How Cycling Gave Me a Second Act in Retirement
Updated May 2026 I retired in 2019 after 38 years as a teacher — most of that time spent in special education. But retirement didn’t feel like retirement. Not really. At the time, I was running a nonprofit food truck that employed people with disabilities. It was a mission close to my heart, and the hours were just as demanding as my classroom had been. So while I had technically stepped away from teaching, I was still going full speed ahead — just in a different direction. We ran that food truck hard through the summer and into the fall. Then, like every year, we shut down in November. That’s when things began to feel different. That’s when it started to feel like… maybe this was retirement after all. But just a few months later, the pandemic hit — and like everyone else, I was suddenly back at home, full-time. But that didn’t feel like retirement either. It felt like survival. We were locked down, routines were broken, and for a while, time stopped meaning anything. I should say...
