A Work Anniversary and a Canceled Death March

Last week was a BIG WEEK here in Carville Legal Land. Last week was the culmination of five years of life as a solo practitioner. Many of you, in fact all of you, could be forgiven if you wanted to forget Friday, March 13, 2020 (I will return to that date in a moment, bear with me). That Friday was a simultaneously ominous and auspicious day for me.

As of that day I had practiced law in Ohio and Kentucky for almost a quarter century. When I was a law student I conjured an image of the next Gerry Spence sans the buckskin jacket. I read all his books and was set on his kind of professional success. Post law school graduation, I worked at a small firm, then a big firm, and then a billion-dollar insurance company. I had a stable and well-paying J-O-B, but I had a nagging quarter-century question I had to answer — could I make a go of it on my own? That was the plan in law school. I wanted to hang a shingle with my name on it. I figured if I did not hang that shingle after twenty-five years, I never would.

Good lawyers are not always rational. Walking away from a good job that I could have ridden into the sunset may not seem rational or “smart”, but I needed an answer to that nagging twenty-five-year-old question. It took a year or so of planning, but I was going to get an answer to that question. I circled March 13, 2020 on my calendar, set aside a little seed money, told only my family and closest friends, and planned to make The Leap. At 11:00 a.m. I had my annual performance review call scheduled. I thanked my boss for all the support over the years, and then I uttered the irreversible: “I quit.” There was more to it than that, but you get the gist. It literally felt like a jump off the high dive platform — exhilarating, irreversible, and full of optimism. I could not wait to swim to the side of the pool and tell my family and friends, “I. Did. It.”

Now back to that fateful date. I should have known that Friday the 13th would be an ironic date. Within an hour, at 11:59 a.m., Governor Mike DeWine's Stay At Home Order was in effect:

And with that Order, the water was drained from the pool. My “I quit” exhilaration lasted precisely 59 minutes! I guess I could have called my Boss back, that would have been rational. But I was stubborn and a little proud. And frankly, you need to be a little stubborn and a little proud to be a good litigator. Regardless, things seemed a little bleak. I had all my marketing lunches canceled in an instant and I did not have a single client on my Client List.

I cannot take the credit for some of the success that followed. Some might call it luck, others, like me, would recognize some divine intervention. I called one of those close friends to tell him I had made the jump off the High Dive Platform (and cry on his shoulder). It turned out he had a case that needed some attention for a utility company and that case was headed to trial. I jumped on the opportunity, we tried the case, and I had my first client! That case lasted six months, built up my bank account, and the phone rang on a few bike cases in the interim. God was smiling down on me.

Fast forward five years and a few more bike cases and I am still at it! God is good!

One of the perks of being a Bike Lawyer is that Group Rides, Gran Fondos, and Bike Races are a marketing opportunity, which brings me to Death March 2025. I have been doing Death March for well over a decade now. For the uninitiated, it approximates a scavenger hunt race. Instead of solving clues or retrieving paperback novel pages (think Barkley Marathons), you “solve” for a route in Hoosier National Forest combining eighteen cemeteries (with a picture of your race number at each cemetery gate). There are three mandatory cemeteries announced before the race and two mandatory cemeteries announced the day of the race. The remaining thirteen cemeteries are optional, but each is given a “time bonus” against your overall time. The idea is to have the lowest time possible based on time bonuses with the most efficient route, and route finding is often a race-day decision. The result is often Type 2 Fun (the race is in March after all) with a different experience every single time you race it. The format is a welcomed change from a point-to-point or clockwise/counterclockwise race. You have no idea where you are relative to your “competitors” until the very end of the race, which leaves a lot of room for fun and just experiencing the race.

I have written about Death March before, you can see that article here. I have done every single edition with Nate and we have never quite put together the perfect race between getting lost, losing race numbers, or somehow losing/deleting photographs. I am not sure if that is what keeps bringing us back anymore. We are “masters” racers now after all. While the “perfect race” is the ideal, I think the variety is what brings us back.

I am pretty confident that 2025 is the only time Death March has been canceled. And for good reason. Hoosier National Forest experienced tornado level winds and several roads were blocked with downed trees. While cyclists can get around trees, ambulances cannot. Race promotors have a tough job and cancelling a race can be tough call. On March 15, 2025, it was a no-brainer. If someone got hurt and emergency medical personnel could not reach them, things could and would go from bad to worse. So, I have no complaints there.

But...I was not going to get back in my truck and just drive home. It turns out that Travis and Besty (racing pals) had camped overnight, and we were not going to waste a drive and a weather window. We picked up four new friends in the parking lot with the same idea, and off we went for some gravel riding in Hoosier National Forest. I cannot say all the route planning and driving was a waste of time. We did not get to race but made new friends and caught up with old ones. Maybe I am getting old, but at the end of the day, that is what bike racing is all about.