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Nobody shows up here hoping the training race will be easy.

Riders straddle their bikes and stand, one foot in the roadside grit along River Road, the other already clamped hard into a pedal. Sculpted legs sprawl, soon to be filled with blood, lactic acid and a desperate desire to quit, an impulse that eventually happens for everyone. Over time it’s possible to learn how to ride against the pain, to tap it, until your effort’s as pure as water gushing from the side of an Alp.

They hope they’re ready. And if they’re not, well, there’s still next week. And the week after that. And then next year. Or so they hope.

It’s 5:30 on a Tuesday evening, a summer evening, and it’s time for the training race.

For nearly 30 years, cyclists have met to ride against one another in this informal, 32-mile gutfest that travels south down River Road toward St. Gabriel. It’s a lasso-like course that goes past the Plaquemine Ferry, then loops back on itself. The only prize is bragging rights. But riders push themselves like they’re competing for a million-dollar reward.

The pack gains speed, and within a few miles, the fence posts and pastures along the Mississippi River levee blur past, one blending into another. Just past Gardere Lane, the road bends, then bends again and a few of riders make silent cross signs. Others shout, “Single file!” and sometimes on a good day the entire pack obeys, moving from a thick, rolling parade into a long, lean line. Everyone’s going too fast now to see the faded blue hat hanging on a fence post, wrapped around what used to be flowers a few seasons ago. But they remember.

June 11, 2002 was, after all, a day not so different from this one. Too hot to be riding. Too dry to stay home. Too much of the week’s debris ahead not to squeeze in a good training race. Too much time spent in the saddle not to try to prove, once more, for another week, that life isn’t stagnant. That the body gets stronger. The mind gets more focused. Youth lasts and lasts, as long as you’re willing to put in the time.

The truck seemed to come from nowhere, swerving where the paint told it not to, but obeying the stricter laws of physics until it plowed into the pack of cyclists.

LSU computer science professor Steve Seiden, 38, was killed on the spot. Timmy Cappo, 17, died a few hours later at the hospital. Six more were wounded.

Those who were there talk about the bullet-like sounds of metal mixing with flesh. They use words like battlefield, and chaos and road kill to describe the scene of the accident. My husband, David, is one of the survivors. He doesn’t talk about it much at all. He lost a good friend that day. Steve wasn’t someone who came to the house for supper, but he was a swashbuckler on the bike, and David loved riding with him. Then there was Timmy, a young talent who just might’ve made it to the professional ranks. Others were hurt, too. Their brains bruised, their legs twisted, their hearts broken.

As the uninjured made their way out to scrub blood off the pavement the day after the accident, a few of them swore they’d never ride that road again. They’d seen enough. They had families to take care of. Lives to live. No sport was worth this bloodshed.

David spent the rest of the summer recuperating from his multiple internal injuries. Winter fell, and what happened June 11 seemed even darker in the cold, when few ride their bikes. Then came spring, and the inevitable question: Ride the training race? Or pick up another, safer sport? I watched as my husband suited up and climbed onto his bike.

A cyclist myself, I’d long avoided the training race. It had too tough a reputation. I wasn’t interested in the grunting and sweat. The way nobody gave away a thing. Still, I had a strong urge after the accident to go out there. I wondered if it was some misguided belief that I could protect the man I loved. I recalled hugging Steve’s widow at the funeral, her newborn son, who never got to meet his father, propped nearby. A recognition passed between us. She’d lost. I’d gained. Her black eyes seemed to challenge me: What will you do now? I dug in my closet, threw on my black shorts and European team jersey—the cyclist’s suit of armor—and headed out to River Road with David.

Standing in the grit, waiting for the group’s signal to head on out, I realized my hands were shaking. As the group rolled forward, though, nobody else seemed bothered. What happened on this road the year before might as well have happened in Mesopotamia millions of years ago. Clearly, what mattered—the only thing that mattered—was this day. As the pace picked up, my mouth began to hang open in hopes that the mounting speed would help shove a bit more oxygen down my throat, into the capillaries of my lungs, quadriceps and calves. The world shrank. An animal part of myself I hardly knew existed took over. Whatever was happening in other places, whatever would happen tomorrow, whatever happened that June afternoon that left so many lost, none of it mattered now.

Then it was over. My legs and lungs gave out as I watched the group break away. Rolling back home, alone, I understood why it was so important to come and participate in the training race. I passed the spot where Timmy’s lonely blue cap swayed on the Mississippi’s breath. I thought about Steve and the baby he left. Life is full of terror. Most of the people you meet have some battle scar. Some dark thing they never talk about. Some violent vehicle that, without explanation, has smashed into some beautiful afternoon.

Yet the living go on. We keep loving. We keep working. We keep riding our bikes as motors whir by our ears and, sooner or later, we learn how to laugh at it all again.

Amy Alexander is a writer and mother who looks forward to returning to cycling after the birth of her second child.