About Cyclist: "Just enjoy the ride and make friends along the way!!!" Myrna Ramírez Mdáhuar

December 10, 2022

About Cyclist: "Just enjoy the ride and make friends along the way!!!" Myrna Ramírez Mdáhuar

I am the youngest of 4 and the only girl, I have two amazing kids, my daughter Renée Lucero age 21, and my son Diego Lucero, age 18 . I have a Bachelor´s degree in Conference Interpreting, a Master License as Court Interpreter, and I just became Federally Certified as a Court Interpreter; I also hold a Certificate in Family and Individual Counselling.

I have always practiced sports; ever since I was 6 years old my mom would enroll me in everything, I did ballet, tap dance, Hawaiian and Tahitian dance, gymnastics, swimming, tennis, and volleyball). Volleyball became my favorite sport at age 12 and I quickly became very good at it. At age 13 I was already part of the Mexican National team as an apprentice. At age 14 I became the Rookie of the Year and won several trophies as Best Player of the Year and Best Player of the Tournament.

At age 16 I was offered a sports scholarship to play volleyball at a High School in Japan, which I almost immediately accepted and moved to Japan in pursue of my dream, together with another teammate age 15. We went to school in the mornings and trained volleyball every single day of the week, plus training and games over the weekends. Before graduating and into my senior year, I was scouted by a few companies to play professionally in their volleyball teams. After a lot of thought and convincing from their part, I ended up accepting and playing professional volleyball for a Japanese company named Unitika, which was the most strict and rigorous team of all. My job was to train 8 hrs. a day and play at the different tournaments for the company year-round. I learned a lot about discipline and rigorous training, which is part of the Japanese culture at large and even more so when it comes to sports.

I wanted to do more than sports in my life, so I decided to quit playing volleyball in Japan and went back to Mexico, decided to enroll in the University, but I was offered another opportunity to play volleyball abroad, this time in Spain (The Canary Islands), which I also accepted and spent 8 months playing for a small team there.

During my volleyball career, I also played in several International Tournaments representing my country with the Mexican National Team.

My cycling career started in 2017, when I did my first novice ride with Shawnee Trail Cycling Club, and I remember it took me a while to move from regular tennis shoes to cycling shoes with clips; after that first ride, my next ride was already in a D group and not long thereafter I was riding B group, until I finally stepped it up and started riding the A group and shortly after, I was already in the infamous “Blitz” group.

In 2019 I joined the women´s “Crest” racing team, but I was still too slow to race and didn´t really know anything about racing. My first race was Hotter than Hell in 2019 with “Crest”.

Shortly after that first year, the “Crest” racing team became Lyniate/RBM, and ever since I have been racing with the Lyniate/RBM women´s racing team.

I am currently riding mostly Lyniate/RBM group rides, and sometimes Shawnee trail and Los Locos.

My goal for 2023 as a cyclist is to ride more and build on my endurance by doing longer rides. With respect to races, I would just play it by ear, do my best to get stronger and faster and be able to ride and help my teammates.

I’d also like to do some riding abroad and in my country-of-origin Mexico, as well as to practice climbing, and really just enjoy riding my bike and keep riding with my cyclist family and friends.

My bike is a Canyon Aeroad CF SLX 8 Disc Di2 and I love it. This has been the best bike I have had. It´s really aero and it also looks so neat.

Right now I am not doing anything else but cycling as exercise; however, I am planning on doing some weight lifting next year, especially for my arms, as well as core training.

Races are unpredictable, sometimes you work hard and you feel at your best, but you end up having a bad race. Becoming a state champ was uplifting, but unexpected. Carsten, my husband, signed me up for the race (which he usually does) and I was hesitant to do it. I was told it was a hilly road and hills are not my strength. On top of that, it was my birthday and I was not sure I wanted to go through all that “pain” on my birthday; but we ended up driving to the race venue on the same day since the race started at 2:00 pm; I remember it was very hot, so two major challenges – Heat and hills.

What I have learned from sports and life, in general, is that you need to keep an open mind to learn from others, you must always stay humble and remember that this is not a competition against others, it is a competition against yourself every day to try to get better.

Ride your bike as much as you can, that´s a must to keep your legs moving and don´t lose strength and muscle memory.

Something that has helped me a lot is riding with fast and strong riders, it´s always a challenge to keep up with them, but you´ll get stronger and faster and you will also learn racing tactics.

Do your best to better yourself, support each other whenever you can, and enjoy the ride. Making good friends on the way and enjoying every ride is what matters the most, winning a race becomes a secondary gain.

I am very grateful to my husband Carsten Cruse, a very strong rider and very supportive, we have enjoyed riding together so much, as well as my teammates Kellie Nelson, Mary Goodell, Kelci Molina, Shawnita Sterett, and Amber Haglund who have taught me and supported me a lot. It´s so much fun riding with them. Racing smart is one of the so many things I´ve learned from them and from my male teammates.

Just enjoy the ride and make friends along the way!!!