Gover Town-Port Blanford-Chance Cove
Distance: 67km, 98km
The past few days on the road have been quite an adventure. The team had 19 falls on gravel roads, walked our bikes for over 8 km in the rain, faced endless rolling hills and bad highway shoulders, soaked in pouring rain, and lost in dense fog.
“This is where I stop pushing myself and turn around.” After two falls on gravel, my arms became more and more rigid, hands became too numb to hold the handlebar and squeeze the breaks, the restless feet made my poor balance on the two wheels worse, and my heart was racing like crazy. Today’s gravel ride was intended to be another opportunity to gain confidence on gravel, but I was suffering on the ride with tears, I was scared. Stopping on a bridge overlooking a beautiful river, I decided to quit trying and turn onto the Trans-canada highway once again.
I started walking my bike towards the highway, defeated, exhausted, and frustrated. It was 8.6 km to the nearest highway entrance, and my teammates decided to walk with me, a full two-hour walk in the rain.
Did I quit because of Parkinson’s? Or is Parkinson’s just an excuse for me not to try harder? This is the fourth day that I ride and give up on gravel. What happens next? Am I ready to try again? If I am going to try again, what is the right attitude to do it?
Our bodies are amazing. They can adapt to situations that our mind can’t even imagine. When I started cycling across the US three months ago, in the first week of riding, my legs became seriously bruised, purple and blue, spreading from top to bottom. I was very worried in the beginning as I thought I had some mysterious disease. After consulting with the doctor, it turned out that the long high-intense exercise caused trauma to my blood vessel and muscles, and the blood vessel broke and bled under the skin. At that time, I was riding back to back 100km days, and before this US trip, I had only done 100 km 5 times in my life. So the level of exercise was definitely overwhelming my body. However, our bodies would adapt to the stress we put it under if we do it right. By the fourth week into the ride, the bruises have all disappeared.
With Parkinson’s, how much should we push our bodies and minds? When do we call it quits?
