I’ve talked about suffering before but lately I’ve been reading up on Siddhartha Gautama’s teachings. That’s the Buddha, not to be confused with a buddha. His lessons can probably be summarized as suffering exists, and suffering can be overcome. Today I wont be waxing on about him though, that will come in a few weeks, I’m here to talk about physical suffering. More specifically suffering for 14 hours on a bicycle.

Maybe it’s not fair to say I was suffering for 14 hours because I certainly started off feeling elated, undercut with just a touch of dread maybe. Certainly, even in the midst of the worst pain I felt spurts of joy as well. Delirious, pure joy such as the one described by the buddha as the second jhāna of Right Concentration:

Furthermore, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness free from directed thought and evaluation — internal assurance. He permeates and pervades, suffuses and fills this very body with the rapture and pleasure born of composure. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by rapture and pleasure born of composure.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-samadhi/jhana.html

On these long rides it’s hard not to consider them a form of meditation, yet I’ve never really experienced the banishing of thought on my bike until this day.

It’s been about 10 months since I did my first 200km brevet and I had done one more since, the last being on the tail end of summer. Starting in October 2022 I set on a series of vacations, and was beset upon by a series of health issues that basically kept me off the bike with only a brief return to finish the most unexpectedly eventful dart ride. Coming into January and off my gallstone issues I was planning on easing into riding again by slowly ramping up, what’s more I had a conversation with several people about how long distance riding didn’t really seem like it was for me anymore, due in part of course to my defeat at tour de big bear last august. Yet I was somehow convinced to join a century ride with a cast of Long Beach cycling community regulars of which my plan was to cut short to 80 miles. However the infectious positivity of the group had me stick it out to all 107 miles. The ride reminded me about everything I love about cycling: camaraderie, coffee stops, vistas. I got home elated and checked the PCH Randonneurs calendar. I had signed up for the Borrego Springs 200k because Daniel was doing the 300k and wanted to travel out there for it. Having proven to myself that I could still ride long distances, I saw a clear opportunity to tackle my first 300 km the weekend after Borrego by riding centuries every weekend until then. A far cry from the Jairo who made the “decision” to no longer ride long distances.

Flash forward to a couple weeks later and despite some mechanicals which my friend Will and Pedal Movement helped me out of I completed all my training, all I had to do now was do the 300k. I drove to the beginning of the ride at 4:30 am, as is usual hardly able to sleep due to the anticipation of a hard ride and anxiety over dragging all my equipment to the beginning. I found parking easily enough and after some backseat gymnastics I was dressed and ready. I opted for a more “minimilaist” setup as a fellow randonneur called it hours later. I saw temps would be reaching 70 degrees later in the day so I wore arm warmers, leg warmers, and a vest all removable in case of overheating. The trade off is that they don’t offer as much cold protection as a jacket and long sleeves probably would have, but as I tend to run hot I thought it was fine to deal with the cold on the bookends of the ride.

I got to the ride start and was the second person out of 30-ish there, a sign of my time overcompensation probably, but the ride leaders Stacy and Greg Kline were there and had procured coffee and made fresh croissants….and if you know anything about me you know I love a good croissant. It went a long way towards calming my nerves and I was feeling the excitement of starting. Everyone else got there eventually and after some encouraging words from Stacy and Greg we set out.

Miles 0-20 were great. I’ve done this part of the Santa Ana trail beforehand and it was nice to do it fresh and early with little wind. The plan I had come up with was basically to bank as much time as possible in the first 200 kilometers so I could be flexible in the last third of the ride, it being unknown territory for me I didn’t know how I would feel. So this first part I just kept going, with a casual glance at my power output to make sure I wasn’t destroying my legs, I saw the stronger riders blast away immediately and I slowly distanced myself from the pack behind me, leaving me somewhere in the middle. Eventually, two riders on a tandem caught up with me who I would later learn were Tim and Joanna. A third rider whose name I never got but was noticeably British also joined us, and we see-sawed with each other without ever really forming a pace line or anything for the next 20 miles or so. The British randonneur asked where we were going to stop for nutrition, and although I was not planning on stopping it took almost no effort to convince me to do a quick stop at a gas station in Corona, I am a creature of habit I guess. I got a coke zero which I regretted about 10 miles later as I had not sweat enough to warrant all that liquid and would have to pee all the way up until the first control at mile 67. The rider I stopped with put diluted Monster energy drink into his water bottles which kind of seems like a game changer to me and now am considering trying that out.

The views here were awesome as the Santa Ana river really started to open up and you could see the majesty of the Anaheim Hills. Then once in Corona the route kinda winded around the streets and into Norco. At this point the route started getting a bit hilly and there was a constant gradual incline that would last all the way to the turnaround point in San Bernandino. It was here that in classic Jairo fashion I fell behind from our little group as everyone else had much stronger climbing legs than I did. Still I pressed on. Once I got the the upper Santa Ana River Trail I was floored by how beautiful it was. Hills, boulders, grassy plains, horses. Could hardly believe I was only 50 miles from the beach. I was starting to feel a it fatigued from not having stopped at all which I’m not really used to, but the awe inspiring sights really banished thoughts of slowing down away: this was new territory, I had to explore! Once we hit Riverside county the path took a turn as we rode through homeless encampments, which no judgement on them but the trail here seem poorly maintained. We also rode next to some sewage treatment plant that almost threatened to make me nauseous as I was getting tired of the sugar water and gels I was consuming. I was starting to feel a pain in my back and butt as the miles go into the 60s. The temperature also started creeping up so I stopped for a minute to take off the arm warmers and unzip my vest, but really the brief time off my bike felt glorious. No doubt I was experiencing the effects of the gradual climbing, I contemplated how last weekend a borrego springs I had destroyed the first 60 miles in 4 hours with hardly breaking a sweat and here I was struggling just to get to the first control. It’s not really productive to compare the two rides like this…the Borrego springs ride had just about every possible condition for a fast ride going for it…at least for the first part yet this is where my mind wanders when I’m struggling.

After what felt like a small eternity I made it to the turnaround at San Bernandino where volunteers Lori and Jeff had graciously set up a very rando aid station. They had a camping grill set up at the exit to the path replete with sandwiches, pots of soup, boiled potatoes, and cookies. They also had camping chairs set up around the area for riders to relax in. My first mission was to use the restroom as I have had to pee ever since that first stop at the gas station. I went on a little adventure here as I was too chicken to just go behind a bush and Lori suggested the gas station around the corner. For whatever reason I decided to walk there, thinking more time off the bike would help. Of course that station had no public restrooms so I clopped across the street where I was “forced” to buy some M&Ms to use the restroom. I burned more time than I would have liked doing this but it did feel good to walk around for a bit. Once back at the control I scarfed down a sandwich, stored the candy in my front bag and after drinking another coke with Lori and Jeff I set out again. Jeff didn’t let me leave without a bag of boiled potatoes covered in salt which I had never really eaten on a ride before but it was hard to refuse so I stuffed them into my cargo bib pockets. Now I just had to get all the way back to the beach, should be easy.

I chose this brevet to try a 300k also because the out and back nature of it would allow me to exit the ride at various points if I really had to, which felt like a nice security blanket to have. So getting back to the beach was my first exit point, where I could decide if I had 50 miles left in me or whether to cut it short. So going back south I felt pretty great after the resting I had done. Got to mile 85 before I started to feel the familiar ache and pain of my back again. This was kind of new to me because in the weeks leading up to this ride there was no real back pain to speak of, at least not in the almost debilitating way it felt now. Mentally I was at a point where I was playing a game seeing how far I could go before taking a longer stop. I have gels that I can easily consume while riding but now I was using them as an excuse to take a breather and suck the sugary molasses out the container. It was around this time that I started to notice a scraping noise coming from my wheels. I think it became more apparent because I was a lot slower due to pain. When I would come to a full stop it would creak rather loudly.

At some point back near Norco I stopped to see if I could address the issue. I tried to spin my front wheel freely and it would come to a stop almost immediately, I cursed to myself wondering how much harder this already made the ride I was on. I took off my front light so I could flip my bike upside down and work on it. It was the disc brake that was rubbing on the wheel so I tired loosening the axle and retightening it and it seemed to make the difference. I flipped up back over and continued my ride.

After about a mile I noticed it was getting darker due to the thick, rain clouds then I looked down at my handlebars and….my light was missing. Yep I left it on some random post while I was working on my bike. I really, really wanted to just keep going but I didn’t have a spare and it was very likely I might not even be able to make it back to the beach before sunset, so I bit the bullet and went back to get it. Later I would be told having an extra light is a must on these rides…lesson learned. After all the time I wasted I was desperate to hit 100 miles as fast as I could just to try to get some semblance of control back over the ride and my body. I made it to 100 just as I passed a gas station and decided I need a real break. Plus my lips were chapping from the wind and I hadn’t brought any chapstick.

It was pretty hot, I was back in Coronita and the sun had come out in full force finally. I parked my bike in the shade of am/pm and I laid down next to it. The knot I felt in my back as I laid down was terrible at first and then so soothing after. I focused on my breathing and remembered the boiled potatoes I had in my pocket and pulled some out to munch on them. The saltiness of it was amazing. I told Daniel later about me laying down at a gas station eating pocket potatoes and he said that it could only be described as a “very rando sight”. After about 20 minutes I set off again with my new internal goal of reaching 120 miles.

Getting back on the lower Santa Ana River Path wasn’t too hard but there was a headwind which was very systematically draining me of my will. This is probably the worst I felt on the entire ride. I was struggling to put in a solid 1-3 mile effort before stopping, stretching my back and continuing. It was here that I silently decided to quit and cut the route short by about 50 miles. I was in such a state of suffering that I couldn’t really fathom going for another 5 miles, much less another 80. Of course I still had 30 miles to go before I could actually do that so I struggled on. I put on some podcasts at this point to try and distract from how bad I felt, it mostly worked after I just accepted the first noble truth: life is suffering. Then after what felt like an eternity I finally saw Angel Stadium in the distance. It was a welcome sight because it meant I was firmly coming back to known territory. I stopped in front of the parking lot because there was some crazy motorcross event and they were doing tricks off a ramp. There were food trucks serving the crowd and eventually I caught a whiff of what smelled like carne asada tacos and the response from my stomach was immediate and powerful. A deep rumbling arose from within my depths and I realized all of a sudden that I was hungry. I devoured the remaining “rando potatoes” I had in my pockets and scarfed down a clif bar. This would have to do for now.

I noticed something at this point which is that slowly but surely, the pain I felt from mile 60 onward was finally subsiding, as if I was at war with my body and it finally threw in the towel. I noticed an uptick in my power meter too. All of a sudden I was feeling good again right after crossing the 130 mile mark. How was this possible? To me common sense would dictate that the longer a ride continues the worse I would feel, yet here just over 200km I felt better than I had felt after 100km. There was a creeping sense of joy and elation as I finally got to the second control where I had previously decided I would back out of the rest of the ride. I laid down once again to stretch my back, looked at the time and even though I had stopped more than I intended I was still well before the cutoffs. I told myself that if the rest of the 56 ish miles felt like the last 10 then I could finish no problem. I took a photo of myself in front of the control and decided to continue after all.

Another amazing thing happened here, I am intimately familiar with this part of the beach paths and the San Gabriel River Path since I live in Long Beach and ride them all the time. In my head I immediately mapped out a network of familiar milestones and locations all the way to the end of the ride. I also had my Garmin on power saver mode with the screen off so I wouldn’t be focused on the slow ticking of the miles. Suddenly what was a daunting 55 mile finish was just another weekend coffee ride. This helped me out enormously mentally and I genuinely enjoyed my cruise down Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach and Seal Beach. Well there was a small stretch where Netflix was hosting some sort of TV show tie-in to a program I didn’t recognize at all, and judging by the crowds of teenagers and tweens I was not the target demographic. The crowds were so chaotic and unpredictable that it was almost impossible to ride through I think because the event was ending and there were throngs of kids leaving on buses etc. There’s a section where they closed down the path and made a makeshift path over the sand using what look like plastic boards. I had to get off and walk there as there were too many people and the path was narrow. It felt okay to be off my bike for a bit all things considered. I stopped for water before getting to the outbound Seal Beach control and saw Tim and Joanna, the tandem duo, ride by with another rider in tow who I would in an hour or so learn was Quinn. I had not seen them since San Bernardino and it was nice to know there were still riders out here with me. I caught up with them in Seal Beach and took the control photos with them but while they continued riding I decided to sit on a bench and have snack. They had stopped at Jack In The Box for dinner and I realized I never actually stopped anywhere for a meal, probably because I felt I was already behind time. Not wanting to waste any more I set off again soon after.

It was dark at this point but the local Wednesday bicycle ride, VFIXII LBC has taught me to ride down the San Gabriel River Path in the dark many times now. There was about 13 miles to the final turnaround control at an AM/PM. In my mind this was just another Wednesday night, except I was much more tired. On this path, in the dark my thoughts started to clear. I felt a strange sense of happiness as I rode down the path in the dark. My focus was only on pedaling, the cold, the wind. I reached into my bag and started munching on the M&Ms I bought earlier like a kid. I began to see fellow randonneurs on the return trip, they were like waves of my future self who would be coming down the same path again in about an hour. Once again it felt nice to still see them out there, and it gave me a sense that completing the ride was simply a function of time not of my personal ability which I think had been the fear taken root in me.

I got to the end of the path and once again caught Tim, Joanna and Quinn at mile 157. We rolled into the AM/PM together and I devoured a spicy hot dog that was 3 minutes past it’s “recommended by” timestamp. I didn’t care since this was the first real food I had since mile 67 and I was getting mighty tired of sweets and gels. I told the group that I would probably hang back and ride solo again but after chatting with them about my first 300k experience and how I felt kind of out of my body at this point I decided the camaraderie and conversation would help much more than sitting around at a gas station. I usually tend not to ride in a group on long distance rides because a part of me feels like I will slow down the group or I will over-exert myself trying to keep up but at this point in the day we were all quietly hurting and just wanting to finish.

We rolled out together and I did feel like I was in a dream at this point. It was unnaturally cold since we were right along the river and my mind was swimming around feeling detached from my body. We stopped for a pee break and I remember that my entire body felt waves of goosebumps like it was complaining that I was off the bike. Had I reversed the center of my existence? Earlier my body complained about being on the bike now it seemed to groan when I got off it. I chatted with Quinn about the allure of the pizza waiting at the finish(which was a VERY strong motivator at this point), the cycling culture in Taiwan, and his amazing suspended seat post and stem which sounded so good to me this far into the day. Yet most of the ride back was silent. I focused on my breathing and on staying on my companions’ wheels. I felt myself slipping back into that meditative state removed from my pain, from the unproductive fears and ideas that had made the earlier part of the day so hard, and from the thoughts of quitting and going home which I was only about a 5 mile ride back from.

We got to the Seal Beach control again and after a haphazard photo taking session, Tim called ahead to Stacy way too soon for her to actually get the pizza ready since we were about an hour and a half away still but we made our intentions clear! The last 15 miles seemed to stretch on forever, the beach paths were now completely clear of tourists and seemed uncharacteristically silent. The people that were around looked at us with a sense of confusion wondering what the hell we were doing riding that late at night, about 10 pm. Once we got to Newport I kept remarking to Quinn how in the morning this section seemed like it was over in minutes and now at the end it stretched to infinity. Let’s just call that Rando time dilation.

We made it to the end finally to the glorious fanfare of complete, darkened silence just how the ride began almost 17 hours ago. Greg came down to help me lock up the bike and once I got into the HQ room which was so welcomingly warm I finally got to enjoy the pizza that was the carrot on the stick for the last 30 miles. Stacy still had some warm slices but a couple minutes later I enjoyed an even fresher batch. The phenomenologist in me savored every bite, every distended cheese pull but I knew that the best ingredient was the sense of accomplishment I was imparting into the doughy, gooey mess I was now stuffing my face with. It felt great to finish with others and I think the lessons I learned here are that riding with companions can really only enhance the journey, and pain and suffering is fleeting and the body is constantly in a transitory state and I would do well to remember that next time I “decide” to quit early and not trust my training.