Millcreek Canyon Solo ; More Narcissus

I experienced another "first" yesterday in cycling:  I cycled up to the top of Millcreek Canyon by myself.  Mark had a work meeting, and it was supposed to be 104 degrees here by afternoon, so I decided to go ahead and go for a ride by myself in the morning.

The mouth of Millcreek is only about 1.5 miles from our house, but it is pretty much all uphill to get there.  I had wondered whether it would help me to warm up a bit by riding south for awhile on Wasatch Boulevard, then double back to the canyon - so I tried that yesterday, adding about 1.7 miles to the normal ride.

I'm wasn't sure if it helped.  My legs are still sore from that ride last Friday up to Big Mountain, or so it seemed.  There were several times when I wondered whether I could make it to the top.  That's why I've written that each confrontation with a canyon or other mountain ride forces me to deal with the question:  Who will win - the mountain or me?

I kept on going, and I eventually did reach the top.  (Yay me!!)  It was a beautiful morning and the temperature was very pleasant for the entire ride.

I was surprised when I got home and looked at my Garmin stats.  I compared yesterday's ride to our last ride up Millcreek, and even with the additional 1.7 miles, I was still a good two minutes faster this time.  In addition, my average moving speed was a little over 1 mph faster than last time.  So, even though it seemed to be as I was on the way up that I was going slower than last time, I was actually faster.  This made me feel really good. :)

In Pau, a few weeks before I came home from my mission in November of 1985

Meanwhile, continuing from where I left off in my last post, I quote more from passages of Hesse's novel, Narcissus and Goldmund, that I had copied into my journal in December of 1985:

"When a man tries to realize himself through the gifts with which nature has endowed him [explained Narcissus], he does the best and only meaningful thing he can do ... Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being.  But wherever we go, from potential to deed, from possibility to realization, we participate in true being, become by a degree more similar to the perfect and divine.  That is what it means to realize oneself ..."

These words spoke to me on several levels as I prepared to move on with my life after my mission.  For one thing, they spoke of me finally being able to go to law school after I had equivocated for years about going.  In so doing, I felt like I would be "realizing myself."

They also spoke to me about my desire to be alive.  "I'm glad to be young!" I wrote.  "I'm glad to feel closer to the beat of life, to be younger, but yet older and wiser."  

I cannot read these words now without sighing.  The optimism of youth ...

Bonk

I experienced another cycling first yesterday.  I bonked.  Mark and I went for a ride up Millcreek Canyon and I was fatigued and lacked energy.  I made it about halfway up the canyon, then told Mark to go ahead while I turned around.  

I had had little to eat that morning and have been cycling every day this week.  I had also gone to the gym that morning and had - unwisely - done a leg workout.  The result of all these factors was that I simply ran out of gas.  

I hated the thought of not continuing on, fearing that I would create a psychological precedent.  I turned around twice, thinking I could will my body up that canyon, but each time I realized I simply didn't have it in me that day.

What I did do, however, is decide to ride south on Wasatch Boulevard for 3-4 miles, then back, in order to give me at least a 20-mile ride.  I'm glad I did.  On this relatively flat surface, my energy and will came back.  I rode harder in order to get my heart rate up, particularly on my way back, and I ended up having a good ride in terms of conditioning, as the following graph shows.  (It helped that I had the incentive to catch up with and overtake - successfully - a young, very fit guy whom Mark and I had seen on a previous ride a week or so ago.)

I'm sure I will have many more opportunities to learn lessons about diet and training and psychological fitness.  About overcoming.  About realizing when enough is enough, and wisdom lies in retreating from the field to fight another day. 

“Little by little, one travels far.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

Millcreek Canyon

I learned some things yesterday.  I think I may have crossed a mental and physical bridge to truly becoming a cyclist as well as gained some important insights into my approach to certain aspects of life.

Mark suggested that we cycle up Millcreek Canyon yesterday morning.  The mouth of the canyon is less than two miles from our house, and we have been up there a few times in the past six months, walking the dogs or - once in February - skiing down Porter Fork Road.  I had also been up there a few times over the years when taking various of the older boys to Cub Scout day camps.

But yesterday, we cycled all the way to the top of canyon, and I was blown away.  I don't want to get ahead of my story, but I again marveled at the beauty that has been there all these years that I have lived in Salt Lake, but which I never saw or experienced.  There were a number of reasons for this, but it basically boils down to the fact that I was going through life with blinders on, my nose to the grindstone, oblivious (and almost willfully so) to a landscape and a world that I refused to see or visit.  It didn't escape me, as I rode up and down the canyon yesterday, that this could be a metaphor for my life in general - particularly with respect to my hidden sexuality:  it was always there, a land rich in emotion and beauty, but I refused to go there.

Lower part of the canyon

I found the climb challenging.  Of course, since I had never been very far up the canyon, I had no idea what to expect.  I was pretty winded - ok, very winded - by the time we got to a gate at Maple Grove about four miles up the canyon.  We had been on the road an hour by that point.  I needed to rest.  Mark asked whether I'd like to turn around there or go on up the canyon.  I had no idea that I was a little less than (only) halfway up the canyon.  He suggested we go a mile or so more if I was up to it.  I said that I was, feeling better after a little rest.

The above graph tells part of the story of why I was tuckered.  It was pretty much a steady climb from our house, at 4643 feet, to the top of the canyon, at 7644 feet, an elevation change of almost exactly 3000 feet.

The whole texture of the ride changed as we moved on past the gate at Maple Grove.  (The gate keeps the road closed more than half of the year due to snow.  It won't open until July 1st, so cyclists and hikers have the road to themselves for the next 4.5 miles to the top.)  

First of all, Mark pointed out that I had the tendency to try to go all out on hills, trying to get to the top as quickly as possible.  This burned me out, he explained.  What I needed to do was to try to go as slowly as possible in the lowest gear, preserving my energy and my breath.  I wouldn't get to the top as quickly this way, but I'd get there - with much less overall effort expended.

This worked, and I couldn't help but think, as we cycled on up the canyon, able to ride side by side and talk (not having to worry about cars), how symbolic this was of my approach to life and its challenges.  For most of my life, I have been in survival mode - starting when I was a child, trying to just survive the situation in which I found myself.  I adopted survival techniques in which I just tried to pretend I didn't exist, or in which I would simply put my head down and try to get through whatever crisis or challenge I was facing at the time.  I would go all out, trying to just get to the top of the metaphorical hill.

These techniques worked when I was young - at least on the surface.  But as I carried them into adulthood, they became increasingly unsustainable the older I became, and the collateral damage associated with such techniques also became increasingly apparent as I aged.  Pretending I didn't exist, for example, helped me to dissociate myself from the physical and emotional pain of being abused, but it also separated me from myself.  "I" was separate from "me," and I lost "me" over the years.  I would go through the motions, functioning, performing, but I wasn't a whole person.

I also, by putting my head down and focusing on the "top of the hill," missed out on the journey.  I didn't care about the journey.  All I cared about what the destination.  I had to "get through" the next challenge so that I could then "get through" the next challenge, so that I could then "get through" the next challenge, etc., etc.  In the process, I exhausted myself.  I crashed and burned.

So, as we climbed ever closer to the top of the canyon and I met those particularly challenging ascents, I would slow down and meditate, controlling my breathing, willing my legs to work harder, allowing myself to take it slowly.  But I also meditated on my life and realized that I needed to apply these same lessons to challenges I face in my journey.  Mark has repeatedly told me that I shouldn't expect to overnight work through everything I have been and am dealing with.  It will take time.  And during that time, I need to slow down, control my breathing, and focus on the here and now.

The other thing that dramatically changed the texture of the ride was the scenery.  It was stunningly beautiful.  I felt like I was not in Utah but in some alpine area of Switzerland.  I half expected to meet Heidi around the next bend in the road, herding a group of goats.

Finally, after cycling for an additional 40 minutes past the gate, or about an hour and 40 minutes into the ride (illustrated by the following chart), we reached the small parking lot at the top of the canyon.  It took 100 minutes to get to the top and only 30 minutes to go down, all the way to home.  The speed difference is illustrated by the second chart.

At the top

"Joseph," Mark exclaimed as we came to a stop in the parking lot, "I'm flabbergasted!"  He told me that, upon starting out that morning, he thought that we'd (I'd) be doing well if we made it to the gate before turning around.  Instead, we (I) had gone all the way to the top.  He was proud of me, as I was of myself.  

A patch of snow off to the side of the parking lot

On our way down