due to complications. I remember laying in that hospital bed, almost wishing I had never woken up from the surgery. I didn’t even think being on the bike would help me mentally. Work couldn’t even be a distraction. I ended up being away from work for 3 months, although every day I would hear from either my employers or my coworkers.

Once I was well enough to go home, I was told no bike riding for 2 weeks. My friend Dana, who knows me very well, insisted upon staying with me for a few days. I would sit in the living room from where I could see my Zwift setup. I would tell her I just want to sit on the bike, I’m not going to pedal it. Dana said no, you might fall off because you’re weak and dizzy. She wasn’t wrong. So, I downloaded Zwift onto my iPad and randomly clicked on people to watch them ride, just so I could feel like I was a part of it.

I was also told it would probably be a week or so before I could be fairly mobile around the house. The stitches in my abdomen made it very difficult to move. But after 3 days, I was able to get up out of my recliner without assistance, and walking around was no problem. Dana was shocked because she had just had an appendectomy and couldn’t do that for two weeks. It had to be from my core muscles acquiring some level of strength from riding on Zwift. Zwift had actually accelerated my recovery.

I was finally okayed to ride on August 4th. You had better believe the first thing I did was get on Zwift. But I could barely pedal because my body was just not cooperating. I felt drained. I got on Tempus Fugit and couldn’t even make it to the stone arch.

On August 10th I finally got the news I had been waiting for. The doctor walked in the room with a big smile and told me it was stage 1 and he had gotten it all out. I was in absolute shock. Stage one? I would need radiation, but that was a small price to pay. The obvious truth is that all the other issues going on wouldn’t matter if the end was coming soon anyway. 

I knew I had been given a gift, a reprieve. I promised myself I would start taking much better care of myself. I texted the people I work with to let them know the good news. I later learned one of my bosses, Ellen, had been walking to her car when she got my text, but then turned around and ran into the building yelling, “It’s stage one!” Another coworker in a company meeting interrupted it and told everyone the news. I also messaged several of my Zwift friends to let them know. They mean as much to me as my friends that I see face to face.

Now at least one problem, the big problem, had been solved. Some of the stress and depression started to lift. I kept trying to ride on Zwift, hoping that I would be able to actually do some miles. Finally, on August 17th, I was able to do a 7-mile ride. It was a major victory.

But now I had another concern. Earlier in the year I had signed up for the Great Cycle Challenge, where you pledge to ride so many miles to raise funds for St. Jude’s Children’s Cancer Research. I had picked 200 miles because at the time I figured I should be able to do 50 miles a week by September. It really didn’t matter how much you rode because the money was raised beforehand, but I wanted to do the mileage because now cancer was personal. The radiation I was going through every morning was making me very tired. There was a window of time between 11:30 and 1:30 where I would be okay, so that’s when I would ride, and then the rest of the day I was exhausted. I was finally able to work myself up to some longer rides and completed it the third week of September. Zwift was getting me stronger. I would never have been able to do those miles outdoors. Just knowing I could get off the bike and onto the couch helped me ride more.

I slowly started making videos again. Previously I had decided to just let the channel go because I could never see myself making another video without Morgan. But at a friend’s urging, since I had an existing platform that could be used to help people, I was able to finally make a video to inform my viewers of Morgan’s passing, as well as another video detailing my cancer journey. Since Zwift had been such a huge part of my recovery, I felt it was relevant to put on the channel. I figured if I could help just one person avoid what I had gone through, making the video would be more than worth it. I added my email address on the bottom of the screen, telling people to feel free to email me if they had any comments or questions. To my surprise, I received one email that said that video was meant for her. She was a fellow Zwifter and a loyal viewer of my channel. Upon reading it, I had actually burst into tears because I was so grateful I had reached the one person that video was supposed to reach.

I had also been trying to lose weight because I believe that was why I had the cancer in the first place. I was told by a friend who had retired from the medical field, and I also confirmed it elsewhere, that women between the ages of 60 and 70 who are overweight produce more estrogen. High levels of estrogen produce women’s cancers. I had already been through one cancer. I didn’t need another. Now I was on a mission to lose weight and get in shape. The same friend, with whom I had run a marathon back in the day, told me to walk instead of riding because it would burn more calories. I tried to explain to her what Zwift was, and she had seen my videos, but I think the only comparison she had was an old Schwinn exercise bike that had no resistance. I did try to walk and completed a mile or two here and there, and once even three miles. But for the time I spent walking, because of my bad knees, I was walking so slowly that I could burn more calories in a shorter time on Zwift.

So, on October 31st I began riding twice a day; at least 10 miles before work and at least 10 miles when I got home from work. I also played around with different calorie levels and what foods I could eat at what time until I was able to get it right. I knew that riding in the morning would raise my metabolism. I knew that riding at night would burn more calories as well as grounding me mentally from the day. This routine also started putting me over the 200 miles a week mark, which I was shocked to see. I started losing weight, which helped my arthritic knees because it was less pressure on them. For the first time in over a year, I was able to easily walk without a cane.

The whole time I was so grateful that I had something like Zwift that served so many purposes for me. It helped me emotionally, it helped me physically, it helped me mentally, and even helped me spiritually. Earlier in the year I had felt like my life was becoming a debilitating maze of major issues. Zwift made it so easy to come in the door, feed Brian, and get on the bike. The knowledge that I could ride on Zwift through these difficult months (barring a power failure) had literally started to give me my life back.

The 200+ miles a week carried over into December. I started thinking about doing the Rapha Festive 500, where you have to ride 500km in 8 days between December 24th to December 31st. It comes out to an average of about 39 miles a day. I could never do it before, but now it seemed achievable. I actually finished it a day early. That was one of my major lifetime achievements.

The other issues in my life started working themselves out, one by one. I do attribute a lot of that to Zwift. Riding helped my brain to clear up and allow other thoughts to enter which were constructive.

It was a rough year. I know it sounds weird for me to say a game helped me make it through the year, but to me, Zwift is much more than a game. It has allowed me to use the one thing I’ve always depended upon, my bike, to bring me to a state of mind where I can see more clearly.

As I now sit in my bike room, glancing over at my setup, I am filled with a sense of gratitude. I am sitting here with peace of mind and physically healthier because of Zwift. I have cultivated friendships with people I will probably never see face to face, but nevertheless hold a special place in my heart because we have the same basic love of cycling and we connect in that manner.

Zwift, indeed, gave me my life back.