You can watch the video or read my thoughts below:

Good morning!

We are a little less than two weeks out from the trip and I thought I would take my first attempt at recording some of my thoughts about what’s happening.

It was an interesting weekend – I packed the bags on the bike, and I took the bike out for a 37-mile ride., and about 2000 feet of climbing because I wanted to see what it was like to climb with the bike with 80 pounds of gear total. That’s a lot of weight to carry on a bike, both uphill and downhill. Now I know some changes that I’m going to make for safety and comfort reasons.

It was good exercise, taking it out and seeing some things that I want to do differently.

You know, when I first decided to do this ride some time ago, I knew there was going to be a lot of learning associated with it. But one of the things that has really stuck through the whole thing is the amount of letting go there is going to have to be. Some big things, and some little things.

One little thing is just around packing and comfort. I am so used to having all the right clothing for the exact great weather. I must have 10 or 12 different jackets, so I always know what jacket to wear. Well, when you’re carrying it all on your bike, you can’t carry 12 jackets, and there’s going to be a lot of different weather on this ride. So even the letting go of having the right thing at the exact right time was an interesting exercise and narrowing it down to just two jackets.

A bigger letting go exercise is letting go of the sense of responsibility that I have felt to my family all these years, and to my clients. All of that is kind of hitting home as I prepare for this ride. Donna is making a tremendous sacrifice. It’s an incredibly selfish thing that I’m doing. It has really no benefit to her whatsoever – it’s my bucket list item. And she’s being remarkably generous in facilitating this and handling things while I’m gone. So just letting go of feeling guilty about that has been an interesting exercise.

Letting go of the responsibility that I feel towards my clients is another hurdle, one that they certainly don’t put upon me, it’s all my own doing. My clients have been wildly generous, and very encouraging about this ride.

I’m sure it has ego wrapped around it. I’ve always prided myself on being available to them. They don’t need me to always be available, they’re very sufficient without me, but I love feeling needed. Fundamentally, I think that’s what it comes down to, I get a lot of self worth from my work. I love that my clients enjoy the conversations that we have, and the help that I’m able to provide.

Another thing that happened – I had to change phones and that got me wondering if I want to let go of being connected to email for this next period of time. That should be a really easy answer, but it’s been a really hard answer, one that I still haven’t actually 100% decided on.

I’m very addicted to checking my email quite frequently and responding quite rapidly, so I’m still undecided as to whether or not I’m going to let go of that.

I’m also wrapping my head around letting go of comfort. I’m realizing how much time I’m going to spend being too cold and too hot, how much time I’m going to spend in the humid conditions, with insects, sleeping on the hard ground, not being in the comfort of my home, not being in the comfort of my family.

It’s all just letting go of comfort in so many different areas.

This is already starting to be a good learning, and I guess that’s ultimately why I decided to go on this ride.

Thanks so much for joining me. I hope you enjoy the ride and I know I will.