The 401

These days I am a little bit skinny. This is not an issue I have dealt with in the past. Since I was a very young fella my dad used to tell me I had “tree trunks” for legs. And once in sixth grade a cute girl named Laurie Anderson told me I had a nice booty. (Sorry Debra, that was a highlight for me as a sixth grader.)

I got my legs from my dad. I can recall once – again in a river – I had been splashing along the other side when I suddenly realized I needed to get across to the adults. I was little, maybe six or seven. I began to wade out into the current and was quickly overwhelmed and pushed off my feet. It wasn’t life threatening, but I remember it pretty vividly so I know I was out of control. There was a little commotion and then my dad calmly walked to the middle of the stream and plucked me out. We were with dear friends named Jerry and Judy Polson. Jerry looked at me hanging there in my dad’s arms and said in his Oklahoma accent, “Your Daddy’s got strong ol’ legs like yours. He’s just bigger.” I never thought of my dad as having strong ol’ legs until that moment. But after that it stuck with me. Anyway, I had strong, thick legs.

Up until about first grade I could use those legs to hit and tackle with my older brothers and held my own pretty well despite being 4 and 12 years their junior. Then my first choledochal cyst showed up and as a result I was precluded from any contact sports, including soccer and baseball. So after languishing with shin splints from hurdling in middle school and early high school, I picked up mountain biking. That was much more aligned with my “tree trunks” and 5’9” towering build. Mountain biking was a new thing that no one knew anything about. Surely there would be no contact with any immovable objects, right? I mean, what could go wrong? The logic for why I was allowed to do this sport isn’t clear but I thank God my parents never investigated.

When I arrived at Baylor with my bikes in tow there was no cycling to speak of. I was a bit of an anomaly in my tight pants. Before long I found others who could ride with me and we formed the first Baylor mountain biking team. Together we christened many of the trails in Waco’s Cameron State Park with our own sir names, as well as lots of other names. Ironically, none of those trails is named “Gillham” or “Gilamonster” after me. A trail only got your name if you couldn’t ride it. Those were my glory days filled with scrapes, cuts, and feats, and indeed I do relive them with the right people :-) .  

But all that is background. The point I am getting to here has to do with a ride in Crested Butte, the Mountain Biking Mecca of North America. I had always wanted to go there through college for a mountain biking trip but ended up working all my summers. I finally got to go and found out several things. First, there are some amazing riders in the world. Second, there are trails that I crashed big on and couldn’t clean, but I didn’t get to name them “Darth Wader”. And third, it was indeed a Mecca and if I had been a little more adventurous I would have upped and moved there to be part of the scene.

The ride I referred to above is a gargantuan one that has always filled my cup. It is simply called “the 401” (four-oh-one). If you leave from town it's about 24 miles long with total climbing of around 14 miles and 4,000 - 5,000 vertical feet. Of course that is literally nothing to some of the biking gods here in Austin. (Lance, Anna, PJ.) But for me, that is a four-letter-word big ride. 

It starts in town at 8,885 feet and climbs another 1,000 to Mt. Crested Butte, the ski town just up the hill. The climb is all asphalt and as cars pass I always imagine the occupants looking at me with a cool nod of acknowledgement for my efforts. “There goes a real rider,” they say in the coolness of their gas-pedal comfort. (I have no idea if they say this or not but it feels cool to think they say something like that.)

Unfortunately, this is in fact the “easy” part of the ride’s uphill segments. You can push a big gear on the asphalt and maybe even keep up with the town buses. Then you leave Mt. Crested Butte and climb into Snodgrass for another 500 feet or so. After that, for better or worse, you descend into a hippie biodiversity-ecology-experiment town called Gothic. (Every time I go through Gothic I think it’s the birthplace of the legalized marijuana movement.)

Outside Gothic the real climb begins to the top of the ride at 12,200 feet. There is a stunning mountain along the south side of the road called Gothic that looks like the flying buttresses of a Gothic cathedral. Somewhere along here the mind starts bending as you really begin to suffer. There are long straight sections of uphill road that pop into mind when I think of sustained pain. They are particularly brutal when you round the bend of one climb and see another, longer one waiting for you, towering in the afternoon sun. Up you go…and then when you finally arrive at the top of the road at Schofield Pass you have another 1.5 miles of climbing through single track to get to the top.

Why would I suffer through this? Let me tell you something amigos, the rewards are worth the pain. When you arrive, the top is literally above tree line and the Rockies sprawl unobstructed before you – the purple tinted Maroon Bells, Gothic Mountain, Crested Butte Mountain, and best of all, a 6 mile descent through chest-high wild flowers down some of the very best single-track riding in the world. For a passionate rider, it is an out-of-body experience.

More than halfway down the descent, Maroon Bells in the distance, wild flowers in the foreground.

When you finish, you roll through town to the outdoor pizza place on Crested Butte’s Main Street for after-ride beer and pizza. The memory of sitting outside at that pizza joint, beer in hand, mud on my face and legs, and the calm knowledge that I have just finished one heck of a hard ride is one of the best I have to relish. All that pain and suffering pay off with an experience and memories that no one can ever take away.

Many are suffering right now, including me and my family. Why? This is an all-consuming question that is never really answered without a degree of faith. One end of the spectrum states suffering is without purpose; the world is a tough place and bad things happen. This view does indeed require faith that there is no other – bigger – reason for the suffering. That is a lonely, hard, long road, and one I have consciously chosen to avoid. The other end of the spectrum is that pain and suffering are not without reason, and can and do ultimately lead to beneficial results. My pastor* taught a message on it this past Sunday that blew my mind. I had never internalized the immense suffering that the disciples underwent while their leader, mentor, hope, inspiration, messiah and friend laid dead in a tomb - victim of a political plot by conniving church leaders. In hindsight we can see the benefits of the beautiful belief system that came as a result, but at that time things were dark.

On the 401 the benefits are so wonderful that I will actively chose to suffer through the climb. The descent through wild flowers, the view from the top, the pizza, the beer, the recognition – these rewards have filled my cup on many occasions and hopefully will one day again.

I believe my family’s current suffering has a higher purpose too, a positive outcome of some sort that I have yet to understand. This experience and lack of knowing the long-term picture is helping me to appreciate the small positive moments in spite of physical and mental difficulty. Last week was very hard physically, but we got confirmation the treatments are working as the cancer markers in my blood are coming down. I can look back and see that there is difficult road behind me and my family. There is more climbing ahead. But grinding it out is a little easier knowing the treatment is coming to an end and it’s working.

I am not saying any of this is easy for me, or anyone. But what I always found rewarding on the 401 was to look back down at how far and how high I had come. That long difficult road behind me always made the remaining uphill a little less daunting. Sometimes when I looked back down, far below, there would be another rider cranking up behind me. I know that for him or her my silhouette on the top of the crest was an inspiration and motivation. Maybe part of the payoff from my current grind is inspiration for others. It’s one I can only indirectly appreciate. But it’s meaningful and without this suffering I would not be a part of helping someone else. 

Let me also say that I do not think finding the benefit is easy. I cannot imagine the depth of the grief I would feel if one of my children were going through what I am, or worse. No parent should ever have to suffer those burdens. All I know is that now, with this level of life experience, I would have to search for a higher meaning, a benefit, a positive outcome to justify the suffering. If there were none, ever, then I just don't know how I would deal. I just don't know.

We all experience suffering of some degree. We all have pain and don't understand why. I chose to believe there is a bigger purpose behind any significant suffering I or my loved ones must endure. I had never appreciated the benefits so much as I do right now. Small or large, they make this all more manageable. 

* Mac Richard at www.lhc.org