Two years since the Transcontinental Race

A timeline of unpacking a life-changing experience

The 11th edition of the race begins at the end of July. It felt like the right time to reflect.

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Before I started the Transcontinental Race in 2023 I read about the blues that participants tend to feel once the event is finished. Someone posted about it in the race’s Facebook group and lots of 50-something-year-old men gave the post a love heart reaction. Times they are a-changin’.

It made sense. Once the all-consuming structure of training is removed, and suddenly replaced with hours of unfilled time, you might feel a little thrown.

And yet, it didn’t happen for me. In the immediate aftermath, I burnt through half a pack of cigarettes in Greece, fell asleep on public benches, and spilt chicken gyros on the shorts I bought from a second hand store in Thessaloniki.

I made my way home, saw friends without the worry of weekly mileage, started running again, and took my nephew for pastries at the village shop.

Two weeks passed, then I packed a bag, re-assembled my bike, and set off to work in France. The 12 weeks that followed were the best of my life. I cycled around the lake gently, ate endless discs of quiche, and watched a sunset almost every day with a can of Kronenbourg. I also took an impulsive bus to Turin and ended up meeting Meghan.

But there was one thing that was unusual. Every time I listened to the Interstellar soundtrack I started crying. Not a little romantic tear in the corner of my eye, but a good old fashioned cry where your eyes go red.

And I knew why. One of the race’s sponsors, Peak Design, had made an Instagram reel using the track. Weeks later I was still watching it over and over, reflecting on those heady days of steadily pushing across a continent. The music conjured all sorts of emotions, and triggered flashbacks of forgotten moments. A fridge in a Swiss supermarket after the Splügen Pass, or a town sign at 2am in North Macedonia, or a snarling dog on a gravel road in Albania.

The flashbacks continued for about eight months, until my sleep-deprived memory had eventually stitched the whole experience together. But even eighteen months later, I would still get emotional listening to the track, and feel strangely anxious with nostalgia. As if I had become that person stuck in the past, attached to a different version of themself.

Two years on, only recently, has that changed. I now realise that those feelings were not solely about the race, they were about an entire chapter of my life.

The chapter loosely began with cycling across America in 2019, and discovering the Transcontinental Race via Fiona Kolbinger’s win that same summer, before I joined Apidura as covid receded in 2020. I was soon sat amongst race finishers, and drafting words by race winners, always with one eye on the possibility of doing it. One afternoon in 2022, sat on the green sofas outside the office, someone gave me the confidence to apply, and once I had a spot, I was able to enjoying preparing, spoilt with the guidance and support of my colleagues.

I poured all my energy into the race: hours spent on google street view as I plotted my route, time spent learning new mechanical skills for unlikely scenarios, and pivoting my social life into long days of cycling. Ultimately, I built a life around the discovery of a passion, and developed very strong relationships through it. A richly fulfilling combination that led me to the start line in Belgium, and gave me the motivation to reach the finish line in Greece.

The chapter ended, and two years later I’ve found some clarity on how to make sense of it.

The Transcontinental Race was truly life changing. Not because I believe that some masochistic challenge helped me build the resilience to overcome life’s challenges - no doubt grief will still floor me, and a bank loan will still stress me - but because the race allowed me to set a benchmark for how brilliant life should be.

I felt those feelings and I will never be able to forget them. Looking forward, the race will always remind me to settle for nothing less.

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