The road to recovery

“I’m just trying to get in as many miles as I can,” Jennifer Goodbody said earlier this week, having just returned to Chico from a roughly 40-mile morning bike ride to the foothill community of Cohasset.

The nearly 20-mile climb is just a drop in the bucket compared to the miles she plans to cover next week. On Sunday (Oct. 5), Goodbody, an Army veteran injured in Iraq in 2004, will join other wounded soldiers for the UnitedHealthcare Ride 2 Recovery California Challenge, a 465-mile bicycle trek from Palo Alto to Los Angeles.

Goodbody attained the rank of staff sergeant during her six-year military career, which was cut short when a mortar exploded near her. She sustained a traumatic brain injury as a result of the attack and was given an honorable discharge from the military. But as she readjusted to civilian life, she realized her personal battles were far from over.

“A couple of years after Iraq, my mom passed away, and I went through a severe episode of depression,” Goodbody, now 41, said during a recent phone interview. “Then, just as I started coming out of that, the PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] started manifesting and I thought I was going completely crazy.”

Today, she remains greatly affected by her injury and illness. Goodbody said she is hyper-alert much of the time, has short-term memory issues, and continues to fight depression. She said she sometimes finds it difficult to be around people and go out in public, noting that she relies on a service dog for assistance. Her symptoms were once much worse, however, requiring up to 10 medications to manage, until she discovered in 2011 what’s proven to be a more effective treatment—cycling.

“I was sent to Women’s Trauma Recovery Program at the Palo Alto VA hospital,” Goodbody said. “That’s where I found cycling. It became part of my treatment plan, and I’ve been riding ever since.”

That same year, Goodbody also became involved with Ride 2 Recovery, an organization that raises money to support cycling programs at military and Veterans Administration locations around the United States, using the sport to help vets with all manner of injuries. R2R hosts about a half-dozen annual Challenges—city-to-city endurance rides—throughout the country, and sometimes overseas (the Normandy Challenge, for example, follows in the footsteps of American troops who landed on D-Day during World War II). Riders with severe physical injuries participate by using recumbent, tandem and hand-operated cycles.

The annual California Challenge, from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, is the longest and most grueling of the endurance events. It also was Goodbody’s introduction to R2R rides, and the race she’s currently training for. “Even though it will be my fifth time on this Challenge, I still struggle every time,” she said. This year’s ride is special to her because it begins at the Palo Alto facility where she was first introduced to cycling.

Goodbody has ridden in so many other Challenges—throughout the United States and in France, Belgium and Italy—that she’s forgotten the exact number. She said the R2R runs, and her almost-daily year-round cycling routine, has been essential to her recovery.

“Cycling has been instrumental,” she said. “I don’t think I’d be where I’m at now without it. It’s so part of my life now that I can’t go without it.

“It does all of the jobs that antidepressants do for you,” she added, noting she now takes only two medications, and hopes to whittle that to one by year’s end.

Goodbody said the most appealing part of participating in R2R is the camaraderie and teamwork shared among the veterans, whom she describes as an amazing group of people. R2R became even more a part of her life recently, as she was hired as the organization’s director of veterans’ assistance in August.

As R2R challenges are also public awareness and outreach events, several celebrations are planned along the course. In Solvang, on Oct. 9, for example, the riders will be treated to a dinner reception and a performance by comedian Dennis Miller. With so many R2R Challenges under her belt, Goodbody has met a few other celebrities in her day, including when Tony Dorsett and other NFL players joined the vets on a Texas Challenge. “We’ve done some outreach to the NFL, because football players sometimes experience the same type of brain injuries sustained by soldiers,” she explained.

And who was the most impressive celebrity she’s met through her cycling ventures?

“Oh, my gosh, I met the king of Belgium,” Goodbody gushed, referring to a July 2012 run-in with Albert II.

“It was so cool and really funny … I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say, because I’d never met a king before. He was like a really nice grandpa.”