A few weeks ago, on August 18–19, Gus and I com­pleted the RSVP [Ride from Seat­tle to Vancou­ver, and Party] 200-mile bike ride orga­nized by the Cas­cades Bicy­cle club. It was a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence that we shared with a cou­ple of thou­sand bik­ers, and it was truly an achieve­ment for me. I have always been a fairly casual city rider, and rode most of my life on the flat streets on Mon­treal. Rid­ing the Seat­tle hills was tough, but I soon became more used to the hills and started lov­ing the challenge.

In the begin­ning of the sum­mer, we signed up for RSVP, I got a new Mercier bike that I’m in love with, and we started train­ing. We went on rides around Seat­tle and the sur­round­ing areas and islands, and every week­end we added 10 or 20 miles to the ride. The most I had done before RSVP was 60 miles in one day, and 80 miles in a week­end. I wasn’t sure if I was really ready for the ride, but the day came, and I was def­i­nitely excited to do it. I was curi­ous to see if I will actu­ally fin­ish it.

It was not easy. There were a lot more hills than I thought, it was long (200 miles and 18 hours on a bike over 2 days is quite long, yes), and it was windy some of the way, which makes rid­ing a lot more dif­fi­cult. But I did fin­ish it, and in the end, it was totally worth it. It was amazing.

As I was rid­ing, and after I was done, I noted 6 promi­nent psy­cho­log­i­cal stages I went through. After think­ing about them a bit, I real­ized they applied not only to this bik­ing event, but also to other projects that I’ve suc­cess­fully achieved, such as Sur­tex in 2010, and a the­atre play that I was part of back in col­lege. All three events were very impor­tant to me, they required a few months of prepa­ra­tion, and I went through these 6 emo­tional stages through all of them.

The RSVP ride, and the 6 stages of an impor­tant event

Stage 1: EXCITEMENT?
There is a ques­tion mark, because I was really excited, but I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect, as it was my first time sign­ing up to such an event. There was a lot of excite­ment, mixed with some fear and curios­ity of what was going to hap­pen next, and how I was going to do.

Stage 2: CONFIDENCE
A few miles into the ride, the fear was gone and I was feel­ing con­fi­dent among my fel­low rid­ers. Some peo­ple seemed a lot more pre­pared than I was, but I felt I was doing great among the bik­ing crowd. Hooray!

Stage 3: DOUBT
Fear crept back. Uh-Oh. After a lot more miles than I was used to, I started to get exhausted, and there was still a lot more to go, and oh dear, I wasn’t sure I was able to make it any­more. It was get­ting more windy, and every time I climbed a hill I swore it was the last one I phys­i­cally was capa­ble of fin­ish­ing. This “I’m not good enough” feel­ing is really a ter­ri­ble thing.

Stage 4: INSPIRATION
The last food break was about 20 miles before the end of the ride. We stopped along with dozens of peo­ple to eat and reen­er­gize before the last stretch. I needed food for my body, and for my mind as well. I des­per­ately needed a boost, so I looked around: I was doing this with hun­dreds of peo­ple, some of whom are over 60 years old. There was a man doing the ride on his skate­board! How sick is that? He must have walked up the hills, but he was still doing 200 miles on a skate­board! There were cou­ples who were clearly about 70 years old, rid­ing on tandems. Look­ing at these peo­ple was truly inspir­ing; I was ready to take on the last miles.

Stage 5: MOTIVATION
Know­ing there was still 20 miles after bik­ing for a very long time gave me an incred­i­ble boost. Only 20 miles left! And then I’m done! The last part of the ride was all uphill, and the hills are not my strength. But mirac­u­lously, I was rid­ing faster than ever before on the hills. I was actu­ally pass­ing one rider after the other, which rarely ever hap­pens with me uphill, and I was totally fine! Gus was impressed, and I didn’t under­stand how this was hap­pen­ing. Where did this sud­den energy come from? I was so moti­vated and eager to get to the fin­ish line.

Stage 6: PRIDE
The smile on my face when I saw the fin­ish line and the peo­ple cheer­ing was wide. Know­ing that I’ve done it despite all the chal­lenges along the way is so reward­ing; I felt great.

This was what I went through dur­ing the event itself, how­ever, my mind did not stop there. There are more stages that I went through, and that I think also apply to other first-time events that I took part in. I called these the 3 post-event stages.

Post-event stage 1: RELIEF
Because I felt a hint of fear in the begin­ning of the project, I felt a hint of relief when it was done. A relief that all my hard work paid off and that the event (or the mis­sion) was com­pleted suc­cess­fully. I think as pride fol­lows con­fi­dence, relief fol­lows fear.

Post-event stage 2: EMPTINESS
A cou­ple of days later, I felt like my life was a bit empty. I’ve been work­ing towards a goal, and now it’s been achieved. The bike ride was a part-time project though; this empti­ness feel­ing was more dom­i­nant after Sur­tex. I was work­ing on Sur­tex full-time for months, eat­ing, drink­ing and breath­ing Sur­tex. When I came home after the show, I thought “now what?”. There was indeed a lot of follow-up to do, but the Sur­tex mis­sion was accom­plished. The same goes to the the­ater play we played in col­lege. No follow-up for that; the feel­ing of empti­ness was so over­whelm­ing that the crew kept meet­ing up every day for the fol­low­ing week or two.

Post-event stage 3: THIRST for more
The ride/show/play were a great chal­lenge, and the whole prepa­ra­tion process, going through the project and actu­ally fin­ish­ing it were very ful­fill­ing. The feel­ing of accom­plish­ment at the end of each project is quite addic­tive and makes me look for more chal­lenges to take on. The key is to start with a new project while this thirst for more lasts. It doesn’t last too long.

After we came back to Seat­tle, we went to the Cas­cades web­site and signed up for another bike ride at the end of Sep­tem­ber. It was too good not to repeat :)

How do you chal­lenge yourself?

Try­ing new things and con­stantly chal­leng­ing your­self is very impor­tant for a healthy mind. I think it is also one of the keys to hap­pi­ness. What do you do to chal­lenge your­self? Do you also go through my 6 (9) psy­cho­log­i­cal stages when you sign up for some­thing big for the fist time? ☮