"The thing that I'm good at is endurance," Rebecca Fjelland Davis (who also goes by Becky Brooks) told me over Zoom one morning in June. I certainly believe her. 

Rebecca is a MidWest Book Award-winning author. She has published three young adult novels and over ten children's books since retiring from teaching English and Humanities at South Central College in North Mankato. 

She is also an accomplished ultra marathon cyclist. In 2001 and 2002, she won the National 24 Hour Challenge women's overall race, which was the largest 24 hour cycling race in the U.S before it sunset in 2021. Cyclists rode as many miles they could over a 24-hour period. In 2018, she returned to the race to smash another record in her age group, riding a total of 345.9 miles. The longest she got off her bike during that race was 10 minutes. 

A year later, she won her age bracket in the World Time Travel Championship, an endurance race in the desert near Borrego Springs, California.

She said her two passions—long distance cycling and writing novels—are quite similar. For starters, half the work is just getting out there. 

"There are days [when I feel], 'Oh, I just want to sit in my chair and drink coffee. I don't want to go for a ride.' And as soon as I'm out there, I'm so glad I'm there. I've never regretted going for a bike ride in my life," she said. "Every time I sit down and dive into a story, I feel the same way." 

A lot of her best ideas come while riding, so it's only natural that cycling finds its way into the stories. In Chasing Alliecat (2024), two teen girls are mountain biking in the forests near Mankato when they discover the badly beaten body of a priest. Then one girl disappears. 

Last year, Rebecca sponsored the Minnesota Cycling Association Mountain Bike League and sold her books at almost every high school and junior high race in the state.  

"I got a lot of younger readers, more than I ever have before, and it was so much fun," she said.

Rebecca is based in Mankato, and many of her stories are set in the Midwest. Riding around town, she often passes the locations where scenes from her book take place. She even learned that a Mankato-based book club went on a Chasing Alleycat tour of the town after finishing the book. 

Her latest project is set between Mankato and St. Peter.

"I had one editor reject it and say, 'You need to make a fictional location. You can't have a setting that's real for a fictional story,'" she said. "So that's a sign of how subjective all this is. I had many people tell me they love being able to recognize the places. So I'm sticking to my guns on that one."

As an avid audio book listener, Rebecca said she always wanted an audio version of one of her stories. As a professor, she read to students during every course. 

"I just feel like it's an important way to convey story," she said. "Storytelling is older than writing books."

With a grant from Prairie Lakes, she recorded herself reading Chasing Alleycat at Triple Falls Studio in Mankato. The process was yet another test of Rebecca's endurance.

"I felt pretty confident as a reader until I realized how tired I would get, and how much more stressful it is reading to a recording, rather than reading to a class where you can see people's faces," she said.

But now that the book is available on Audible, it can reach even more audiences. Three decades ago, Rebecca taught a student who was progressively going blind. Since graduating, he's reached out to her periodically to see if any of her books are available on audio. 

"He listened to it right away," she said. "It was worth it just for that."

While riding her bike, Rebecca can enter a meditative state. There's just the steady rhythm of pedals, the low hum of tires on dirt or pavement, the scenery flashing steadily by. Her mind focuses on the task at hand and all else slips away.

"Even when you're tired and sick of it, you dig in and continue. And writing a novel is very much like that."