Southwest Summits Tour
How I spent my March.
(I wrote a TL;DR account of this trip for Rapha shortly after finishing. Below is the much wordier version.)
Santa Fe and the Beginning
Pedaling south out of Santa Fe on a gravel rail trail, my simmering, nervous-but-excited energy of finally doing the thing is balanced with a kind of pre-emptive melancholy creeping in around the edges. I am planning on being out for about three weeks. That’s a long time to be inside your own head, away from the familiarity and implicit support of home. The specter of so much ground to cover and so much saddle time before me lurks as a heavy weight in my emotional background. Lots of saddle time is the point, obviously, but the outsized scope of the task looms, un-ignorably daunting. The only thing to do is get on with it.
My plan is an approximately 2300-mile loop through New Mexico and Arizona, starting and finishing in Santa Fe. Along the way I’m hoping to link running/climbing ascents on a handful of desert peaks—the Organ Needle outside Las Cruces, Baboquivari Peak southwest of Tucson, Weavers Needle in the Superstition Mountains northeast of Phoenix, Brahma Temple in the Grand Canyon and the Knifes Edge on Albuquerque’s Sandia Crest back in northern New Mexico. I’ve chosen each summit for its striking appearance and technical difficulties that won’t make any of them a simple walk-up. In addition to being a cyclist, I’m a runner and a climber, and these identities invariably inform my choices of objectives in the mountains.
Once away from the hustle and bustle of Santa Fe and Interstate-25, New Mexico doesn’t delay in delivering wide-open, windswept high desert. A few cattle, some barbed wire, juniper trees and sagebrush; lots of sun, lots of space. I set about crawling across it. The whole first day, though, I find it difficult to escape that enormity of simply beginning. The magnetic tug of the familiar—the largely predictable comfort and ease of normal life—seems more prominent than it usually is for me at the start of a long tour. Keeping those feelings of meloncholia at bay takes more effort than I expect.
The first morning waking up on the ground always helps with making the break from day-to-day life feel more defined. Abrupt, maybe, but real and tangible. My last piece of planning and strategizing in the parking lot of Iconik Coffee Roasters in Santa Fe concerned which sleeping bag to pack. The +20F model or the half-pound heavier one rated down to +5F? I know, 8oz sounds like a silly, almost trivial distinction, but test-pedaling in a back alley, my bike felt untenably heavy— per usual at the beginning of a trip—so I waffled.
The sun was shining brilliantly in Santa Fe, but the blustery breeze blowing through the parking lot also had a distinct chilly bite to it. March 3rd, it’s technically still winter. It’s a long trip. Rest is important. I packed the warmer bag. Judging by the heavy frost on my protective cocoon of feathers on the first morning—and yet my cozy comfort nestled within—I feel validated in bringing the extra insulation.
A Shared Purpose
From Santa Fe in the north to Las Cruces in the south, I follow the nearly 500-mile New Mexico Off-Road Runner bikepacking route. Covering mostly unpaved roads—scouted and vetted by an editor at bikepacking.com—my pedaling feels purposeful, with an underlying link to a path shared with a larger community. Surprisingly, even such an abstract connection lends important motivation that I don’t take for granted as New Mexico’s typical blustery spring conditions are providing plenty of friction to my progress. On the very first day, blustery was actually even a bit of an understatement. I spent the afternoon fighting a 30mph+ wind out of the west, with gusts over 55mph. It feels absurd, grinding along into a block headwind on flat ground at 7-8mph.
On day two, I find a less emotionally unsettled rhythm in my pedaling. I wend south, along the easterly margin of the Manzano mountain range and pause for a bleak breakfast at Rays One Stop in the hamlet of Tajique. Seated on the concrete, back resting comfortably against a wall bathed in brilliant morning sun, I down a pair of saccharine, boxed fruit pies, a Jumbo Honey Bun and the first of many, many Starbucks Mocha Doubleshot tallboys. The convenience store touring diet is eventually disgusting, but in the first day or two the excuse to eat a pile of junk food—it is convenient, and all that’s available in some places—actually carries a glimmer of delight. No matter how riven with corn syrup and preservatives and devoid of real nutritional value, these products (calling them “food” doesn’t quite feel right) are actually designed in a lab somewhere to be delicious to our lizard brain taste buds. And it works. For a while.
Fuel tank topped off, I pedal uphill into the Manzanos, climbing a forest service road amongst blustery gusts above 8000’ before plummeting back to the desert floor. My loaded bike swoops through loose bends and floats over rubble. The engaging riding and majestic views boost my mood to a place that is unfazed by the roaring gale out of the northwest. As I drop into the Rio Grande river valley for the first time—it is the geographic touchstone for the entire traverse south through New Mexico—I decide to deviate from the prescribed Off-Road Runner GPX and instead follow sandy and muddy river and levy double-tracks the last couple of hours into the ranching and university town of Socorro. I want a real resupply, including a big salad and maybe a burrito that doesn’t require sodium benzoate to taste fresh.
After my early-ish dinner, I realize that the shorter daylight hours of March—relative to summer, when I more typically have taken a tour of this scale—will be a challenge on this trip. Nevertheless, I climb the big Highway 60 hill northeast out of Socorro—straight into that wind—in the dark. My spirit is broken at the high plain summit when the wind starts carrying a few spits of rain. There’s virtually no natural cover up here, so when my headlamp scans a lone juniper in the ditch, I pull over. Improbably, on the side opposite the highway, a small alcove has been hollowed out amidst the tree’s tight branches, creating a perfect place to tuck away out of the wind despite being only 20 yards from the asphalt. I sleep great.
The Riding is the Point
By day four, during the final 100 miles into Las Cruces, I finally settle into what feels like a semi-comfortable groove. The day before, I had logged my longest day yet—145 miles—making the most of an epic sunset tailwind out of the west as I sailed into Truth Or Consequences for dinner before pedaling another couple hours out into the desert for a bivy.
On this, the morning of day four, I seem to have held onto some of that tailwind momentum. The key is surrendering to and accepting the physical and emotional rigors instead of becoming dismayed by them. Mid-morning, I climb a washboarded gravel road out of the Rio Grande river valley and into the hills. The next 20 miles are true backcountry desert riding—rugged double-track rife with sand and bone-rattling river cobbles. I have actually ridden this stretch twice before; it’s a highlight of the northern half of the popular figure-eight-shaped Monumental Loop, a 260-mile route that links together various quadrants of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument.
Taken in the context of the larger trip, this would be an obvious sector to skip. It would be easy to simply continue on flat and comparatively smooth orchard and canal gravel paths along the meandering shores of the Rio Grande all the way into Las Cruces. However, committing to the more challenging and circuitous route feels like an important embodiment of one of the central tenets to a trip like this: the riding is the point. In planning the tour, I relied heavily on linking together several pre-existing bikepacking routes—the Off-Road Runner, the Sky Islands West Loop, and bits and pieces of the Western Wildlands Route and Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and their Intermountain Connectors. I want to ride the good stuff, as much as possible.
The whole dang trip is just one giant loop anyways—I’m ultimately not traveling anywhere, and, given the somewhat obscure multi-sport nature of the trip, it’s definitely not an objective that befits something like an FKT attempt. In the end, I’ll finish up exactly where I started. If I’m rushing through, just trying to get from peak to peak as efficiently as possible, why am I even out here?
In the spirit of the slippery-slope argument, if covering ground were the main prerogative, why wouldn’t I just ride a road bike and zip along from hotel to hotel, laden down as little as possible? For that matter, why am I not on a motorcycle? Riding in a Sprinter van with a mini-fridge, stove, nutritious food and a comfortable bed? Under what self-imposed parameters am I operating? What, exactly, imbues this trip with any meaning for me?
Heavy questions, especially if interrogated under the accumulated tedium of miles upon hours upon days of headwind-hindered pedaling. The reality is that constraints—some kind of chosen ground rules—are exactly what imbue meaning. Having zero restrictions—what is often mistakenly characterized as true freedom—is the same as having no choices. We need rules in order to define our experience, to give it context and shape. If anything and everything is permitted, then a meaningful course of action becomes impossible. What would possibly define it?
Setting these ground rules beforehand is paramount because, inevitably, in the rigors of action, my mind will want to rationalize compromise. What seems fundamental and important at the beginning can eventually feel trivial and silly. Exhaustion and general inconvenience and discomfort have a way of eroding resolve and chipping away at best intentions. With ground rules firmly set, however, there is a foundation that can be returned to whenever the going gets tough and purpose is brought into question. A tired mind can’t be trusted.
Living Up to My Intentions
So what are my intentions on this trip? What are my foundational rules? First and foremost, the original bikepacking racer’s maxim of “Do. It. Yourself.” One of my good friends and most trusted climbing partners is Stefan Griebel, the founder of the Colorado Trail Race. He and I have shared innumerable adventures in the mountains—usually tethered together via opposite ends of the same climbing rope—and this simple but powerful statement of self-reliance has always been paramount. It’s also the only rule that he ever explicitly outlined for the CTR.
Another core intention for this trip is a bit squishier, more subjective, but equally important in my mind’s eye: don’t back down from the challenges. Do not take the soft option. I know from experience that—almost always—choosing the easier alternative in any given scenario ends up leading to hollow satisfaction. It might temporarily feel like relief in the moment, but it almost always ends up detracting from the richness of the overall experience. Put simply, I want to avoid regret.
There’s an ideal version of myself in my mind’s eye that I desperately want to live up to. I think that’s true for most people. For me, that version is tough, capable and good-natured. I’m fortunate enough that my day-to-day life offers too many creature comforts—but also too many various other demands and distractions—to be able to regularly and reliably distill my actions down to determining whether I possess grit and PMA. I feel like I occasionally need these elemental but largely elective challenges in order to assure myself that I still have…I don’t know, call it gumption. These are qualities that I respect in others; I want to prove to myself that I can live up to that idealized version of myself.
Perhaps that is no more than an indication of some fundamental insecurity on my part. But I’ve done/attempted enough hard things in my life to know that I don’t always have it. Sometimes I wilt a little and take the soft option. And, for whatever puritanical reason, this can too often feel like an almost moral failing.
In this case, however, on day four, 450 miles in, I am strong. I have chosen the more interesting, albeit tougher, option—spending a few extra hours pedaling and hike-a-biking over sandy, chunky, hilly terrain when I could be taking it easy in the flat valley below—and this small win is the genesis for some momentum that I maintain for the next 48 hours.
The Organ Needle
That afternoon, I attend to various resupply duties in Las Cruces—eat some real food, replace some broken bottle cages, stock up on chain lube—and that evening I share a trailhead bivy high above the city with a roving pack of javelinas. What unexpectedly delightful little muscle-cubes they are.
Racing up and down the Needle the next morning is a joy. After four days on the bike, it is a pleasure to be back on two feet, moving with an ease and fluidity over complex terrain, unfettered by machinery or luggage. My athletic history spans three decades where my primary focus has always been running—covering ground with little more than a pair of shoes—and in the past decade, integrating that with the more technical vertical terrain of scrambling and rock climbing. Only the final few hundred feet of the Organ Needle demands these skills, but, for me, that’s what makes all the difference in determining how engaging and rewarding the outing is.
The brisk wind on the summit reminds me that winter at 9000’ in the desert is still winter at 9000’, so I hurriedly reverse the couple hundred feet of technical rock that guards the high point of the Needle and scurry back down through the catclaw and prickly pear to my bike.
A lengthy re-stocking of caffeine and calories at Milagro Coffee prepares me for an afternoon and evening of riding that ranks right up there as one of the most memorable stretches of the whole trip.
Pedaling west out of Las Cruces I’m buffeted by an alarmingly powerful headwind. I’ve seen it in the forecast for the past couple of days, though, so I’m mentally prepared. Conditions are objectively ridiculous. The Weather Service has issued a high wind and low visibility warning due to all the blowing dust. Just before I cross the Rio Grande and begin climbing out of the valley and up on to the desert plain, a trio of bikepackers pedals towards me, presumably finishing off the southern half of the Monument Loop. They’ve been enjoying the gale as a tailwind for the past few hours, but—clearly fully aware of what I’m setting about riding into—invite me to get a beer with them instead. I decline.
For whatever reason, I’m eager for the obvious challenge ahead. Oh, the things one good mountain run does for the mind, ha! I am mercifully in an exceedingly positive and optimistic mood. I can’t explain it; I’m simply full of gratitude for so easily living up to that idealized version of myself that I’d set out to affirm. When an exceptionally strong gust hits, I hunker down in my aerobars and wait. With patience, the wind always abates—even if just slightly—and I’m quickly back up to speed, covering ground more quickly than I expected.
I spend the afternoon immersing myself in this most wide open and desolate of landscapes. In one sector, the primitive double-track trail is so freshly drifted with sand that I have to get off and push. Somehow, not even this phases me.
Eventually, the sun sets behind the Potrillo Mountains and with darkness and the attendant precipitous drop in temperature my amenable mood gradually wanes. When my lights hit the pavement of Highway 9, I know it’s time to find a spot to sleep. The tarmac breaks the spell I’ve been operating under all day. Time for some rest.
Borderlands
The next morning, day six, I sleep in, sort of. When my internal clock goes off at 4:40am–-what has been my typical start to the day—instead of getting up, I roll over and doze another 30min. Not many days like that on this trip.
Yesterday’s brutal wind continued to blow most of the night, and, searching for a bivy spot in the dark, the only shelter I could find were a couple of spindly creosote bushes. Sand drifted into my sleeping bag all night. There were so many thorns on the ground that I was afraid to deploy my air mattress, so I went without. Not a huge problem, as the temperature wasn’t prohibitively chilly, but it did leave me feeling less rested than I would’ve liked.
As the sun rises and I go through my routine of cold coffee, gas station breakfast pastries, journaling and the packing of my bike, I realize that I have slept only a few hundred yards from the border with Mexico. How did I know where the border was? Easy, the giant wall. The tall, iron slats shimmer implacably in the rising sun.
Maybe I pay too much attention to the news, but to me, the politics and general socio-economic-cultural strife of the U.S.-Mexico border is palpable here. On my morning pedal into the small town of Columbus a few different Border Patrol agents pull over to ask if I need anything, do I have enough water? It’s not particularly warm out yet, but I appreciate their friendliness. A few miles later, I see them pulled over again, inspecting a culvert that runs beneath the road. I can only assume they’re searching for migrants. As someone who’s always lived smack in the middle of the country—Nebraska and Colorado—spending time along an international frontier like this is a confronting experience of the complications of international policy and geo-politics. I don’t think there’s an easy solution.
The west wind is much diminished from the previous day, but a constant 15-20mph block headwind still wears on you, and it defines my experience of this day. Every mile is paved, every mile is flat, and still it is all I can do to keep the wheels turning over at 10mph. I know I won’t find the same ease and flow that I improbably possessed the day before, but it’s still a constant grind to remain positive. By nightfall, I’ve covered 110 miles, but it feels like I deserve at least 50 more for the mental effort it has required.
Future Dreaming
Late in the afternoon, I finally roll into Hachita. For such a hallowed stop on both the Continental Divide Trail and the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route—it is the final resupply before the termination of both routes at the Mexico border—its general dilapidation is striking. Nevertheless, I can feel a kind of spiritual energy in the place, borne of the accumulated thousands of long-distance travelers that have passed through here, so close to completing a dream journey.
Though in the midst of a long journey of my own, I daydream about what it would be like to get back to this place nearing the end of the Tour Divide bikepacking race. It is one dream among many. The day’s temps have been surprisingly chilly, with occasional rain and even sleet blowing through all afternoon. The Hachita Food Mart’s simple creature comforts—an electric space heater, WiFi and tasty, snack-sized, homemade burritos—are attractive, and I don’t resume pedaling until a spectacular sunset is beginning to paint the Little Hatchet Mountains outside of town.
That evening, 30 miles later in the tiny hamlet of Animas, NM, I prowl around in the dark, searching for a place to lay out my sleeping bag. It’s a Friday night, but the only gas station in town is already closed, and there is hardly any activity, other than the occasional barking dog. I settle under the awning of a snack-shack at the high school football field for shelter from the westerly breeze and quickly fall asleep, glad to have such a tedious day behind me.
A Shift in Momentum
Crossing from New Mexico into Arizona on day seven brings with it a tangible shift in momentum. Whereas the first week, every day had felt like work—with the unabating headwinds—on this morning the glowing sunrise on the Chiricahua mountain range in eastern Arizona evokes an excitement in me that persists for several days. After the slow, frustrating day on southern New Mexico’s Highway 9, I have two of the best days of the whole trip, riding southern Arizona’s seemingly ever-more-popular unpaved roads and ideal winter weather. During the two days crossing the Chiracahua’s, the Dragoons, the Canelo Hills, the San Rafael Valley, and eventually the iconic Ruby Road into Arivaca, I remember why I’m out here.
I’ve finally clicked into one of those feelings that function as motivators for the trip. This feeling is one of equanimity. Balance. Flow. Of being whipped around in a maelstrom and suddenly slipping effortlessly into its eye. The calm, implacable center where even if circumstances are grim, action and decision come easily. Instinctually. Perfectly. Of becoming overwhelmed by the beauty in the mundane. Incredibly, this actually can and does happen. On this morning, favorable winds out of the east help, for sure, but more important is the mindset of optimism and unflappability that I acquire. There are still plenty of slow miles, but for whatever reason, I’m not as bothered by them. My mind, body and bike are finally working in concert, not against each other.
Social media would have you think (my feed, at least) that southern Arizona is where the majority of North America’s off-road cyclists reside this time of year. Granted, I don’t make time for a detour into the local hub of Patagonia, but on my loop from the Chiricahuas, over to Babo, and finally up to Tucson, I encounter exactly one other cyclist.
Dropping off Canelo Pass into the San Rafael Valley on the morning of day eight I’m having a moment where endorphins, the rising sun, and the new Idles album in my earbuds are all hitting in just the right way and I’m belting out lyrics on the fast descent. Of course, at this exact moment I see a solitary cyclist on a mountain bike with an over-sized bar roll toiling up the pass in the opposite direction. Who knows how long they’ve been able to hear my unaccompanied rendition of Idles’ “Roy”? A few sheepish glances over my shoulder, though, and I’m back to singing off-key, at the top of my lungs. True joy and gratitude can’t be suppressed.
Baboquivari Peak
The exclamation point on this leg of the trip is, unquestionably, Baboquivari Peak on the eastern border of the Tohono O’odham Reservation southwest of Tucson. My first glimpse of the mountain comes in the afternoon of day eight, from the high point of Ruby Road above Arivaca. The summit sprouts from the distant horizon like a dagger, taller and more prominent than anything else around. It begs to be climbed. I spend the rest of the day pedaling closer and closer to the mountain, until, right at sunset, the double-track road finally becomes steep and ledgy enough that I figure it makes more sense to just run the remainder of the approach the next morning. The mountain’s southeast arete—the most popular technical climb on the peak—towers directly overhead and will be my objective the following morning.
Climbing Baboquivari—onsight, solo, having ridden nearly 1000 miles in eight days to get there—feels like the realization of the original vision I had for this trip. I had been initially inspired to climb this peak on a bike tour through the area in 2021 with my partner, Hailey, so it feels appropriate to actualize that original inspiration in the context of another—albeit, much longer—bike tour. Climbing this mountain in this style is a rewarding mash-up of all of my favorite forms of outdoor athletics—cycling, running and climbing in a remote, off-the-beaten-path setting—and the mountain itself delivers memorably with messy bushwhacking, engaging climbing and prominent vertical relief that require the full suite of mountain skills. Babo is a literal and figurative high point of the trip.
That afternoon I ride 85 mostly off-road miles to southern Tucson where I rent my first hotel room—one of those bleak Travelodge’s, just off the interstate, that seems to attract questionable characters. Given the suspicion in the eyes of the woman who takes my payment, I must be appearing pretty questionable myself. My first shower of the trip feels well-earned.
Weavers Needle
Over the next two days, the southern Arizona riding to get to Weavers Needle in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix continues to deliver. On day 11, I wake up under a roadside tree and proceed to pedal 35 miles of rolling dirt without seeing a single car. A slight tailwind, brilliant sunshine, PJ Harvey in my ears—I’m having the time of my life. Eating a second-breakfast at a Speedway gas station in Florence with nearly 60 miles already under my wheels, I realize that if I stay on point I should still be able to make a charge on the Needle before sunset, instead of waiting until the next morning as I’d originally planned.
It works out great. The nascent spring blooming of the desert makes for an especially beautiful evening in Peralta Canyon as I run up to the improbable tower, climb the chossy West Chimney route, and jog back down to my bike at the trailhead, witness to a sublime purply-pink sunset. All in all, Arizona is treating me exceedingly well.
That is about to change. Moments after pedaling away from the trailhead, the skies open up in a desert downpour and I mash furiously into town along a busy, dark highway, eager for shelter and some dinner after a 100-mile day on the bike plus a run and climb on a technical peak. The rain is relatively short-lived—less than an hour, but enough to soak me through—and from the awning of a suburban Basha’s grocery store I chomp through a spinach salad and hastily book another hotel room only two days after my first one. It feels like a chink in my emotional armor has been exploited—sniffing out a suitable bivy in a suburban environment is the quickest way to feel like a homeless vagrant—and the moody weather is a harbinger of things to come.
Late Winter Storm
I’ve been obsessively tracking the weather on the Colorado Plateau—the high elevation uplift that starkly demarcates northern Arizona from southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert—and the region is due an intense late-winter storm. Flagstaff and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon are predicted to receive a foot of snow with high winds. To get to the Grand Canyon—my planned destination for an attempt on Brahma Temple in the depths of the iconic rift—I’d have to pedal through three days of proper blizzard conditions.
In my hotel room, I consider my options. When I designed this trip, I always knew that this circumstance—a big winter storm in northern Arizona—was a significant possibility. Part of me feels personally offended, however, that the timing of this weather system coincides so exactly with when I want to be traversing that part of the state. As if the weather cares about me at all.
Altering the Plan
But it really doesn’t seem worth it. My pedaling would be crowded onto a few hundred miles of sloppy highway shoulders with traffic and slush and cold and wind. The high elevation, technical north-facing aspects of Brahma will hold snow for days, making a summit attempt as illogical and dangerous as all of the highway riding required to get there and back.
I decide to, effectively, bail. Instead of riding all the way north to the Grand Canyon through winter’s death rattle, I plot to instead bear straight east. I’ll skirt the higher elevations of the Colorado Plateau, and make my way back to Santa Fe via the Gila Wilderness in western New Mexico, returning through the center of the state, along the Rio Grande river corridor, seeking out the driest weather possible.
So that’s what I do. With three peaks ticked, I ride my bike and sleep on the ground for another week. But with the original vision significantly altered and no more summits on my list, I feel driftless.
Closing the Loop to Santa Fe
There are highs and lows.
High: visiting an old buddy on his organic farm at the foot of the Gila Wilderness. In a different lifetime we were roommates and ultrarunning/racing partners who—through youthful hubris and obsessive, devil-may-care commitment—briefly pushed the performance edge of the sport forward in a meaningful way. I find it somehow affirming to see that, 15 years later, we are both still fundamentally the same people, albeit perhaps slightly more mature, even emotionally balanced.
Low: spending an entire day on pavement, on a busy highway, because it is the only logical route getting across that part of Arizona. Eating an ill-advised Wendy’s lunch in Globe that leaves me curled up in the ditch less than an hour later, still wearing my helmet, waiting for the resultant malaise to pass.
High: Emory Pass, crossing the Black Range east of Silver City. The stuff that road riding dreams are made of—beautiful scenery, almost no cars, a nearly 5000’ climb, high energy.
Low: Getting caught in a storm of pea-to-marble-sized hail that even has cars seeking shelter under an interstate overpass. Going to sleep that night without dinner and without breakfast the next morning because the continued pummeling rain makes it highly unattractive to leave the rest stop picnic shelter in which I seek refuge. What am I doing out here?
Riding through Albuquerque, it’s obvious that my final planned climb to the 10,000’+ elevations of the Sandia Crest on the edge of the city is blanketed in fresh snow. The last week of the tour isn’t bad, per se. It’s just that I spend so much time inside my head questioning my purpose.
On the afternoon of day 17, I pedal into downtown Santa Fe, right back where I started. I find it difficult to conjure any grandiose feelings of achievement or accomplishment. My generally flat emotions are further fueled by the fact that Hailey and I have agreed to meet in Alamosa, CO—another 150 miles north—as the completely arbitrary terminus for my ride. Work obligations mean she can’t travel to retrieve me until the next day, so it makes sense for me to continue pedaling north in order to trim as much extraneous driving mileage as possible.
Finishing the Job
The final day of riding, crossing into Colorado, gives me plenty of time to think about what, if anything, I've accomplished and what the trip might mean to me. The night before, I’d slept in a city park in Española, NM, and when I arrived after sunset Little League practice was just wrapping up on the park’s baseball diamonds. Seeing the pre-teens pitching, catching and batting caused me to reflect on some of my own athletic experiences at that age.
In the fall of 1995 I was 12 years old and determined to run a sub-5min mile. My PR was 5:33 from August, so achieving this goal would require significant improvement. I had a 12-week training plan from a book I’d picked up in Omaha’s now-defunct Antiquarium (a used bookstore and general hipster hangout before hipsterism went mainstream a decade later) and was determined to follow its prescribed workouts to a “T”. Things like 10x400m or 16x200m, hitting various goal paces.
I didn’t have a digital wristwatch yet, but I did have a coach’s stopwatch (neck lanyard, etc), so I measured out the flattest 200m stretch of dirt road I could find (still not very flat despite Nebraska) using a 24’ horse lead rope, and had my Dad time me. He’d click the watch when I dropped my arm and then when I crossed the finish line scratched in the dirt. When it got dark (it was October and November), he would signal me to start the interval (200m away), by turning off a flashlight he held high in his hand. I guess it would’ve been too much distraction for me to just self-time and carry the stopwatch in my own hand while I ran.
Despite my best efforts, I wasn’t ever really too close to hitting the prescribed times that would allegedly prove I was in sub-5 shape. Near the end of the training block I was dejected and didn’t even want to give the personal time-trial a go. My Dad convinced me to try anyway. And not in some coercive, overbearing way. The sentiment was more that you should set lofty goals, prepare diligently and try your hardest, and that was the most important thing no matter the outcome.
I ran 5:23. Waaaay off the ridiculous goal I had, but a solid PR.
At the conclusion of this bike/run trip—not exactly the journey I’d envisioned all winter and set out for three weeks previous, but still a dang long ride with the according highs and lows along the way—it occurred to me that nearly 30 years later I was still having to re-learn the fundamental lesson that Dad was trying to impart upon me when I was sprinting down a stretch of Nebraska dirt road at dusk in the 1990s.
A lot of the time, our ambitions might seem pointless, our efforts futile. The outcome is rarely what we’ve hoped for. But the outcome was never the point in the first place. Getting out there, taking chances, trying hard, risking failure and disappointment—these are the important values. Outcomes need not be neatly divided into some false binary of success/failure. As long as you keep taking your shots and don’t allow yourself to ever settle too completely into the comfortable and familiar, you can’t go wrong.
Excellent. Stoked for the overall positive outlook, which our conversations didn't have me expecting. Also, your dad with a stop watch and a flashlight is a top tier origin story for a guy with your super power.
Outstanding trip conception - routes have their own aesthetic, to which some people are oblivious, reducing movement in nature to a few numbers.
The writing as always, was excellent.
The thought process you shared was captivating.
What has guided me for 30 years: "Live your questions as if they were your answers."
I met my Waterloo 10 days ago in Wales - it was surprisingly quick and relaxing: https://www.facebook.com/buzz.burrell.14/