Today I spent almost 8 hours in the saddle, biking 98 miles from Delta, UT to Baker, NV. We climbed 3,400 ft of elevation in 90+ degree heat with a strong headwind as we ran out of water multiple times.
Yes, biking is exhausting. It is exhilarating and rewarding beyond measure, but it taxes your physical and mental strength. And today, my mind was tested the most so far this summer. Five miles before I finished, I was so exhausted from the heat that I actually drank gatorade for the first time this trip. Immediately after I drank it, I told Leah, "This is disgusting!"
Today I reached the limit: when your body and mind are completely spent and you’ve used 110 percent of your willpower, but you still keep pedaling.
Once Leah and I reached the campsite in Baker, NV, I crashed. (Well, I ate a peanut butter sandwich, showered, then collapsed in the tent for nearly an hour.)
So to distract ourselves from the pain of biking, we listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks. I asked everyone what their form of entertainment was during each state.
In our early, naive days of biking through Virginia, Kentucky, and Illinois, most people were content with observing the passing landscape on our 50 or 60 mile days. As we were forced to navigate through small towns, I rarely became bored because I focused on not making a wrong turn (why did people let me navigate at all?)
Caralyn, Erin, and Edgardo started listening to music from the very first week, but it took most of us until the flat Katy trail in Missouri or the seemingly infinitely straight highways of Kansas to break out our headphones. Kansas was actually the only state that Leah listened to anything at all.
Some of our favorite audiobooks that multiple people listened to include: Educated by Tara Westover, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
Popular podcasts are This American Life (Devin), Planet Money (Bill), and Hidden Brain (Maile).
Back in Kansas, we also discussed our equivalent biking and running distances. Enjoy our attempts to show our love (or hatred) of running:
Comments