Riding With Courage - Done

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Well everyone, this will be the official last post on this blog.  It will still exist for people to come to and check out info on riding across the country and all, but I will be focusing 100% of my time on Courage Performance and the new CrossFit Courage for the summer, before I hit the road and move out west to open the gym.

Thanks so much for the support to everyone, I really hope you can continue to follow along with my adventures as I will have aton of stuff I'll be doing, not just this summer, but for the rest of my life.  But most of all, I hope that some of my words and actions have inspired you to get out and be a little more active yourself, and maybe, to being a friend along and start to spread the greatness of fitness all around!

All the best,

Josh Courage

The WORKOUT

Friday, April 30, 2010


Well everyone, today represents the day I would be finishing my ride.  As I write this, I would probably be somewhere just north of Charlottsville, pounding away towards home.  Oh, to have a healthy thumb!  Either way, tomorrow is the official Riding With Courage WOD day with 30+ affiliates on board and ready to get after it together.  I can not express enough how excited I am to have so many people getting together from all over the place to sweat and work hard, it is a dream come true for me to know that this is happening.

So, if you don't have a gym, or if your gym is not doing this WOD, go do something about it!  Tell your coaches, find the equipment and get after it!  If you don;t have the equipment, no worries at all, I have a non-gym version of the WOD ready for you. 

Remember, if you have any questions at all, please comment, email, call, anything.  And please post up your time and comments to the comments box here so I can make any and all official announcements about it afterward!

Riding With Courage WOD
Perform each triplet twice before moving to the next.  Total time.

15 Deadlifts 225/185
15 Toes to Bar
50 Doube Unders

15 Overhead Squats 95/65
15 SDLHP 95/65
50 Walking Lunges

15 Walk Outs (walk hands out, perform push up, walk hands back to feet, stand.  Repeat!)
15 Double Wall Balls (just perform another squat while ball is in air)
500 Meter Row

No Gym WOD
15 Air Squats
15 Sit Ups
50 Meter out and back Sprint/50 Jumping Jacks

15 Decline Push Ups
15 Inverted Rows/Pull Ups
50 Meter out and back Run/ Jumping Jacks

15 Walk Outs
15 Tuck Jumps
50 Meter out and back Run/Jumping Jacks

So let's all get in the gym and work hard together!  Hope everyone has fun!!!

Josh Courage

Looking Back (Part 3 of 3)

[Pictures would not upload, I will try to post them all to facebook today]

So, with an extra day to recollect I am now posting up the last post about the actual ride on my Riding With Courage journey.  I will post about the workout soon, then about the results of the workout after.

A client of mine came in this morning for a workout and of course, we talked a good deal about my experience.  He mentioned to me that he thought it was pretty incredible the things that was able to take away form the 3 weeks I was gone.  And it hit me, he is totally right.  In three weeks, I was able to experience some of the most life-changing events I have ever had.  There were huge ups, there were very huge downs, but I came away a so much different and better person.  The mere idea of attempting something like that would change a person, it did me for sure, and then, being out there every day, just riding, seeing the land, feeling the weather, meeting new people.  Wow.

The hills hit.  I remember the day after Placerville being physically the toughest day of the entire trip.  It started off nice enough though, with a decent climb, then a long, long downhill into Ridgeway, one of the nicest little towns I had seen.  And that's where more kindness hit.  I had breakfast payed for by a great guy who sat and chatted me up a bit, I had a whole crowd of people gather around post-breakfast, it was so cool!  It was flat and non-descrpt for a long while, I just listened to some Harry Potter and zoned out for a bunch of hours.  But then, after riding through Montrose, all hell broke loose.  It was not just the 3+ hours of climbs, but also the fact that for the first day, in over two weeks, I was down to just my riding shorts and a sleeveless shirt.  It was hot!  And the road was very crowded.  Now, I guess I can better articulate it in retrospect, but when you are struggling for dear life, peddling at around 2 mph, it is very demoralizing to have car after car just breeze past you like your standing still.  I recall about half way up, zig-zagging up the shoulder and just yelling "come on baby, keep going!" like I was pushing through the last round of Fight Gone Bad or something.  I got to the top, rested for a minute and took the downhill.

About 5 miles into it I had to pull over and practically rip my now frozen hands off the bars.  Apparently this was the "dark side" of the mountain, AND, the sun was going down.  I went from sleeveless, to long sleeves and jacket; from bike shorts, to long socks and thermal pants.  My shoe booties went on, my thermal hat, my gloves and my ski goggles.  Holy cow did things change fast.  And now I was pumping like crazy to get to the next rest area to set up my tent before it got too dark and cold.  But the rest area never came.

It never really hit me at the time, but I guess I would have just set up my tent off the side of the road if that couple hadn't stopped out of the blue and offered to drive me to the next town.  And I'll tell you what, with the temperature in the low 30's at night, and winds like something out of a horror movie, I am very, VERY happy people continued to pop up to help me!  They drove me to Gunnison, and I scrabbled to grab some food.  Ready for this CrossFitters and health nuts?  I went to Sonic.  Ugh.  Luckily, my metabolism was churning like crazy from the climbs that I think that food just disintegrated the second it hit my stomach.  And the next day I was off for the tallest peak of the whole trip.

What I remember most from this day was the little shop I stopped at just below the climb up Monarch pass.  I went in to stock up on water and snacks and there was this morbidly obese guy working the counter.  I grabbed some food and asked if I could sit in the empty restaurant to eat, and he joined me, playing some computer game about two chairs down from me while I munched away watching Divorce Court on the tiny TV.  So priceless.  I thanked him and got to climbing.  This climb was not as physically hard as the last, just mentally.  There was nothing at all to look at besides snow-filled trees and asphalt, and even at the top, not much in terms of cool views.  So I booked it down.  It was at the bottom that I had this next crazy experience.  I was on this long, straight 4-5% down grade and a gust of wind hit from straight on.  I decided to test how strong it was and just not peddle at all.  It stopped me.  I mean, literally brought me to a complete stop, on a steep downhill.  I was pretty impressed by that, a little annoyed that I had to work so hard to go down a hill, but still, that is some crazy powerful wind.

I hit a Mexican place for some light chicken and chips and salsa before headed off to find a hotel for the night in Solida.  And then I got yelled at my some woman in a car, who ended up pulling over and saying she was trying to flag me down to see if I needed a place to crash.  More nice people!!  Zach, Robin and Ethan welcomed me to their home and again, so, so kind and nice it just blew my mind.  Ethan rocked, a little fire cracker of a kind with so much energy.  I wish I could have stayed another day just to play with all his toys and goof off.  But alas, I had to get going.  It had rained and stormed like crazy all night, and they had warned me about the roads being pretty rough after wind like that, so I kept my focus on the ground as I headed out of town.

This was an awesome portion of the ride.  A big river to my left, cliffs of solid rock to my right, and every now and then I could see the mountains towering off in the distance.  As the sun began to shine through, the weather began to warm and I began to heat up a bit.  So I took off one of my gloves, and as I grabbed the handle bars I hit the first rock.  Well, I don't really feel like playing that over any more than I already do, so, to make a long story short: bike moving very fast, no control over bike, flip off bike, crash into the brush, break thumb and worry about lots of other injury, get ride to next city, go to hospital and just like that, the adventure is over.

Lindsey came out and we spent the next few days relaxing (well she worked a lot, I relaxed!) in Colorado before heading back home.  And here is what I have to say about everything:

I learned so much about myself.  I found out just how hard I am on myself when I can not do something i truley want, and think I should be able to do.  I found that when all is said and done, I can actually come out having made decisions that truly put my future health at the top (as difficult as I make it to get there).  I found that America is an absolutely huge, and increadibly beautiful place.  That no ater how much crazy stuff goes on the world, no matter how much we and other societies decide to focus on the evil and bad and ugly and depressing; thre are places out there (and if I can find them right here in this country, it is safe to assume they are everywhere) where just looking out over the land makes you smile and feel good to be alive.  I re-learned that there is much more to life then just getting to work, making money and complaining about your day, much, much more.  In fact, somehow those tended to be the only things I feel I focused on, and that will never happen again.

I learned that biking is very challenging mentally, you are stuck to a contraption, forced to move the way it tells you too.  While biking rocks, 9 hours a day, every day does not.  The views, the people and the grandness of what I was actually doing helped to take my mind of the monotony and frustration of being stuck on the bike.  I earned that falling off your bike at 25mph hurts, really bad.  I learned that you don't need as much food in your bag as I thought, there is always some place to get a snack if you need t it seems.  I learned that having somebody with you when you are attempting something extreme is unexplainably better then being alone.  Besides the obvious fact that that person can help with equipment and such, it's the moral support of knowing there is really someone right there for you, no matter what.

And I learned that setting your mind out to do things that seem crazy at first thought, that scare you and make you question your actual ability, well, thos are so important to do, as often as you can in your life.  I technically failed in my quest to ride my bike acrss the country, and while I am dissapointed and frustrated that I was not able to finish the ride, I am so proud of myslef for just getting my things together and going out and trying.  It scared the living hell out of me to think f being out in a place I have never been, all by myslef, with just a bag and a bike, but I did it anyway and came out the other side and very different person.  It proves to me that the only way to truly change ones self, the only way to noticiably grow in life and not just take different steps sideways, is to acceot challenges.  Failure will inevitably occur, but it is the acceptance, the preperation and the journey that cause the change, the finish is just the reward, and there will always be plenty of rewards in life.

I hope everyone enjoyed following along, I appreciate to no end the support everyone showed for me along the way, and especially when it all took a turn for the worst.  I hope that my adventures could inspire a little adventure in you and you might take a ittle more time each day to enjoy te outdoors, smile at someone you do not know and appreciate how increadible your own body and mind are.  And I hope that as I continue to challenge myslef, as I will do for the rest of my life, that you too will take on challnges, perhaps even join me in one some day!

Here's to the challenge and to the advenure!

Josh Courage

Looking Back (Part 2 of 3)

Sunday, April 25, 2010



I can remember so distinctly the best day of this trip.  There was a pretty decent climb to start the day, and that meant the weather was a little on the cold side.  But, it started off scenic, and filling enough.  Lindsey and I hit up a little restaurant behind our hotel for breakfast and I got the "Fisherman's Breakfast" I believe it was called.  It came out with eggs, bacon, toast, and potatoes; then came the 3-stack of pancakes the size of my head.  This was, almost literally my fuel for the entire day, crazy.  When I started riding, I entered into a sort of national park area with towering red rocks that arched and slated their way into the sky, it was so cool.  I had a little rough time because I was on a 4-6% grade on a very narrow road.  There was a bike path but there were snow drifts covering so much of it I had to stay on the road.  I kept climbing and climbing, weaving back and forth as the rocks and trees slowly just disappeared.  At the top, Lindsey was there, just below 10,000 feet with some pretty amazing views.  I had some more pancake, soaked in the views, slipped on my ski goggles and headed down the other side.  The snow started to lessen, the trees got thicker and thicker and the rocks started to tear through the open areas and slowly but surly, they were towering over the line of sight.  What added to the joy of this rode was the lack of cars, I must have had maybe 10 or so all the way up and all the way down, and there is something very nice about not having to hug the side of the road when flying above 40mph down a steep mountain out in the middle of nowhere (a few days later this almost wrecked me...).

I spotted the red car about 5 miles from the bottom and I pulled over in search of Lindsey.  She was perched atop a big mound of rocks and trees and I hiked up to sit with her.  The air was still, the weather perfect, and we looked out into the canyon filled with massive red rocks in the distance.  What a peaceful time that was, and we just sat there, not talking, tossing small rocks down a steep cliff of snow and watching the deep trench the rocks made as they picked up speed and raced towards the street.  It became moments like these that I am looking back now and just really appreciating.  How often will you be able to sit with a great person, in the middle of nowhere, enjoying such a simple, playful, yet silent time.  Well, I hope to have countless experiences like that, but an, what a great moment.

I then finished up the ride to the bottom where we sat at a coffee shop in Torrey before the greatest 10 miles I have ever biked.

I described this portion of the ride through pictures when I actually did it, and even now words fail me.  Awe-inspiring.  I now know exactly what that means.  I was riding with my jaw wide open, almost crashed a couple times because I was craning my neck so much to soak everything in.  It was absolutely incredible.  I want a house out there, where people can come and hang, kayak, climb, mountain bike, run, just do it all.  It is beautiful land, I very strongly recommend you try to get out there and check it out for yourself some day.

This made the next couple days just breeze by for me, I was riding high.  And I needed this as the next day we rolled towards the Colorado line and Blanding, Utah where Lindsey would leave to head back to work and I would begin the rest of my journey on my own.

She headed out very early in the morning out of a crummy little hotel we stayed at in the eastern most area of Utah.  I packed up my gear and started off an hour or so after she left, and had some great support form the hotel staff in the lobby as I got everything secure.  The first few miles of this section was just brutal, lonely, boring, slow.  It was so tough.  But that's when the audio books kicked in, about 6 books over the next three days or so.

And the first of the kindness of the people kicked in (well, Amy and Carter Morrison were technically the first...).  An old friend of mine I hadn't really been in touch with for almost two years contacted me, telling me she had friends in the Dolores area.  She hooked me up with their info and I was able to meet them up for a good Chinese dinner before headed to their house for a great nights sleep, a filling breakfast and just great company all around.  The kindness of this family jump started a trend that seemed to follow me throughout the remainder of my trip.  A realization that convince me that people can truly be genuinely good.  In fact thanks to l the kindness that surrounded me during this trip, I am that much more dedicated to spreading fitness and health to people however I can, because I love it and because people want it.  If people out there could be so nice to me, with no reason to be at all, I have no reason to NOT be nice to everyone I pass.
This life changing realization for me is thanks to families like Adam, Trayce and Noah, and thanks to the long list of other people you will soon read about.  Like the three people I met this next day.  It was a tough day, all climbing, up through Rico, past Telluride, and into Placerville

Bill hooked me up with a house he was selling for the night.  Stocked the fridge and shared about an hour of conversation that was so enjoyable.  His genuine desire to just help people out was contagious and re-opened my eyes to every human being that passed me from then on out.  I have been dulled to this living in a city for the past few years.  I keep my head down, I don't acknowledge people when they pass me in the street.  But no more, we are all on this earth, we are all searching for something to keep our lives going, and that base commonality connects all of us more than we can ever know.  I want to appreciate that connection in people more and open myself up more to being a part of this world, even if that means just saying hi to a person you stand next to while waiting to cross the street.  Weather or not that person decides to appreciate it, it does not matter.  Being nice, being friendly, it finds its way deep into people, even the rudest of the rude.  Try it.  Really, just go out tomorrow and say hi with a genuine smile on your face to a perfect stranger on the street, chances are they will be caught off guard a little bit (which is really too bad), but on top of that, you just might make their day.  Think about how it would make YOU feel if someone where out of the blue nice to you.
In two short weeks I have an entirely rejuvenated perspective on how great people can be.  And I choose to focus on THAT side, on the GOOD side of us all.

Riding out of Placerville and into the two biggest climbs of the entire trip, I was feeling good, but nervous about how these climbs would weight on me physically.  Little did i know that directly following the two most intense days of riding, everything would come crashing to a painful stop.


I'll finish it all off tomorrow!

Looking Back (Part 1 of 3)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

It's now a little over a week since I decided to tumble head over heels off my bike into the side of the road.  I am already missing the excitement of waking up each day and not having a clue as to what the scenery might be and who I might meet.  The other interesting thing that has been occurring is that I am getting so out of control restless every night.  It's the fact that I had been churning my legs for 7,8, 9 hours a a day for a little more than a couple weeks.  Now, even with the couple workouts I am throwing into my days, I am still not moving as much, and my body is craving it.

Maybe getting on the bike for an hour or so in the evening might be a good cool down.  But this post is not about all that, or my prep for the Regionals or anything like that; this is all about looking back at the adventures I had for those couple weeks.  So, after a quick hand update, that is exactly what I will do!

So my hand.  I went to a great orthopedic guy yesterday, a baseball player at Stanford in his prime, and he checked out the hand.  After my third set of x-rays, he showed me that a small portion of the bone on the very upper portion of my thumb is actually completely broken off.  The joint is helping to hold it in place and he said it is unavoidable that I will be arthritic in that joint at a pretty young age.  He said there is some ligament damage to the lower joint of the thumb, but nothing too bad, and he said that I need to keep the thumb completely secure if I plan to use it in the future.  So, he fixed up a special hard cast that allows full range of motion in my wrist and all other fingers.  While this is great, it limits me to what I can do CrossFit wise.  But I want to use my hand when all this is over, so it's for the best.

Now, the ride.  I started this thing with as open I mind as I could.  I knew I hadn't trained physically like I probably should have, but I honestly was not all that concerned about it.  I knew I was prepared in terms of gear and supplies, but what I was most worried about going in to the ride, was the unknown.  I just had no clue what to expect.  This was both scary as all hell, and wildly exciting.  So in the two days I had hanging out in San Francisco before I took off, I just tried to relax as much as possible and calm those nerves.  And I was able to do just that.  When Lindsey got to town, I was feeling pretty confident with everything, and knowing that she would be with me for that first week was a huge boost for me.

The First Day:
Thursday, April 1st we woke up early, I repacked my backpack and we got into the car and rode just outside of Vallejo.  We literally pulled over on the side of a wide road out in the middle of nowhere and popped the truck so I could throw on my extra clothes (it was cold), get the "butt butter" on (like body glide but much thicker), then, just got on my bike and very un-glamorously started riding.
The first day was a haze.  I rode from there all the way past Folsom and into the hills.  It was a perfect day, the bike felt great (except for a slow leak in the rear wheel that i got fixed up in a place in Davis), and my body seemed to be fine with sitting on the bike for so long.  I got a bit restless in the last five miles, but I think that was more excitement that the first day was about over.  And when it was, we got the first of all the wonderful experiences I got during this trip.  Carter and Amy Morrison, my good friend Blair's parents, cooked us a great meal (that ended up lasting me two more days!) and welcomed us into their great house.  It was an absolute joy hanging with them, and while I was eager to get back on my bike the next day, I just wanted to stay there for a couple more day.  It was a great, great first day.  So of course the second had to be a bit worse right?
The Second Day:
Yeah, this day, besides the day I crashed, was by far the worst.  In retrospect it was kind of funny, and the company was great.  But as a whole, it was just straight out brutal!  Within the first mile I had a massive climb that seemed to just never end.  And because of the location, and the elevation, the weather began to get a bit nasty.  I had my books on tape, "Alice In Wonderland", I had Lindsey stopping by every now and then, giving a burst of energy to keep going.  But the weather just got worse and worse.  So bad in fact, that by the time I hit a road-side restaurant, I had to pull off the road with the hopes that the snow would pass over.  But it didn't.  We had some good food, and some fun conversation with a collection of people that passed through, then, we headed back down the mountain with the goal of driving around.  But even that didn't work.  After much deliberation we found to get through, we would have to get chains for the tires and just tough it out.  And that's what we ended up doing.  Driving thought the whiteout all the way to Carson City.  The snow was gone, but the cold was still there.  and in the morning we drove back into California so I could get a good long ride across the lines and beyond.

The Next Few Days:
For a few days following that debacle we were hit and miss with luck.  I rode, we drove through the snow and ice of...yeah, Nevada!  Who would have thought that Nevada would get hit with such cold, crazy weather.  But it was a fun time.  I saw some crazy towns, up in the mountains in Eureka, had a burger for the first time in over a couple years in Ely, in a total dive restaurant/casino.  Got a piece of beef jerky pulled from my gum at a small dentist.  Saw a huge sand dune with ATV racing going on in the gypsy-like community all around them.  Saw, well, a huge tree, that had no business being out in the middle of dessert, covered in shoes.  Saw roads that stretched farther than I could see, without a turn in site, mountains surrounding miles upon miles of empty plain.  I listened to audio books, I got lost in my mind looking at the vast emptiness of the bare Nevada land.  Every time I saw a little red dot in the distance I knew Lindsey was ahead, waiting to chat me up while I sat in the warmth of the car for a few minutes snacking on some fuel.


I learned a huge amount in the first four or five days.  I learned that the weather through the mountain changes at the drop of a hat, without any rhyme or reason (to those of us uneducated in the realm of meteorology).  I learned that biking is very, very restrictive.  What I mean by that is, sitting on a bike for more than a couple hours actually began to make me feel a little claustrophobic.  And if that was going to be the case for this entire trip, I would have to find a way to cope.  I learned that having somebody with you when attempting such a big adventure is absolutely wonderful, and, a must, to be honest.  I learned that carrying so much food is really not needed.  If your route is planned, and mine was thanks to AdventureCycling.org, you will be hitting fuel stations all on a relatively regular basis.  Having a small collection is a great idea of course, but there is no need to have cans and cans of soups and chili's and tuna and what not like I had.  Also, There are plenty of places to stay.  Lindsey and I had some sort of hotel every evening, it was great.  After she left, I found that having a tent was a good idea, even tough I didn't end up using it, it was the kindness of many people that led to my not needing it.

My butt was killing me, my legs were all right, a little sore each morning but nothing too serious.  My back was fine, which was a great thing seeing how that was always a problem for me before this ride began.  And Nevada was now behind me.  Utah was proving to be a pretty nice place.  I had ridden (with a little help of the car thanks to the weather) clear through two states and was on to my third.  Lindsey had just a couple days more with me which meant that I would be with all my equipment, and all alone with the biggest climbs about to hit in the east of the state.  But having her there for the greatest day of the entire trip was priceless.  I'll tell you all about that next!

Josh Courage

Headed Home

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I am actually on the plane headed home now (sitting first class thanks to the insane travel miles and super elite status of wonderful Lindsey).  While I am still pretty down about the whole not-being-able-to-finish situation, and will be for a bit, I certainly do understand that this sort of thing is bound to happen to people who attempt crazy things, and, that I am making the right decision to call it off.

The emails, texts, comments and calls I have received have been overwhelmingly comforting and supportive and I want to thank everyone so much for all your kind words.  For those of you who know me, and those of you who are getting to now me through my adventures, you can be certain I will be back to do this again soon enough.  And, I will be doing a few other adventures...well, many, many other adventures for the rest of my life.

My next post will be a big review of my experience, so I will hold off on talking about any of that for the time being.  I would like to post up here what the rest of the summer is going to look like, and hope that all of you can continue to follow along as I delve into a whole slew of fun in the warm summer months.

As many of you know, this will be my last summer on the East Coast.  Lindsey and I will be moving out West in the early fall where I will be starting up the dream gym I have in my mind and living my life the way I have always envisioned: shoeless, shirtless, and in the wilderness.  But I am not there yet, and in the mean time I have an awesome Garage Gym and tons (and I mean tons!) of perfect outdoor space to train.  Below you will find a nice little list of all the happenings of this summer:

- Riding With Courage WOD takes place (May 1st!)
- CrossFit Courage becomes official!
- I attend the CrossFit Games Regional competition (come on thumb heal!)
- CrossFit classes begin at The Garage (expect to be doing just about everything imaginable in terms of physical training!)
- Baseball Strength and Conditioning classes all summer long
- Headfirst Gamer baseball season gets underway
- CrossFit Courage Outdoor Competition takes place (official registration coming very, very soon)

Believe me when I say there will be many more exciting happenings before I head out, so keep your eyes peeled, and try to make it out to as many of them as you can.  What will end up happening, is that this blog will automatically transition over to either the Courage Performance site, or the CrossFit Courage site, and that will make everything pretty easy to follow.  I hope...

Again everyone, thank you so much for following along my journey, I day dream about what I would have experienced through Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia, but I guess I'll just have something to look forward to now.   As I mentioned, you can expect one more big post on this blog before it transitions, so keep on following and commenting; I am all about building a fun, healthy, active community, so I hope all of you can join me in mine as it grows!

Thank you so much!

Josh Courage

The Tough Decision

Monday, April 19, 2010

Well folks, this is withut a doubt one of the toughest things I have had to deal with in my life.  The other I went to the hospital in Colorado Springs and they put me into this crazy cast/splint thing.  The doc then recommended highly that I get an appointment with a hand specialist asap on Monday when they open up. He was pretty certain that I have some muscular/tendon/ligament damage in the palm and lower thumb joint areas of that left hand and that if I want to make sure I heal properly, I should definitely get it checked out.

This is the main thing I have been worried about.  While this ride is a huge deal to me, and I have this deep, deep, need to always finish what I start, I also want to make sure I am not putting myself at some later risk by not letting my hand recover.

So now what has happened is this: it is the 19th and I am still in mid-Colorado, with a huge cast on, and probably needing to stay here another night to see this specialist.  Where this puts me is in a place, honestly, I just do not want to be.  I am not willing to extend this journey more time, honestly, I can't really afford to do that.  I need to get back to work at some point soon.  I also really want to go to the Regionals the second weekend of May.  But that is really secondary to all this.  The main thing is knowing that if I continue this ride, it's not going to be for another couple days.  At that point I will be at least a week behind schedule, and I will be moving at a carefully slower pace than before.

This is eating me up and causing a pretty tough feeling of depressed failure for me to say this not only to all of you, but to myself, but I am going to have to cut my losses here and cancel the rest of my ride.

I hate myself for this, and I feel like this is letting everyone down a ton.  It will be cause of many hours of lost sleep until I finally get myself back on the bike to do it again; not from where I left off, but from start to finish.

I don't know what else to say really, but to hide my head in shame for a little bit, then pick myself back up and make the best of the situation by working out a ton, and getting back home to get back to work a week early.

I apologize for this happening everyone, I hope you know that there is nothing I struggle with more than not being able to do something I attempt to do.  And believe me, I will be doing many, many more crazy adventures for charity for the rest of my life, so I guess this is something I need to learn to cope with.  I am sure it will happen again at some point.

I'll be posting up another video soon, and probably a couple more posts to recapture the adventures that I had, so please keep following along here.  In a week or so, this blog will all be transfered over to my company site, where I hope all of you can continue to follow the adventure that is my life!

Thank you all!

Josh Courage