Don’t let your innerspace become your Outerspace

I’ve had a few rough days since the last posting. My energy level has been sapped resulting in a serious lack of distance covered in my usual time. I’ve locked myself into some pretty strict deadlines for end of day locations due to  upcoming meetups with friends, and to receive packages sent from people. I made it into Kamloops in a decent time the other day, only to be given a one way climb on busy Highway #1 traffic with no shoulder, with 6-8% grades. To make it worse, a rainstorm came out of the blue and soaked me before I could get a chance and put on any rain gear. Stopping would have slowed traffic and caused accidents on the busy stretch as well. The only choice was to keep pedalling, dodging the river flowing down the hill along with the massive amounts of garbage it was bringing along.

Sitting out the storm resulted in a few hours lost for my day, which I needed to use to pick up a box from Greyhound to return my old laptop. I had prepared the system to be backed up and moved to a replacement system earlier in the day. Another climb for 4km got me to the store where I needed to pick up a new computer, but guess what! No Stock, and no suitable replacements for me.

I left empty handed, feeling that I put myself through 3 hours of torture for nothing, cursing along the way, over to my Warmshowers Hosts. My GPS was telling me that I had 505km to go, and I had to rely on alternative directions and methods of getting there, resulting in me arriving way later than what I had told them. They were fantastic, feeding me, and enlightening me with cycling stories, but I couldn’t help but hold onto a chip on my shoulder from the last 3 hours of my day. It took the rain and some failed expectations to cloud me over turning from cheerful to unpleasant. I couldn’t sleep until about 3am, knowing that 8am was coming soon.

The next day, skies showing signs of sun I pedaled off to my destination, Vernon taking a route that was suggested by the previous nights host. 122km was on the estimated plan, and I struggled climbing the hills out of Kamloops, taking my average speed to 9km/h – I’m double that normally. I stopped and had lunch figuring that I’d recharge a bit with a break, trying to take in some very wonderful rolling scenery with open ranged livestock, mountain goats, cows and horses dispersed between forests of Ponderosa Pine, prickly pear cactii and Sage brush. I ran out of fuel and couldn’t get my pasta to soften properly, but ate it anyways. Then came the rain.

This time I scrambled, put on my clothes and proceeded to cycle – Immedfiately feeling a leak in my pants. I’ve spoken about this before, but now I was fuming. $200 for a pair of cycling pants, and they don’t work a single bit. I devised plans to write a public letter to them, ripping into them, demanding something to be fixed, cursing, and glaring long after the rain stopped as my pants underneath were now soaked including the insides of my boots (again). Bike becoming heavy, with the newly added load of 2 months of mail, and a computer box I couldn’t return, I struggled up the normally easy rolling hills. Chafing was starting making me very uncomfortable, seriously burning my bits.

I stopped many times throughout the day, no energy, trying to load myself up with food from the convenience stores, not helping with the limited selection of chips, chocolate bars, energy drinks, and just plain out unhealthy offerings. Stopping at the side of the road after my 8th hour, only travelling 80km by this time I became overly frustrated and lied down, napping on the shoulder. The winds were strong and I was now down to 4km/h  going down hills! I started questining my sanity, and hadn’t smiled at all to any passing cars. Any people I would run into in stores would get brief one word answers from me and any locals were not giving, nor getting any time of day. Caught in a funk I spiralled downwards, pushing myself until I made it to my destination, which turned out to be an alright stop – outside of Vernon on Westside road in an Indian Reservations community park. They saw me come in and were looking well after it became dark for me, but I was stealth. Nothing but 3 cans of beer for food and porridge packages. I drank them and went to sleep. 10.5 hours of cycling doing me in.

I awoke many times throughout the night, finally wide open. I thought about the past few days, how that I didn’t want to go through another set of those – making me miserable, and really thinking what were the overall causes of it. Was it because I had higher expectations? Did I plan out my route too strict? Did I not leave room for errors? Did I just need to chill out?

I thought about one of the mantras I think about quite often – Don’t let your Innerspace become your Outerspace – basically, I look at it as if you’ve got something going on in your head bothering you, don’t project it onto other people, as they’ve got enough to worry about. I stopped to think who could help me get out of the funk. The list equated to 0 people. Just me – Really I’m the only one out here. I’m homeless, and rely on the good willed nature of strangers, Warmshowers Hosts, family to help me acheive this journey. Do I want to make their experience and memory of me a negative one? I’ve been on the road for nearly 45 days and these 2 are riding over me like a black cloud, memories of a dark storm that had the potential to cause some significant damage. Packing up the tent today, I told myself I was going to have a good day, not complain when something goes out of the ordinary, but look at it with a different set of eyes, realizing it is all part of the adventure – Like really, what do I have to be upset about? I’m following my dreams doing things that so many people wish to do.

Hungry, I pedalled the 20km to the nearest store, and had a breakfast of wonderful pastries, skipped the coffee, and went towards today’s destination of Westbank, BC. It’s the backroad to Kelowna, not very used, crappy shoulder, and some serious climbs. I managed to have the computer register 12% climbs! The sun was shining, the on the other side of the climb was a fast descent, and I looked forward to the descent not letting the first part of the challenge break me.

My toes have been giving me some issues lately, I can’t put pressure on my right foot, otherwise I experience serious amounts of pain. I hit a gravel patch, pulled my right foot out of the Powergrips and placed all my weight on the foot. It was such a shock I tipped over, flying off the bike faceplanting into the gravel. I lied there, covered in dirt, sweat, scratches, with all my handlebar bag contents strewn all over the side of the road and just started laughing. I laughed for a good minute talking to myself about that I wanted to organize that bag anyways some day before moving forward.

It wasn’t that far after I realized that if this had happened the day before, I likely would have started cracking pretty hard, with mind running places deep and dark. I attribute today to myself waking up, thinking about the positivity that there is in my life, and how I’m not going to let a few wrinkles not get me down and shape my or other peoples experiences. With that, I met 4 strangers today with a big smile on my face, shared great conversations, made it to my family’s house in good time, and continued to be positive. Optimism over Pessimism, if you let your negative thoughts take over, it’ll emit from your energy, so – I figure if you are having a bad day, why not stop and pull out something that assists in getting you out of your ‘woe is me’ funk and continue being awesome by smiling?

Just some late night thought’s I wanted to put to the blog. This isn’t the last of the tough days, but I know to watch out for them. I’ve just hit 3000km, a pretty impressive feat for me just in BC!

[maptype=G_NORMAL_MAP;gpxview=all]