Day 1

May 13 - 36km

I woke up from my campsite, but I actually didn’t want this to be my starting point; I wanted to be on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to really start my journey. I literally encountered my first major hill after leaving the shore, and it was STEEP. I really tried to bike it, but with my lack of conditioning and abundance of gear, I couldn’t. I thought it was funny that I was walking my first hill 30m from where I started.

As I passed through St. John’s, the hills didn’t get any easier. I remember absolutely STRUGGLING up this one hill - I would bike for 20 seconds, then stop because my legs were gassed. I would repeat this for what felt like hundreds of times. As I was doing this, someone just walked past me. As I saw them fade into the distance, I thought to myself: “What am I doing right now?”

But at the back of my mind, I still knew I could do this. I biked up to Mt. Pearl and set up camp. I wasn’t really happy with my mileage, but it was a start.