Indigenous ultracyclist from Wisconsin connects to her heritage during record-setting races

On day considered one of Alexandera Houchin’s ultracyclist races, she questions why even present up. 

“I’m not as robust as these individuals,” she thinks to herself.

However as time passes and she or he enters the third or fourth day of the competitors, the race thins out. She forgets about evaluating herself to others. She turns into deeply embedded within the race. It turns into her life.

Regardless of being alone, she by no means feels lonely. She goes to a non secular place. She faucets into the cultural classes she discovered as an Indigenous lady, rising up in Janesville and Evansville with an Ojibwe mom. 

“I’ve so many various communities touring with me in my coronary heart,” Houchin stated just lately throughout a wide-ranging dialog with Wisconsin Public Radio’s “The Morning Present” about her experiences as an ultracyclist.

Houchin is an Anishinabe lady and a citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, one of many six bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. She was additionally the primary lady to cross the end line on this yr’s 527-mile Colorado Path Race, posting a document time of 6 days, 2 hours and 33 minutes. 

Houchin considers ultracycling a motorcycle race that takes a number of days. She got here to the game nearly by accident. She wished to see locations in an economical means as a “bike vacationer,” or somebody who bikes as a way of journey. Houchin didn’t think about herself an athlete or somebody who might win a race. She wished to seek out her limits and search for neighborhood. 

She grew up disconnected from her ancestral roots, saying she had “tremendous colonized perceptions of Indigenous individuals ingrained into my head.” She thought she both needed to work within the biking world or she might be a Native particular person working for and uplifting her neighborhood.

Over the previous couple of years, nonetheless, she realized what communities think about custom modifications and evolves — and there may be area to steadiness what’s essential to her.

“Perhaps 50 years in the past, using in lengthy bike races wasn’t ceremony, however as a recent Native lady, it’s ceremony to me,” she stated. “It’s a spot the place I’m able to actually go deep inside myself and my spirit and determine how I may be one of the best relative.”

Houchin stated this permits her to be one of the best model of herself, too. Exterior of racing, she will get much less time to only suppose and replicate. Throughout a race, she might need all day for 5 or 6 straight days. 

Whereas she has extra time for pondering whereas racing, oftentimes consuming must be faster. A few of Houchin’s favorites embody Snickers, Milky Approach and Cool Ranch Doritos. She additionally retains a JBL Boombox along with her to hearken to music on the highway. 

Extremely-endurance races was extra underground, she stated. Web and social media made them accessible to extra individuals.

Houchin’s subsequent scheduled race, the Arizona Path Race, begins Oct. 20. She stated the race is about 800 miles and requires racers to disassemble their bicycles to hike down and throughout the Grand Canyon. 

The race will present extra time for deep thought and extra time to attach along with her heritage. 

“Little acts of exhibiting up remind my ancestors that we’re nonetheless right here,” she stated. “Despite the fact that I’m not on lands which are ancestral to me, I’m nonetheless exterior. I’m doing these bike races in the easiest way that I can.”