What if?
by Jed Brown on Friday, September 3, 2010 at 1:42pm
So, I guess this will be the last note on this trip at least for a while as they take too long to type. When I left Kansas City for the second time, with a bike in tow, I wasn't really sure of what was going to happen with my ankle. It was still hurting badly and never having really biked any distance before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I gave it a 50/50 shot in my head of getting better or getting much worse. Eventually my ankle felt good enough that I took the brace off and continued without it. One of the other things that I was slightly worried about, as dumb as it may seem was the fact that I hadn't ever ridden a bike before or at least since I was a kid. I left to go bike half way across the way country not knowing how to change a tire if I got a flat. When I think about that fact it does seem a bit ridiculous. Virtually anyone knew as much about biking and probably still does. The only thing I know about biking now that I didn't when I started was that I can bike 80 to a 100 miles everyday over mountains. I had the side wall on my back tire rip twice on the trip, so changing the tube would have been pointless because it would have immediately gone flat again. In these two instances I used my long tan legs to hitch about 15 miles into the closest town, which luckily in both cases had bike shops to repair the tires. Getting a bike trip started in the Rocky Mountains it turns out is a tough place to get acclimated to the abuse. The first few days were fairly rough on my legs and lungs. Biking up to over 11,000 feet by my fourth day wasn't necessarily easy. By the end of the first week I could do roughly a 100 miles if I wanted to a day. Things in general on the biking portion of the trip were much easier than the running portion and not just the physical side. I didn't have to sleep under bridges or in barns that the ground was covered in horse crap. I could actually make it to places a bit more hospitable. I was able to bike with a couple from England for a few days, where as before bikers would stop long enough to chat for a minute and take a picture with the lunatic trying to run across the country. At a KOA in Montana when I told the guy I had biked 97 miles that day he said "that's the record for here buddy." and then when I told him that I had run the first 2,000 miles he said "Geeze! 2,000 miles! Geeze! I got an award for running 500 in the military in six months. How long did it take you?" "Five months." "Geeze!" Ed was fairly impressed and I laughed at his reaction. I met a family in Montana that I hope to see again while hiking in Washington. I met my girlfriend in Sisters, Oregon over 3,600 miles into my running/biking trip and 2,000 into her hiking trip. Fairly sure that's the longest distance ever traveled for a date night. My last day of riding I was pumped to say the least. I drank a Red Bull and a 5 hour energy. I pedaled like a lunatic. I listened to the "Into the Wild" soundtrack and cried a couple of days as I rode. It wasn't the thought of the end that made me cry, but what I had put in to get to that point. When things were at their worst, I had summoned up my best and came out on top. I never gave up. I got to a mostly isolated beach near Florence, Oregon. An older guy took a picture of me standing in the water. I left the Atlantic alone, with no fanfare. I reached the Pacific alone, with no fanfare. Just a sun browned 31 year old man and a bike. I was asked a lot of "what if" questions before I left on this trip. The only "what if" I ever really cared about was "what if I never chase this dream." Everyday for months I woke up and chased it, until I accomplished it.
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| A girl worth running 3,600 miles for |
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