For the summer of 2009 I rode 5500 km with my friend Ian Hincks from Waterloo, Ontario, to Victoria, BC. Not done yet, I then hopped on the Seattle to Portland ride (200 miles, one day), before rounding the remainder of my summer out on an organic farm near McMinnville. It was a life-changing summer.
In 2010 I rode 600 km in 35 hours from Toronto to Montreal. A tailwind along the flat St. Lawrence made this fairly easy, but that didn’t stop me from pushing myself too hard and tightening up my IT band but good. Some really nice folks (cyclists themselves) gave me a place to sleep on Perrot Island and I finished the ride into Montreal the next day with two functional legs.
In 2011 I rode 1900 km from Victoria, BC, through inland Washington and then down the coast to San Francisco. I then turned inland in a 2-day sprint across the desert to Yosemite, where I played on some boulders (I knew I carried my climbing shoes for some reason!) and hiked up Clouds Rest to 10,000ft. I finished the tour in Reno, NV (which happened to have the nearest Greyhound station).
In 2012 I rode 1200 km solo from Victoria to Oregon (again!), this time featuring the west coast of Washington State and the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. I checked off South Sister (10,000 ft) from my bucket list, feeling especially good about having reached it from sea-level.
In 2013 I did some shorter tours around the Pacific Northwest. One tour with Neil, Jess, and Karen around the San Juan and Lopez Islands. And one tour with Karen and Holland of the Sunshine Coast: Victoria to Vancouver up to Powell River, and back down Vancouver Island.
In 2014 I started getting into endurance running after reading Born to Run. I learned about the biomechanics of the barefoot running style and found it worked for me. While I got knee pains after 7km of running before, I could now run farther and farther with this new technique. I entered the Oxford Half Marathon and finished in 1:25:23.
In 2015 I kept on running. Farther and farther. I raced the Oxford Ultra: 106 km along the Thames. James and I crossed the finish line together in 12 hours 49 minutes, which happened to be first place for the day and a new course record -- by one minute! I hasten to add that (a) this isn't a very popular race, so there are not very many competitors, and (b) many of the other competitors were competing in a four day race stretching the entire Thames, for which this Oxford Ultra was merely the second (though longest) day. The real glory was entirely personal. I entered the race not knowing if I would finish. Halfway through, I faced one demon as an old injury in my IT band (the 2010 ride from Toronto to Montreal) flared up. I had learned about the biomechanics underlying this pain, and so took a dose of anti-inflammatories (which may or may not also have been pain-killers). Together with James' support, I overcame that demon. I attribute a lot of my performance that day, in true Oxford style, to books. I learned about nutrition, muscle functioning and fatigue, and each of a handful of other minor injuries that I battled throughout the training season. The last quarter felt like effortlessly gliding along, easier than the first quarter. Ploughing far beyond what I previously thought were my limits, and finding my mind and body entirely capable and indeed flourishing, will remain one of the most precious memories of my life.
A 3 month recovery period is recommended following an Ultra. So I bicycled across Wales (Liverpool to Swansea via the north coast, 395 km) in < 2 days in October. On December 11 I cycled out from Oxford in a race with the climate negotiators at COP21: could they reach an agreement before I reached Paris? They won, making the agreement in the evening of Dec 12 a few hours before I arrived. Also, I must admit on day one I seriously failed in navigating the UK cycle network in the dark and rain and mud, which left me with no choice (since catching the 11pm ferry was required) but to take a train from Reading to Portsmouth. Day 1: 53 km, major failure. Day 2: 220 km (via Le Havre).
In 2016 I did another Ultra, this time by myself for my birthday. I ran along the Ridgeway, connecting the ancient stone circles at Avebury to the modern Luton Airport. I ran 68km of it and avoided the airport. Also in 2016, I hiked 200km across Corsica following the GR20.
In 2017 I took it slow, following some knee pain from the last ultra. I did a few long cycle rides, most notably from Oxford to Exeter via Cheddar Gorge and the Quantock Hills (320km).
In 2018 I finished my PhD and cycled the Pamir Highway, from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to Khorog, Tajikistan. "The trail was bad and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in..." We met many kind and wonderful people, locals and cyclists alike. We then teleported (in a car) back to Osh, Kyrgyzstan and began cycling northeast towards Karakol and the Tien-Shan mountains. Unfortunately my cycling partner took a spill on a gravel road, which spilled the end of the cycling adventure and the beginning of a new adventure -- navigating the Kyrgyz hospital system and getting home.
Last updated October 2018