Don’t get me wrong. I love Easy Things. I am experiencing a
beautiful Easy Thing as I sit here this morning watching the recently risen sun
sparkling on Lake Michigan, sipping coffee while the household slowly comes to
life. I’m enjoying my first full day of a
family reunion at my brother-in-law Eric’s and sister-in-law Sue’s
vacation home on Door County’s Whitefish Bay, and yes, life is good and most everything
is easy at the moment.
However, I spent a lot of time a couple of days ago thinking
about Hard Things, and why I so frequently intentionally subject myself to them.
A lot of time. I was about five
hours into what would turn into a long day of some of the most challenging
biking of my life, and I began, as I often do during moments of doubt and pain during
a grueling bike race, asking myself “Why? Why do I do these painful things to
myself when no one is making me?” I would spend much of the next roughly 11
hours and 41 minutes meditating on Why I Do Hard Things. I’m not sure I have
the answer(s) after all this meditation, but I’ll give you what I’ve got.
The Hard Things I was meditating on are the self-inflicted
variety, best thought of as Hard Things I Can Control. Sadly, life is full of Hard
Things I Can’t Control. This latter category includes many things that I, as a
white middle class American male, raised in a relatively intact and functional
nuclear family, have had the great fortune not to have to deal with personally.
Racism, sexism, poverty, war, violence, abuse, neglect, Hard Things that bedevil
so much of humanity, have never directly scarred me. I care about these issues,
deeply, but they are not a part of my daily personal experience. I can engage
in addressing these issues, but can’t directly control them. Other Hard Things
I Can’t Control have directly
affected me, however. All of us face many Hard Things during a lifetime: the untimely
death of beloved family members, shattering physical or mental health crises, the
dissolution of long-term relationships. The list, sadly, goes on and on.
The current Hard Thing was The DAMn (Day Across Minnesota)
gravel race. The DAMn is the brainchild of Trenton Raygor. Trenton is one of
the nicest guys I’ve ever met, but The DAMn demonstrated that he is also an
evil genius. The ride was scheduled to start in Gary, South Dakota at the
stroke of midnight, August 5th, and all riders had to complete the
ride 241 miles later on Trenton Island (Trenton – really, can you believe
that?!?), in the middle of the Mississippi River, just across the Wisconsin
state line from Red Wing, Minnesota, before 24 hours had passed (making it,
literally, the Day Across Minnesota).
I had been eagerly anticipating The DAMn since Trenton
dropped word on November 12, 2016 that it was happening in August 2017. The
anticipation built as August 5th approached, and reached a climax
when my adventure monkey partners Marty Larson, Dave Berglund and support crew
mate Michael Lehmkuhl pulled into the venue for the event registration and
opening ceremony, the Buffalo Ridge Resort, late the afternoon of the 4th.
We hoped to squat on the campsite fellow cycling madman Paul Korkowski had
reserved for his RAAMbulance, the ambulance he turned into a support rig for
his first RAAM – Ride Across America – attempt earlier this summer. Paul and
the RAAMbulance (re-dubbed the DAMnbulance for the day) were nowhere to be seen
yet, but we set up our squatter’s camp of tents and hammocks on his site,
grabbed some dinner at the resort bar and grill (connecting there with
long-time cycling partner and great friend Joe Pahr, who had driven up from
Lincoln, Nebraska for the festivities), checked in at the registration table,
and returned to our campsite to get a little rest. As we settled in, Paul and
the DAMnbulance, with ultra-endurance fatbike racer Balvindar Singh in tow,
pulled in, making our group complete for the evening.
After dozing and resting
for a bit, we all suited up, made last-minute bike and supply checks, and
rolled down to the main hall for the opening ceremony at 11:00, to be held in
one of the buildings of the beautiful venue, the campus of the former South
Dakota School for the Blind. Trenton did his thing in a fun opening ceremony,
accompanied by rider mini-bios and photos playing in a loop the whole time, musician
and Salsa-sponsored rider Ben Weaver shared a beautiful poem about the upcoming
experience, and then it was time to roll down to the Gary Fire Department for
the midnight start.
Spirits were high when Trenton jumped in a car and led us
out in a controlled start east across the Minnesota state line, with fireworks
blazing dead ahead at the stroke of midnight.
When he turned us loose onto
gravel, the usual hurly burly began, with a fast, large lead group charging
into the darkness in a jumble of headlights and blinking tail lights. I’ve done
a lot of night gravel riding solo, and with smallish groups of well-known
friends, but riding double pace line on unknown roads in slightly moonlit
darkness at 20 to 25 miles per hour is a different experience altogether. It helped
to know that, surely, all the riders in the lead group were experienced and
steady riders, but I found it a bit unnerving nonetheless.
The first hour passed in a rush. I was hanging out at the
back of the lead pack, enjoying the free ride at high speed, and worrying only
a little that I was going out a bit harder than I had intended, but feeling
that the benefit of drafting in the large group at way higher speed than I
would manage solo made it worthwhile. Early on I realized that buddy “Party
Dave” Berglund was right on my back wheel. The average pace for the first hour
was 20.4 mph. Rock ‘n roll!
Shortly thereafter, at mile 22, a familiar rider drifted
back from the front of the pack, and I realized it was hard man Ted Loosen. Ted
is a sweet guy (I got to know him a little when he caught a ride with me down
to the 2016 Gravel World Championships in Lincoln), but put him on a bike, and
he’s a natural born killer. I learned this last September at the Inspiration
100 (a wonderful gravel race in the Garfield, Minnesota area put on by Derek
Chinn and Scott Sundby for a number of years, last year’s being the final
running), when I was riding with the lead pack once again, where I really don’t
belong. Ted did his drift back from the front routine at the Inspiration (at
about the 15-mile mark that time), took a look at the pretenders, went back to
the front, dropped the hammer, and shot a bunch of us right out the back of the
pack. I sensed that this was about to happen again at The DAMn, and in a matter
of seconds it did. Boom! Lead pack blown up. The group of perhaps 30 was
whittled down to about 20, and I was one of the casualties, as I knew I
couldn’t go into the red zone this early and have any hope of surviving the
remaining 219 miles of riding. Fueled by adrenaline, this first 22 miles was all
Easy Things. It was a real rush blasting through the prairie with the
nearly-full moon to our right, the smells of the countryside only hinting at
the beauty of the Buffalo Ridge we were dropping off down to the surrounding
flatlands.
Soon a small group of
survivors from the lead pack coalesced. Party Dave and I joined forces with
Todd from Minneapolis and Tim from Dallas, Texas. Working together well, we
maintained a good pace and kept the lead group in sight for a number of miles
before they finally opened a big enough gap that it was just the four of us
riding through the vastness. Two hours in, we were still maintaining a ride
average speed of 19.4 mph. Yeah, baby! I knew it couldn’t last, but the Easy
Things dominated, and holding the wheel in front of me, taking turns at long,
hard pulls, following the good line, were all I cared about and the doubt and
pain were nowhere in sight yet.
At about 47 miles Minneapolis Todd looked over his shoulder
after a moderate climb and said “Dave popped off the back.” I responded “It’s a
war of attrition at this point. I know Dave wouldn’t hold it against us if we
go.” I hoped this was true, and believe it was. Onward we went, and as I
checked over my shoulder occasionally, I could see Dave fall a bit further
behind each time.
At about this point my right knee started hurting. Badly. A
few negative thoughts began creeping into my mind, and I had the nagging worry
that my knee might act up badly enough to keep me from finishing the ride. We
kept moving right along, sharing the pulls, and picked up a couple of other
strangers in the night. The five of us rolled into checkpoint one at 65 miles
at about 3:30 a.m. Though our ride average speed had dropped to 18.5 mph, we
were way ahead of the pace I had expected to maintain for the first section,
and I wasn’t even sure Michael would be at the checkpoint with the support
vehicle.
Pulling into checkpoint one was a surreal experience. Cars,
trucks, and SUVs were everywhere in the dark, and I could just make out what
appeared to be the “official” checkpoint. I rolled up to the volunteers there,
shouted out my number (58), then started calling for Michael to try to find him
in the sea of darkness. In a matter of 10 seconds or so he appeared down the road
out of the darkness and hailed me over to his Nissan Pathfinder, where I had a
cooler full of food and Michael had a five-gallon cooler of ice water. He
quickly re-filled water bottles for me while I hacked down two large homemade
rice cakes. I had made a big batch of this vegetarian variation on Allen Lim’s bacon
rice cakes from his book The Feed Zone, replacing the bacon with finely
crumbled and sautéed tofu and chopped mushrooms. I wrapped six of them for
eating throughout The DAMn, two per check point. After mixing Perpetuem (my
powdered potion of choice for long gravel rides) in one of my three water
bottles, I was back on the gravel within about eight minutes or so. I picked up
Todd and Tim, who were rolling out just ahead of me, and the three of us soon
got back into a good groove again.
In my experience, as long as I’m riding with others, I’m so
engaged in watching my line and other wheels, gauging my effort to make sure
I’m pulling my weight yet not overdoing it, and grooving on the group
experience, that I don’t really begin to get into the kind of meditative state
I experience when riding solo. I was also continually wiping condensing fog off
my glasses, and working hard to ride safely in our three-man group in the dark,
so it was all business at this point.
At mile 80 or so, Todd flatted and wished us well as we rode
on into the darkness. Tim’s rock-steady and rapid cadence and strength on
climbs made it clear that he was the stronger of the two of us, so I knew my
solo time was soon approaching. It finally came at mile 85 when I dropped my
chain at the beginning of a small climb. I was able to get the chain back on
the chainring within 30 second or so, and I chased to close the gap with Tim, but
was unable to catch him over the next seven miles until he missed a turn onto a
minimum maintenance road, and he turned back after overshooting the turn by a
few hundred meters. We turned onto the minimum maintenance road at 92 miles,
which proved to be one of the steepest climbs of the day, coming out of the
Minnesota River valley. I realized on the climb that Mr. Tim was stronger than
me, and with 149 miles of riding remaining, I did the prudent thing and watched
him ride away from me through the trees and into the heart of a gorgeous
pre-dawn pink and salmon sky.
Although my right knee had miraculously stopped hurting at
this point (temporarily, as it turned out – both knees would be aching badly by
day’s end), Hard Things began at about this point. While it helped that it was
a gorgeous morning, doubts began creeping in about just what in the hell I was
doing out here. I can honestly say, though, that after the knee pain eased I
never doubted I would finish from this point on.
Nonetheless, the usual litany of feelings I have on long,
hard races began washing over me. Does this level of effort do my 59-year-old
body more harm than good? Does the amount of riding necessary to prepare for an
effort like this lead to imbalance in my life, leaving less time and energy for
the people and things that matter most to me? Is there enough value in doing
really Hard Things to justify both the pain in the moment and the true costs in
other aspects of my life? Thus far in my life, I have always concluded that the
value of doing really Hard Things (of the Hard Things I Can Control variety,
such as choosing to ride The DAMn) actually helps in dealing with the myriad
Hard Things I Can’t Control that invariably enter anyone’s life. For me, the
sacrifices and pain are worthy. The incredible feeling of accomplishment, and
the camaraderie that comes with doing these Hard Things with other like-minded
folks, including many dear friends, makes it all worthwhile. As The DAMn
progressed, my ruminations led to more or less the same conclusion: it’s worth
it.
In addition, I re-confirmed my belief that dealing with Hard
Things such as a really hard bike race ultimately help one deal with the truly Hard Things in life, the Hard
Things I Can’t Control. I know that with perseverance and hard work, I can come
through pretty much anything. This has been tested several times in recent
years. For example, having my adult son crash and burn with serious anxiety,
depression, and substance abuse disorder problems, and having to help him as
best I can while knowing that only he, with help, can truly create his own path
to health and wholeness from the dark place these life-threatening conditions
put him in, is way harder than any bike race I will ever do. The inner strength
I have developed at least in part from doing Hard Things on a bike, has helped
me get through these Hard Things I Can’t Control.

The rest of the day, while still hard, included many deeply
satisfying moments. At about 160 miles, I started riding on at least some
familiar home gravel roads. Checkpoint three was immediately after a series of
often-ridden large rolling hills on 60th Street West, and a small
cheering section was a huge boost to my spirit.
It was great to see Melissa
Hunter and her son Cole (“I’ll take a high five, Melissa – you really don’t
want to hug me in the condition I’m in!”), Galen Murray (who also did a quick
chain lube job for me), Jeff DeBo, and Claire Schmid. At about 200 miles I
passed within 2.5 miles of home, and in spite of a fleeting thought that I’d
have time for a shower, nap and change of clothes, and I could still finish
well within the 24-hour limit, I pushed on. I was testing my outer limits,
feeling good about it, and was hell-bent on an honorable finish at this point.
![]() |
Photo credit: Galen Murray
(Smiling at 183 miles as I pull into checkpoint three
with crew mate Michael, who rode out to greet me again, in the background) |
The last 25 miles or so, from the outskirts of Cannon Falls
on, included the hardest climbing of the day, all on familiar roads. Highview
Avenue, 335th Street, White Rock Trail, one hard climb after
another. Somewhere in here I was overtaken by Paul Carroll of Eden Prairie, and
we leapfrogged several times, neither of us really able to work together as we
would feel fresher and stronger at different times from each other. The final
leg-breaking hills of the day, on 325th Street, seemed incessant as
we headed straight east, and Paul rode away from me as I simply was unable to
push hard on hills anymore. I finally rode into Red Wing alone, only to see
Paul riding back toward me. He thought he had gone off course, though he
hadn’t, and we navigated the somewhat confusing (at least to our sleep-deprived
and effort-addled brains) last couple of miles through Red Wing. The final push
across the Mississippi River, with motorized traffic whizzing by on the Highway
63 bridge, meant we were ALMOST IN WISCONSIN. Just as we approached the turn-off
to the finish line at the Harbor Bar and Grill, Michael pulled up alongside me
in his support rig. I followed him around the corner, and Paul and I crossed
the finish line together, in 16th and 17th places. All
pain was forgotten in the euphoria of the moment, as I got a patented Trenton
Raygor low five, and Paul and I had our 30 seconds of internet fame as we
chatted with Trenton on Facebook Live.
Sixteen hours and 41 minutes after leaving Gary, South
Dakota (15 hours, 30 minutes and 18 seconds of riding at an average speed of
15.5 mph; the rest of the time at the three checkpoints, three pee stops, and a
stop to strip off a base layer when I was overheating late in the morning), the
satisfaction with completing this monumentally Hard Thing washed over me the
next few hours. I watched friends Marty, David Weeks, Joe, Bal (first fatbike
finisher!) and others cross the finish line. The two Grain Belts that Galen
fetched for me out of his trunk were among the tastiest beers I have ever
quaffed. I was sad to hear from Michael that Party Dave and Paul Korkowski had
DNFed at checkpoint three, after 183.4 miles of hard riding, with mechanical
problems (both had broken spokes and tacoed wheels), and later learned that
only 88 of 117 starters had finished.![]() |
Photo credit: Michael Lehmkuhl Grain Belt trunk beer courtesy of Galen Murray |
I’m pretty confident that, along with my 16th-place
finish, I had a podium finish in the 59-plus category (I may even have won in
that elite group of grizzled veterans). At some point during the day I was
nearly certain that this would be my last gravel race, and that I could feel
good about going out on a positive note. I told Joe while eating and drinking
beer that I was a big “maybe” for the August 19th Gravel Worlds
(another 150 miles of hardness). Today, enjoying some easy time on a hammock
overlooking Lake Michigan, and after several days of reflection, I’m pretty
sure I’ll be there.
I’ll likely do fewer Hard Things going forward than I have
in recent years, as I want to make more time for other things that matter to
me, including family, writing, and other creative pursuits. I also want to do
everything possible to ensure that I can keep using my body for fairly
physically hard things for many years yet.
However, if Trenton decides that the world needs another Day
Across Minnesota in 2018, I might even show up for that one too. I still have
some things left to learn about myself, and doing Hard Things is one of the
best ways I’ve found to learn them.