Day 10
Canyon Creek to Golden
Monday July 3, 2006
Distance 116 km
Temperature 36 degrees

Today was another tough one; I thought I could be limited to only one psychological toughie per week, but says who?

When we started the ride climbing this morning, I knew I was in for a killer ride, since my legs felt like two cement blocks attached to my body and did not want to cooperate with the day’s planned activities, which included a lot of climbing since we’re now in the mountains around Roger’s Pass.

Try as I might, I could not get them to go; my energy was just not there, as my leg engines lay dormant-the past few days have included a lot of climbing (measured on someone’s altimeter between 900 and 1350 meters per day,) and my poor little legs haven’t had time to recover, so are quite sore.
So when we set out this morning, they said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, we ‘aint doing this again, no way-leave us alone.”

What to do when you’re setting out for a 115 km ride, mostly uphill into the mountains, and your body is in mutiny?
Here is where the psychological game comes in; what can you tell yourself to get through the day?
I am a mere mortal; an average person, of average physical capabilities, doing something that calls for mental and physical toughness beyond of what I know I can produce; something that is out of the ordinary-how can I overcome this challenge?

These were all the questions chugging through my mind as I puffed and snorted my way up the first hill of the morning, at 7:30 am, with 115 km of steeper and longer climbs up ahead.

At first I went into a bit of a mental panic, wondering how would I make it to the truck, where all my stuff that makes me feel human again was-I needed to get there, feeling much like a homing pigeon must when their owners drive them to far and distant lands and set them loose, expecting them to fly over distances to reach their homes once again.

What could I tell myself to get through this?
In the past at times like this, when I have felt overwhelmed by the ride, for some strange reason, I have Steve Erwin’s voice from “The Crocodile Hunter” on TV run through my mind.
When trying to catch deadly venomous snakes, he says to the snakes, in his thick Ozzie drawl, “you’re all right mate, you’re all right.”
He’s obviously saying it more to himself to remain calm than to the reptiles, but he hasn’t been lethally bitten; maybe they also find his voice strangely calming, as it works for the snakes too.
Regardless, Steve’s voice runs through the tape in my mind, over and over again when I feel as if I am reaching my limit.

Today, in addition to Steve I had an imaginary (or was it?) conversation with my leg muscles:
Scene: Below deck on an old pirate ship, with all the little muscle fibers crammed beside each other, gripping one huge oar (same on the other side).
An old wizened pirate stands looming over them, as says with a harsh cockney accent:
“Arright you lazy goodfernuthing louts, start bloody rowin’ then.”
”Bugger off, we’re tired and want to rest-we need food!”
”You’ll rest when I bloody well tell you it’s time to rest; the job ain’t done yet until I say so-so quit your whinin’ and get crackin’.”
And so it went for a few kilometers. I can’t remember who won the argument, but the deck master must have, as here I sit in my tent.

The first half of the ride had us climbing to reach Roger’s Pass, a part of the mountains known for excellent back-country and heli-skiing, and major avalanches.
Once we reached the ‘summit’ (there were signs telling us so,) there was a lodge with history of the pass, with a movie of avalanches, which we watched.
It was shot in the 70’s so was pretty dated, but we heard from others there was a real rescue scene, which we fast forwarded to-I couldn’t help but feel slightly envious of the man who was trapped under the snow, as at least he looked cool surrounded by the snow. (He was saved).

We couldn’t believe how much snow it gets here-unreal. We can see snow still in the mountains, which is so bizarre, as it’s so hot here.
We also rode through quite a few snow tunnels, which have been especially constructed to save parts of the road from avalanches.
They were fun to ride through on our rapid descents.

The descents so far on the ride have been absolutely amazing-the descent into Kamloops was fantastically long and fast, the descent into the Okanogan equally exciting, but today the descent into Golden was just phenomenal as it just kept going and going.
We didn’t hit as high speeds, as we had quite a head wind, but it was exciting nonetheless.

My descent-o-meter bar has been raised; if I don’t hit at least 60 km/hour then I am not as impressed anymore.
The only thing is that I wasn’t pedaling on the descent today, so once I reached the bottom, the legs had shut down again, thinking it was bed-time.
What a rude awakening when I start pushing them again for another climb. (See conversation above.)

Lewis has been doing really well on the climbs, and is, as he likes to say, “a natural climber.”
He is at that, as I inch my way up, propelling myself upward slowly, he seems to glide up the hill effortlessly.
I tried not to curse him for the ease with which he did it.

Our camp sites so far have all been beside the railway line; we’re not sure why the organizer has arranged it this way, but it has.
Obviously land right beside the line is hard to sell, and is bought up by campsites knowing that out-of-towners are clueless, and will pay to camp.
Some camp sites have you a few hundred meters away, while this one has us practically on the tracks.
I can feel our tent rumble as it goes by.
At least we don’t have the Banging and Clanging Machines at work here all night like at the last rest day campsite in Merritt.

When I get into camp, the first thing I want to do is shower and return to human form. The showers at this ‘camp site’ were awful, so I and another woman decided to try our luck at the local rec centre swimming pool nearby.
We struck a deal with them to shower there-but it’s a swimming pool, so the showers are the open communal kind. It was jelly-tots, or tiny-tots swimming time, so the place was jumping with little kids-about 7 years and under.
The two of us strip down, and clamber into the shower area, not caring that everyone else is in their bathing suits and using the shower to ‘rinse’ before and after the pool.
We got in there and soaped up from head to toe, when suddenly the lifeguard came careening around the corner and barks at us to “get out of the showers, NOW.”
We’re both standing there starkers, full of soap, and stare at her; is she joking?
She repeats herself, more emphatically for us to hastily remove ourselves from the showers.
By this point all the little girls heard the commotion and came to gawk at these funny looking naked people with very strange tan lines.
Turns out that it was thundering and raining, and the showers were connected to the pool, which if hit could be lights out for us, so it was a liability thing.
We had to finish up our ‘shower’ in the sinks-at that point I realized that cycling had stripped me of all my sense of shame.

Tomorrow is a much needed rest day; I won’t be ordering the legs on deck for another 48 hours-hooray!