Day 13: Mayerthorpe to Calgary

233 miles

I woke up and looked out of my bivvy. The sky was gray and rain was sprinkling down. Wait a minute.. my alarm hadn’t woken me up. The sky wasn’t supposed to be grey, it was supposed to be black. Oh no. I had slept through my alarm. It wasn’t 4:00 like it was supposed to be, it was 6:00. I had been dead set on waking up at four to get an early start on the day so that I could get to Calgary by 7:00pm. I had flubbed it from the start. There was no chance I was going to get to Calgary by 7:00pm, 230 miles in 12 hours of riding would be a big ask on fresh legs. With less than fresh legs, rain, and poor nutrition, there is simply no way I was going to make it. I was furious with myself. I was so so disappointed. I really only had one job, and now I couldn’t even give my self a shot to succeed. I was so mad I rolled over and went back to sleep. The last thing the world I wanted to do was get on my bike and in my mind it didn’t matter anymore if I started riding at seven or eight because I clearly wasn’t going to be in Calgary for the evening. I woke back up at eight and pulled myself out of my sleeping bag. I wasn’t going to make it to Calgary by seven, but I wasn’t going to make it anywhere if I kept feeling sorry for myself and clamming up. In the light drizzle I threw on my kit and hopped on the bike. It was by far my warmest morning at 46°. The rain had kept it from getting cold and for that at least I was thankful. I might have gotten on the bike, but I was still hopping mad at myself. My nerves were high strung and I was just really disappointed in myself. I almost never sleep through an alarm. I couldn’t believe that I’d done it at, in the moment, seemed like such a critical time. When I get really riled up on the bike, sometimes I can channel my energy and bike quite quickly, but other times all that anger and negative energy just drags me down and doesn’t help anyone. My body wasn’t warmed up enough to go fast, so all my anger was just stewing. At times like this I often resort to listening to classical music. It really does help calm me down tremendous amount. So I broke camp to the sound of Brahms and set off to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. It works too. The music brought a little bit of peace to my mind and the rain cooled me down in a very literal sense. It pretty much rained all day but I couldn’t really tell you when it started or stopped. Like the violins in Vivaldi’s  Four Seasons, the rain faded in and out from fog to drizzle to constant showers to downpour back-and-forth all day. It’s kind of funny to think of me smashing hills to the sound of Tchaikovsky, but the one thing I love about biking to classical music is that I find the music imitates nature and can be seen in the landscape in a more pure form. It’s not a spiritual thing, but I can see the art, and the music much more simply when I’m listening to classical music. Something about the simple acoustics and knowing that the songs are older than trees around me brings a peace of mind that I see reflected in the landscapes I bike through. Before big races I will commonly listen to classical music as well. Just to calm down and get in the right headspace. I’ve always found it kind of weird to be listening to Bach on the start line of an intense race, but I like to begin at a place of calm and build to a place of passion over the course of the race or the day. Classical music doesn’t push me to my limits, but it grounds me in the reality of my world. Regardless, through three hours of riding with only intensifying rain I was still disappointing myself. I was determined to get to Calgary regardless of the fact that I wasn’t going to make it in time to get my bike serviced so I stopped looking at my computer and just rode. Over the past year, I’ve been trying to work on living life with more grace. for me, grace, really entails, understanding, thoughtfulness, and a mindset of love and positivity in the face of doubt and anger. I read a lot of books and listen to a lot of interviews on the bike and otherwise over the past year on philosophy of worldview and I’ve been particularly drawn to the idea of grace. It’s a little bit reminiscent of Buddhism and the teachings of the Dalai Lama. Every time the Dalai Lama gives advice it seems to essentially boil down to ‘proceed with love or others in the world around you, with the same passion of love, as a mother, or father for their child.’ I wasn’t originally sold on this idea of the ultimate form of love being one between a parent and its offspring, but when I was listening to an interview with the Dalai Lama once he said ‘well nature can be one’s mother as well’ and I was really. This really resonated with me having spent so much time in nature and having seen how cruel and raw and beautiful mother nature really is and how some people have a connection with Mother Nature unlike a connection that can ever be shared with another human. All of this is to say that I have been trying to live with grace in mind this past year. Hang with me because I promise this is related to the struggles of my ride today. When I first started thinking about grace I understood that grace can take on many forms. There is the idea of treating others in the world with grace, grace in relationships essentially. There is treating the physical world around you with grace. The idea of proceeding with grace in mind. And the act of presenting yourself with grace. But for many months, but I failed to realize one of the central tenets of living with grace. That is, having grace for yourself. Being gracious to yourself just as you should be gracious to others. I am always my own harshest critic in sport, which has its benefits, but it’s also important that I learn how to balance self-criticism and a drive for excellence with an appropriate amount of grace. Obviously, things are not always going to go my way in life, especially on this trip, and if I clam up in my own self destructive resentment every time something goes contrary to what I expect from myself, then I’ll slowly break down under the weight of my own frustrations and angers, which carry a heavy burden on the mind. I know this, and others around me understand this as well. “Don’t be too hard on yourself“ I hear it all the time. It’s true, but sometimes I get distracted from reason. So while I was riding, I made myself think about showing grace to myself, and I rationalized my situation in my head. Yes, it would’ve been nice to get to Calgary by early evening, but it wasn’t gonna happen. I decided to still get to Calgary and then just get my bike serviced the next morning then I will be on my way. At worst my mistake cost me about five hours of riding time. That’s a lot of time, but it also kept my sleep schedule relatively intact, and perhaps that is worth more than five hours of riding. I think it is great that I am my own harshest critic. If I weren’t really hard on myself, I wouldn’t be out here riding in the first place. There’s no one looking over my shoulder telling me I have to do better or I messed up here or there. I’m the only one out here so if I’m not the one cracking the whip and hanging that carrot out in front of my nose then who knows where I would be. My criticisms and expectations fuel my drive, but like I said before, there is a happy medium that lives out there somewhere between drive and grace and I often lose sight of where that line is. Luckily I was able to ground myself around mid morning and I pedaled on.

It was a bleak type of grey. I looked up at the sky and could tell that the clouds were not going to break. They had all the telltale signs of clouds that were ready to give you rain all day. The road strung along in a straight ribbon, unbothered by the absence of the sun. The forest seem tired. It had a look to it, like it was ready for a break over winter. The leaves haven’t started to change quite yet, but they are growing old and are ready to drop. Like a worker with two hours left to go on a 12 hour shift, the trees here are making one last push before fall brings some respite. I went through a couple of patches where wildfires had left their mark. The tree stood as burnt shells, a reminder of what once was, a cemetery with no flowers. These areas must’ve burned recently since there was no new grasses or shrubs rooting out. A solitary hawk circled above, only adding to the feeling of morbidity. He suddenly broke his lopping circles in the air and took flight to the north. A bald eagle flew in from the south and made its presence be known. Perhaps it seems like a foreshadowing of what is to come, as the US border waits for me only 200 miles south of Calgary. There’s no urgent need to get to Calgary tonight, I lost all of the impetus to push for the speeds I had claimed the night before and today I allowed myself to make my routine breaks like normal. At a small service station in between towns I randomly stopped and was greeted by the sweetest German Shepard. He was beautiful and I couldn’t help but let him and play with him for a good 10 minutes. He was really a fantastic dog.The whole time I was there not a single other person pulled over. I had found a little gem. When I started riding again the dog followed me. I was worried he would get hit by a car, but he was really smart and ran off into the fields any time a car came by. He would run with me for a minute then come up right next to me and look up expectantly, so I’d reach down and scratch his head. He ran alongside me for 3kms before I decided he was far enough away from home. I didn’t want him to get too far from the service station so I sprinted at 30+ mph for a minute to try to shake him. He kept running after me for another couple of kms, but he couldn’t catch me. I would’ve loved to have spent more time with the dude but business was calling. I kept a foot on the pedal through the afternoon and pushed on steadily. All morning I had a very light tailwind, but it was nothing like what the forecast had promised. It wasn’t until I got 30 miles north of Calgary that the winds finally started bidding me along. After 200 miles of riding in the rain it seems like the winds finally wanted to lay down their weapons for a minute and allow me to seek a little bit of peace in the late hours of the day. After spending the majority of the last 2,000 miles in a headwind it was marvelous to be on the other side of the wind for a little bit. With only a reasonable amount of effort I surged along at 25 miles an hour under dark skies that slowly became illuminated by the light pollution of Calgary. The clouds hung low over the city, so from about 20 miles out I began to see a glow on the horizon as the flickering lights of the big city refracted through the clouds and created a beckoning lantern, guiding me towards my destination. I didn’t get into town till just after 11. To my utter disappointment, there were no food options open within several miles of my hostel. I was cold and wet and tired and decided that I would just go to bed. I’d been out of food for the last 30 miles to my stomach was begging me for some calories, but my mind was forcing me to call it quits. Going straight to bed with no food after 230 miles generally is not the best recovery strategy. Upon getting to my hostel I was struck another defeating blow when I was told it was too late to take a shower since quiet hours begin at 11. That didn’t really seem that logical to me as a two minute shower would not have woken anyone up, but I didn’t have the spirit to complain. I crawled in my sheets, soaking wet and fell asleep. The hostel would’ve been better off letting me take a quick shower because I was covered head to toe and grit and grim kicked up from the road. My sheets turned black and the room hung heavy with the stench of my drying clothes, shoes, and camping gear. But it didn’t matter. I was out like a light and I’d made it to Calgary.