Day 5. 200km, 3 mountain passes with over 13 thousand feet of climbing and a day I will remember for the rest of my life..

Hello.

This post will be hard to put into words. I spent the whole day thinking about what to say. I will start with my day. I woke up at 6:30am totally committed to the challenge ahead. I was excited and confident and ready to face the challenge of a life time. I left lakeview motel at around 7 30am. If anyone is ever in Christina Lake...stay there. The women ( Jen?) who runs it is the bomb! (sorry Jen about the small pile of crumbs on the floor, I felt really bad and send my deepest apologize) I was a man on a mission. I started climbing up Bonaza pass (5094ft) just as the sun started to heat up. A women yesterday told me it would take 6 hours to get up to the top so I decided to take a "tactical"(not the type of tactical you take on a Friday night...Ryland..Mish) and wait to take it on the next day.When I got into it I literally flew up that mountain. I felt like I had wings and it took me one hour and thirty minutes. Now that climb is about 34km..I do a 40km time trail in an hour 15.. I was ripping. At the top I gave a little woop woop fist pump dance yell and started to descend. I coasted down the other side and arrived in Castlegar a little beat up. Little did I know there was another mountain I had to climb that day....I was sooo pumped about that (not actually). This pass must have been 3000ft?I started pounding it and was really pissed off because I left my chamois cream somewhere in the last pass. I am going to paint you a picture here. Imagine you take a electiric sander, turn it on, place it between your legs and hold it there for a couple minuites than ride a bike for several hours. Yep I was in some pain. About half way in I started to get thristy and realized I needed to find a water source. Time to enter survival mode. I located a river down an embankment. There was a huge pipe like structure feeding the river and was the only logical way down. I had this awesome idea of holding on and gracefully swinging down to safety. Instead I held on, dropped the legs, and fell to the bottom. Thank goodness I didn't cut my feet of the rusty bolts down below! I was pretty concerned about bears so I started yelling wildly at the bushes. Someone would have thought I was a wild forest man with dirty spandex. Anyways I filled up and climbed out of there, strattled to bike and started off. Nothing makes a man climb faster than a swarm of black flies trying to bite you. They can fly at around 14km an hour. I had to race up the mountain to avoid being devoured. Once I reached the top I was pretty wasted but happy to be over with that. I cycled to Solamo and ate some Subway ( thanks for the gift cards again! your awesome) The worker at Subway told me she biked the pass when she was 11 and it wasn't that bad. I was feeling alright and confident in this women....BIG MISTAKE. I have learnt to never trust a non athlete about difficulties of the road. I set off and this song came onto my ipod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Mc-NYPHaQ&ob=av3n ) It pumped me up just as I entered the gates of hell..(some gates at the start of the climb). All of a sudden my ipod died. I knew today would be the day I would become a man if I complete this task and I saw this coming. I put it away and started up the 5982ft climb..the highest pass in Canada. Suddenly I feel this excruciating pain under my sitting bones. Saddle sores were starting up. I was in so much pain! I started screaming the F word at the top of my lungs. I was infuriated and pissed off. I tried to channel that energy into power but it hurt every second I was sitting down. What a way to start the climb. I thought I could maybe stand the whole way...the climb is 54km. I realized I needed to suck it up even though it was horrible and battle onward. I climbed and screamed and grunted and grimaced. Eventually I was going okay and than saw what looked like a line in a mountain far ahead..."that cant be the road, there is no way an engineer would be dumb enough to put a road there......oh god, that IS the road" I broke down. I was in so much pain already and seeing the challenge ahead makes the going so much harder. I looked deep inside my self and asked what the hell I was doing. To be honest I didn't think of Cole or the thousand of Kids battling cancer. I certainly didn't think about my self and how this is soooo cooool. I don't know what happened up there, thousands of feet above sea level, but something happened, something big. I looked over between the blinding agony and noticed a waterfall. Out of no were there was a water fall cascading down into the ground. I didn't even question what I had to do.I unclipped, stirpt down, and headed into it. It was like I was re born. Everything was clear to me, I had to get up this mountain or I was going to die trying. That's how focused I was. I stood in the frigged water thinking about my past life and how amazing its been. How thankful I am for the people and experiences Ive had. How it has all led up to this moment of self against Nature, Self against Self. This was my moment. I prayed to god asking to help me up this mountain of hell and suffering and deliver me to my friends on the other side. This was it. The only thing that was going to stop me was a fall over the other side.....and that's when it almost all ended. I walked my bike to the right shoulder. Put my shirt and helmet on my bars and clipped in my right foot, tried to clip the left but the grade was so steep that I started to go sideways. There was a Cliff just below me and if I were to go over the edge I was sure to die. I saw the edge and my body weight starting to go over it. Somehow I slammed my hand against the side wall just before I toppled over the edge and fell to the road. Unreal experience I was having to say the least. I stood up and shook off another near death moment and climbed with strength that I never knew I had. The pain was there and it was worse than ever but it didn't matter. I was climbing to the top of this beast no matter what the situation was. Every tendon in Lance and Thor was pulsating and bursting with power ( they had a couple kids today btw..congratulations!!) I climbed and climbed and as I knew the top was near I started to sing...that's weird eh. It just kinda happened and soon I was belting out a song that was about this ride. I reached the top and shouted and was so happy. Happier than I ever was in recent memory. What I just accomplished few cyclist in the world have tried. It was some of the most challenging climbing in Canada and I conquered it. I hit my limit, punched it right in the face and knock it out cold. there are no limits, our mind sets the limitations and if you can unlock that, your set free. I don't want to be free i am free. Before this ride I ran the Grand canyon. All the way down and than all the way up in just under 5 hours,32km. That was easy. This was the hardest thing I think I will ever do in my life. I honestly think an IRONMAN would have been easier for me than what I did today. I am not worried about the rest of the trip. I will do it and probably finish early. Today, in the mountains after hours and hours of climbing, my life changed. I feel so amazing, I feel like I've experienced a select few people get to have in there life's. I hope this post inspires you to reach for the stars, do something wonderful with your life or just do what makes you happy. We all only have one life to live and its far to short to waste a single day. In case you were wondering I biked down the 40km descent with a smile. There was no pain, just a 70km/h descent haha I'm at a Buddy's now in Creston and will probably take tomorrow off to heal. I have to average 154km if I do so that's cool. I think I was a bit ahead of schedule. That's all for now...can you only believe its been 5 days!

Thanks