Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 135: Tour Divide: 2,716 Miles of Grit, Self-Discovery, and Unexpected Kindness with Cary Hayes

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135: Tour Divide: 2,716 Miles of Grit, Self-Discovery, and Unexpected Kindness with Cary Hayes · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: Hey, superstars.
• 0:28
  Polly Mertens: Welcome back.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: Polly here and no Samantha Pruitt, but today we have a special guest I am super excited about.
• 0:34
  Polly Mertens: We were chatting a little bit before you came on.
• 0:36
  Polly Mertens: Welcome, Carrie Hayes, my friend.
• 0:38
  Polly Mertens: What's up, Polly?
• 0:40
  Polly Mertens: Nice to be here.
• 0:41
  Polly Mertens: Nice to see you.
• 0:41
  Polly Mertens: I know.
• 0:44
  Polly Mertens: Thank you for joining us.
• 0:45
  Polly Mertens: And I want to tell people a little bit about who you how you and I know each other, and then why I invited you on this podcast, because there's something really fun and I would just say absolutely epic that you've just gotten up to that I I was like, I was like watching you do it.
• 1:00
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, I have got probably bursting with it.
• 1:04
  Polly Mertens: So Carrie Hayes and I worked at REC Solar.
• 1:07
  Polly Mertens: That was what it was called back in the day, anyway, in San Luis Obispo.
• 1:11
  Polly Mertens: We were probably like almost 15 years ago, something like that.
• 1:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, a long time ago, another lifetime.
• 1:19
  Polly Mertens: And we were in the sales team back then, and we've just stayed loosely connected through social media.
• 1:25
  Polly Mertens: I actually came out and saw you in Colorado when I was traveling through on my fun bus.
• 1:30
  Cary Hayes: Yes, yes, fun bus.
• 1:32
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 1:32
  Polly Mertens: So you, I'm just gonna tell a little bit about you so we can kind of set stage of like who you are and feel free to share anything more.
• 1:38
  Polly Mertens: But you are all things solar in my mind.
• 1:42
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you are now the president of our RAC Americas, which is like epic, you know, huge international company.
• 1:48
  Polly Mertens: You are passionate about solar.
• 1:50
  Polly Mertens: I've seen you, you know, shaking hands, I think, with the governor in Colorado, I think it was at one point.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: You know, you are just a leader in the solar space.
• 1:59
  Polly Mertens: And yep.
• 2:00
  Polly Mertens: Do you can say something about that?
• 2:01
  Cary Hayes: Well, like they call me, you know, it's crazy, right?
• 2:04
  Cary Hayes: The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over, and solar coaster continues to amaze.
• 2:10
  Cary Hayes: 25 years into it, yeah, it's quite the wild ride, as you as you remember from the old days.
• 2:16
  Cary Hayes: But no, it's been the industry's great.
• 2:18
  Cary Hayes: It's been a fun industry to be part of for a long time, and I'm really fortunate to be part of it.
• 2:24
  Polly Mertens: And in addition to all that you're up to for our planet and something that you believe in, like solar, you're just a great freaking human, you know.
• 2:33
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I just really appreciate who you are for your family.
• 2:36
  Polly Mertens: You have three beautiful children, a wife.
• 2:38
  Polly Mertens: You live in Boulder, Colorado.
• 2:39
  Polly Mertens: I just want to set the stage for, you know, like who you are and where you are in the world and and a little bit of that.
• 2:44
  Cary Hayes: But my kids are at the dentist right now, and I just got a text that they each have four cavities.
• 2:49
  Polly Mertens: So apparently I'm not doing something right in the mighty to take you down from an A dad to an A minus, maybe.
• 2:58
  Polly Mertens: Well, you have just awesome project is our podcast.
• 3:05
  Polly Mertens: And anybody who's listening to this, what we really like to bring is stories of people that are, you know, like you would say, like you're not like some movie star or you know, author of you know, some bestselling, whatever, but like up to epic stuff in your life.
• 3:20
  Polly Mertens: And that's what we want to help people like make that jump for themselves is you can be just you know, in a family, in a job, having a good life, and you can get out there and do things that just light your soul on fire.
• 3:34
  Polly Mertens: And that's where you or I looking from the outside in, you have just completed.
• 3:38
  Polly Mertens: I'm gonna give a little bit of stats and you please fill in.
• 3:40
  Polly Mertens: You've just completed the tour divide, which is a race from Banff, Canada.
• 3:45
  Polly Mertens: So it's basically Canadian border to the Mexican border, right?
• 3:48
  Polly Mertens: Down to New Mexico.
• 3:50
  Cary Hayes: Actually, Banff is like about three days north of the border, so it's about 250-ish miles north of the Montana border.
• 4:00
  Cary Hayes: So yeah, it's from Banff, Alberta all the way down to the border wall between New Mexico and Mexico.
• 4:08
  Cary Hayes: Just uh yes, wells.
• 4:11
  Polly Mertens: And I didn't realize it was a race.
• 4:13
  Polly Mertens: Like I had seen a documentary on the tour divide, a couple of gentlemen, like this was probably like three months ago, and then to hear you were doing, I was like, okay, where he's doing that thing.
• 4:20
  Polly Mertens: And then I found out, oh, this is a race.
• 4:22
  Polly Mertens: I was like, yeah, wow.
• 4:25
  Cary Hayes: It's wild that it is a race, and people, I mean, it's it's it's absolutely astounding how fast people can do this.
• 4:33
  Cary Hayes: I finished it 27 days, 27 and a half days, but the winner finished in 11 days.
• 4:40
  Cary Hayes: This guy, this young guy, like in his 20s from France, who just sieged it and didn't sleep.
• 4:45
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 4:46
  Cary Hayes: He was the men winner, and then the women winner was this woman named Megan Hackenan, who I loosely know, and she did it in 15 days, which is also just like it's hard for the mind to comprehend that scale of distance to go that fast, but people do it really fast.
• 5:05
  Cary Hayes: It's crazy.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: I you know, there's just record-breaking stuff going on in the human family all over the place.
• 5:10
  Polly Mertens: I just saw someone do some other record-breaking.
• 5:13
  Polly Mertens: This woman did some ultra run in like beat the men, beat the one, beat them all, you know, kind of thing.
• 5:19
  Polly Mertens: It's like, whoa.
• 5:20
  Polly Mertens: So just to finish, I just have to throw these stats in there because it's so mind-blowing.
• 5:24
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you know, you're probably your mind was probably like stretched when you first started because you've done there's a race that I know you've done, the Leadville 100, which is probably one of the toughest damn mountain races, biking races you can do, I would say, through Leadville, Colorado, 10,000 feet elevation plus, right?
• 5:43
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Polly Mertens: Just did that six times, you know.
• 5:46
  Cary Hayes: Well, that for me, Leadville was like the gold standard.
• 5:49
  Cary Hayes: I mean, that's uh kind of segues into the mindset.
• 5:52
  Cary Hayes: But Leadville was always like the thing, like that was the hardest thing.
• 5:55
  Cary Hayes: It was like, let's go do Leadville to train for Leadville.
• 5:58
  Cary Hayes: That was like the focal point of the year.
• 6:00
  Cary Hayes: Start training in January every year.
• 6:02
  Cary Hayes: I spent a decade of my life chasing Leadville.
• 6:05
  Cary Hayes: And I'm actually gonna go do it in three weeks' time.
• 6:08
  Cary Hayes: Oh, in the best shape of my life right now.
• 6:11
  Cary Hayes: Wow.
• 6:12
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 6:13
  Cary Hayes: Then once I kind of got bored of Leadville, I was sort of looking for the next thing, and that's what led me to tour divide.
• 6:20
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 6:21
  Polly Mertens: So so okay, let me just throw the stats in here.
• 6:23
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, we talk about elevation gain oftentimes in races, whether it's a hiking, trekking thing, ultra race, or mountain biking.
• 6:31
  Polly Mertens: 200,000 feet of elevation gain, 27 plus 100 miles.
• 6:37
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, a little, a little less.
• 6:38
  Cary Hayes: So my Garmin, I actually added up my Garmin stats for the ride the other night as I was sitting around dreaming about Tour Divide.
• 6:45
  Cary Hayes: The final stats for me were 2,716 miles traveled and 172,000 feet of climbing.
• 6:54
  Cary Hayes: Climbing.
• 6:55
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 6:57
  Cary Hayes: It's a lot of climbing.
• 6:57
  Cary Hayes: If you imagine it this way, yeah, the tour divide basically goes down the continental divide from Canada to Mexico.
• 7:06
  Cary Hayes: And when it as it does, it basically just leaps frogs over the mountains back and forth all the way down the divide.
• 7:13
  Cary Hayes: That's I think the best way to think about it.
• 7:15
  Cary Hayes: So you're just every day you're going up one pass, down the next, up the other, and down the next.
• 7:21
  Cary Hayes: And you just do that every day for a month.
• 7:25
  Cary Hayes: Or some people two weeks, 14 days, or some pretty the hills get smaller, the mountains get smaller as you go south, especially as you get into New Mexico.
• 7:35
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 7:36
  Cary Hayes: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado.
• 7:40
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Cary Hayes: And then by the time you get to New Mexico, they get smaller, but they're still there.
• 7:44
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 7:45
  Cary Hayes: So that's quite a bit of every day, is about between six and ten thousand feet of climbing.
• 7:53
  Polly Mertens: Just stop.
• 7:54
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 7:55
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 7:55
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 7:56
  Polly Mertens: So you've done Leadville six times, and you're like, what's next?
• 8:00
  Polly Mertens: So how did you hear about this?
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: And you know, my question is like, when did you go?
• 8:03
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's insane.
• 8:05
  Polly Mertens: Or, oh, that'd be cool too.
• 8:07
  Polly Mertens: I'm doing this.
• 8:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, walk me through that journey.
• 8:11
  Cary Hayes: So I did Leadville a bunch, and then there was a movie that was made about Tour Divide.
• 8:15
  Cary Hayes: It's called Ride the Divide.
• 8:17
  Cary Hayes: And it was like this like kind of like underground movie.
• 8:20
  Cary Hayes: I think it came out like 20 years ago, early 2000s.
• 8:24
  Cary Hayes: And that's what kind of put Tour Divide on the map.
• 8:26
  Cary Hayes: So Tour Divide is a race on a route that's called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
• 8:32
  Cary Hayes: So the American Cycling Association, with great folks I know who have an office up in Missoula, Montana, they created the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
• 8:42
  Cary Hayes: And they created it around 2000.
• 8:45
  Cary Hayes: So about 26 years ago, is when the route was made.
• 8:48
  Cary Hayes: They they sent all these people out and a couple guys kind of pioneered it.
• 8:52
  Cary Hayes: But they basically linked like dirt roads and single track in deep in the backcountry, like deep, deep in the backcountry to make this route.
• 9:03
  Cary Hayes: So it was like an amazing creation.
• 9:04
  Cary Hayes: And then this guy came along, his name is Matthew Lee, and he came along a few years later, and he essentially raced it.
• 9:13
  Cary Hayes: Like, and I at the time, I think there was only like 10 people who were like part of the race or even less.
• 9:18
  Cary Hayes: And he made a movie about it, which you can go see.
• 9:21
  Cary Hayes: It's called Ride the Divide.
• 9:22
  Cary Hayes: It's like the original cult classic movie.
• 9:24
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 9:25
  Cary Hayes: I had seen that movie a long time ago, so it was in the back of my mind.
• 9:28
  Cary Hayes: And then there's like these YouTubers.
• 9:30
  Cary Hayes: Well, there's a guy locally here in Boulder named Ryan Van Duzer, who's a big YouTuber guy, a big outdoor guy, and a and a bike backing guy.
• 9:39
  Cary Hayes: I kind of got to know him over the last few years, kind of irregardless of this.
• 9:44
  Cary Hayes: And he started talking about it.
• 9:46
  Cary Hayes: He's he's done it and was going up to do it again.
• 9:48
  Cary Hayes: He doesn't like racing it, he just liked to go up and tour the route for take three months to do it.
• 9:55
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 9:55
  Cary Hayes: Um, so I started watching YouTube and then I was like also searching because I was bored of Leadville and I was sort of searching like what's the next thing?
• 10:04
  Cary Hayes: And I was like, Well, I think I could do it.
• 10:09
  Cary Hayes: Like, can I do it?
• 10:11
  Cary Hayes: I'm not sure I could do it.
• 10:13
  Cary Hayes: So it seemed like like an amazing challenge to bite off.
• 10:16
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Cary Hayes: At least go try.
• 10:18
  Cary Hayes: And I was really fortunate to to finish.
• 10:20
  Cary Hayes: So yeah.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: So there was like a tipping point.
• 10:25
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, you've got children, you've got a big job, right?
• 10:30
  Polly Mertens: Responsibilities, life, you know, is good, right?
• 10:33
  Polly Mertens: Like, like, you know, life is it wasn't like, oh, you know, you were what what had you go, you know what, I'm gonna do this like for me, or like, like you said, like the next challenge.
• 10:44
  Polly Mertens: And how was it like telling your family, or or how did that like first couple of conversations, you know, your wife is a mountain biker.
• 10:49
  Polly Mertens: So of course she's kind of like, yeah, I know Carrie's a little crazy out there, but you know, like that's a good question.
• 10:54
  Cary Hayes: So it actually came about, it was it had been planted in my mind to go do it.
• 10:57
  Cary Hayes: I I wanted to do it.
• 10:59
  Cary Hayes: And then about sometime last fall, probably about a year ago, I had sort of in my mind, it was brewing in my mind, like, what would it take?
• 11:08
  Cary Hayes: Could I do this?
• 11:09
  Cary Hayes: What kind of bike would I start to think through like the gear requirements?
• 11:13
  Cary Hayes: I started to like, and my personality is such, my wife would tell you this, or people very close to me would tell you this that I get real obsessive about things at times.
• 11:21
  Cary Hayes: I'm kind of monofocused for what I'm ever hunting this thing.
• 11:26
  Cary Hayes: And then I kind of go in like these cycles where I lose interest, and then I move on to the next thing.
• 11:30
  Cary Hayes: So I got kind of monofocused on tour divide.
• 11:33
  Cary Hayes: My wife knew it, and then we were sitting in the car, and I was like, I think I can't remember where we're going.
• 11:39
  Cary Hayes: I think we were driving up to crested beat or something.
• 11:41
  Cary Hayes: But we were in the car, we're having a conversation in the car.
• 11:44
  Cary Hayes: She was driving, I was actually sitting shotgun.
• 11:47
  Cary Hayes: And I was like, you know, I I kind of want to go do this tour divide one, you know, sometime, maybe one of these years when we get some more time or whatever.
• 11:55
  Cary Hayes: And there was like a long pause in the conversation.
• 11:58
  Cary Hayes: I think she was processing or something.
• 12:02
  Cary Hayes: I haven't really debriefed with her on this yet.
• 12:04
  Cary Hayes: I probably should.
• 12:05
  Cary Hayes: And she came back at me and she's like, Well, you're not getting any younger, dude.
• 12:10
  Cary Hayes: You're 55, you're about to be 56.
• 12:14
  Cary Hayes: Maybe you should do it sooner than later.
• 12:16
  Cary Hayes: And the second those words came out of her mouth, I was like, Yeah, how about this summer?
• 12:22
  Cary Hayes: I'm in.
• 12:22
  Cary Hayes: Did you save me a hall pass?
• 12:24
  Cary Hayes: I think you did.
• 12:25
  Cary Hayes: Nice.
• 12:25
  Cary Hayes: Well, yeah, that was sort of like the tacit approval.
• 12:30
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 12:30
  Cary Hayes: And then my REC, my work could not have been more supportive.
• 12:34
  Cary Hayes: Not only did they give me the time off to go do it, but they embraced it.
• 12:37
  Cary Hayes: And we created a whole social media campaign campaign around it and all the things.
• 12:42
  Cary Hayes: But part of my mentality going into it is, and I learned this from Alex actually, from Alex Honnold.
• 12:48
  Cary Hayes: I wanted to combine a big adventure, but I wanted to have some purpose too.
• 12:54
  Cary Hayes: Like it was a little too hedonistic and too selfish in a way to just be, I'm gonna go for this big ride.
• 12:59
  Cary Hayes: So I tried to combine, combine it with a with a fundraising effort, which went real well for the Honnold Foundation, where I'm a board member, or I'm an impact advisor, I guess is the right way to say it.
• 13:11
  Cary Hayes: I've been part of Hunnold for a long time and that group, it's a great group of people.
• 13:15
  Cary Hayes: So we made it a fundraising thing, and I did a whole social media thing, which was super fun for me, and I think for everyone watching.
• 13:22
  Cary Hayes: And we ended up raising close to $100,000, which is amazing.
• 13:26
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 13:27
  Cary Hayes: So all that was like super fun.
• 13:29
  Cary Hayes: But yeah, tour divide is really, it's really something.
• 13:32
  Cary Hayes: It's really something.
• 13:34
  Polly Mertens: So I'm not hearing in that, you know, like some people have well, I mean, having Leadville in your back pocket, you know, so you knew you could do some hard things, right?
• 13:43
  Polly Mertens: So there wasn't like this, oh, you know, just some people getting to the race of Leadville 100, right?
• 13:49
  Polly Mertens: Like that's a big mindset shift from whether so my podcast co-host, Samantha, she's a ex-couch potato turned ultra marathoner, right?
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: Or ultra runner.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: So like she knows like that overcoming the mindset and stuff didn't sound like there was any limitations other than like, do I have a, you know, like how how would my family or my community support this?
• 14:08
  Polly Mertens: And you like, boom, it was there wasn't any necessary limitation.
• 14:12
  Polly Mertens: You were like curious, like, I wonder if I could, I wonder if I could, but like willing to try it.
• 14:16
  Polly Mertens: So not doesn't sound like there was some hardcore overcoming or like I gotta ramp up for this or fears or whatnot, beliefs.
• 14:24
  Cary Hayes: Well, I don't know.
• 14:24
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I yeah, it was, I mean, going into it, like I was generally it's it's hard to know like what you're capable of because that the tour divide is so crazy and gnarly, yeah, you can't really train for it, like in a way.
• 14:41
  Cary Hayes: Like Leadville, or like a normal, like go out and do a century ride or do a ultra marathon, like what like normal stuff that we all do, marathons or ultra marathons or whatever.
• 14:53
  Cary Hayes: You know, you sort of train for those.
• 14:54
  Cary Hayes: Like there's training plans, there's coaches, and you can break it down to here's your FTP and your watts, like all the stuff, right?
• 15:02
  Cary Hayes: And I've done that for years, so I'm very familiar with how that works.
• 15:05
  Cary Hayes: But like Tour Divides a whole different animal because it's combining essentially like wilderness travel survival kind of skills in a way with like hardcore cycling.
• 15:17
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, so it's not just the cycling, it's a lot more.
• 15:20
  Cary Hayes: And I sort of tapped into all my years of outdoor camping and just backcountry experience.
• 15:25
  Cary Hayes: But the the like the tactical reality is this like you you don't go train to go ride a hundred plus miles a day with 8,000 five feet of climbing a day.
• 15:36
  Cary Hayes: You can't really train for that.
• 15:38
  Cary Hayes: Like, but you're gonna go out and do that for a week in a row, like, no, you just don't do that, right?
• 15:42
  Cary Hayes: That's what you do on Tour Divide.
• 15:44
  Cary Hayes: So it's like my training was actually not great for Tour Divide because I had great, it was quite warm in Colorado this winter.
• 15:53
  Cary Hayes: It was a terrible winter for skiing, whatever, but it was warm, so I got to ride my bike pretty much all winter out of Boulder, which is so rode a ton, but like lots of zone one, zone two, like low, low intensity longer rides.
• 16:07
  Cary Hayes: And then I think I went on like three quote unquote long rides, which in my old life was a hundred miles, like huge, yeah.
• 16:16
  Cary Hayes: It's like you do that like once a month, right?
• 16:18
  Cary Hayes: You go on like a hundred mile ride with like you know, 6,000 feet of climbing, and it's a 10 hour or 11-hour thing, and like that's a big deal.
• 16:27
  Cary Hayes: So I did that.
• 16:29
  Cary Hayes: And I did three of those, so I felt pretty good about myself.
• 16:32
  Cary Hayes: Like, oh okay, well, I've sort of simulated what a day on the tour divide is like.
• 16:38
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, no, that's um like in retrospect, maybe I did it right because I was like decently rested coming in, and a guy I know also did the tour and didn't finish, and he, in my estimation, probably over-trained doing 150 mile rides and just pounding himself to death all last spring, and then he blew up in the race and couldn't finish for a variety of reasons.
• 17:03
  Cary Hayes: So maybe I did it right by yeah, it my own way, but yeah, it's it's super hard to train for that kind of effort, right?
• 17:10
  Cary Hayes: I guess is the point.
• 17:12
  Polly Mertens: So let's talk a little bit of like, okay, I and I get you.
• 17:15
  Polly Mertens: Like I remember doing, and I've only done, have I done more than one?
• 17:18
  Polly Mertens: I'm I have to think about it.
• 17:19
  Polly Mertens: I've only done one multi-day race, you know.
• 17:21
  Polly Mertens: So I did a the Trans Rockies race, which was running six days, you know, across, right?
• 17:27
  Polly Mertens: And you're right.
• 17:28
  Polly Mertens: Like you think, like I would do like one back to back or something like that.
• 17:32
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, wow, what what is it gonna be like?
• 17:34
  Polly Mertens: Six days just getting up over and over again, like let alone 27.
• 17:38
  Polly Mertens: I was just thinking about you in that saddle.
• 17:40
  Polly Mertens: I was like, you know, I can't, you're you probably weren't sharing all of the you know, uncomfortableness and in places.
• 17:46
  Cary Hayes: Listen, butt health was number one.
• 17:48
  Cary Hayes: I was told this by Ryan Van Duzer, and this was actually probably one of the best things I did in the lead up to the race.
• 17:56
  Cary Hayes: Ryan has done Tour Divide, I think, three times.
• 18:01
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 18:02
  Cary Hayes: Uh well he's he's actually ridden the Great Divide mountain bike, right?
• 18:04
  Cary Hayes: Three times.
• 18:05
  Cary Hayes: He tried to race it once and didn't make it, and he didn't make it because of Saddle Sores.
• 18:10
  Cary Hayes: Saddles are a huge deal on long distance efforts like that.
• 18:14
  Cary Hayes: Everyone gets them.
• 18:15
  Cary Hayes: Totally and you have to manage them, and there's no there's no way around it, right?
• 18:19
  Cary Hayes: You're going to have some butt problems along the way.
• 18:22
  Cary Hayes: It just comes with the territory.
• 18:24
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 18:25
  Cary Hayes: So I spent a lot of time pre-race thinking about seats, trying different seats, thinking about all that, and then and I got the right seat, which is this infinity seat, which I got from this guy in Southern California, which works perfectly for long distance riding.
• 18:42
  Cary Hayes: Still, you still get sores, it's not bulletproof, but it's way better than the alternative.
• 18:47
  Cary Hayes: And then during the race, I was very diligent, right?
• 18:50
  Cary Hayes: I knew butt health was number one, and so yeah, if I wasn't, you know, sometimes I think six, seven, eight nights, I was in a at a cabin or a hotel where I could take a shower so I can clean down there, and that's great.
• 19:02
  Cary Hayes: When I was camping, which was most of it, I would take these wipes called dude wipes, and I would wipe down there and make sure everything was clean.
• 19:10
  Cary Hayes: And then I would put on these creams.
• 19:12
  Cary Hayes: I had different creams for different things, and let it heal overnight and then reset the next day.
• 19:18
  Cary Hayes: So I was very diligent.
• 19:20
  Cary Hayes: I knew butt health was number one.
• 19:22
  Cary Hayes: And I would argue, I don't know the stats, but I talked to so many people who dropped out because of saddle sores.
• 19:29
  Cary Hayes: It's a huge, it's a huge thing.
• 19:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:32
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like ultra runners living toenails and you know, just feet blowing up and swelling and all sorts of things.
• 19:38
  Polly Mertens: So the saddle for a mountain biker is everything.
• 19:41
  Polly Mertens: I mean, so you were so tell us a little bit about the days, right?
• 19:46
  Polly Mertens: So some of the things I saw.
• 19:47
  Polly Mertens: I think you were trying to average like 100, 110 miles a day.
• 19:52
  Polly Mertens: And I think you were quoting like 6,000 feet.
• 19:54
  Polly Mertens: Like I remember seeing one day, you're like, oh, some, some it was you're in the 80s or 90s or something like that.
• 19:59
  Polly Mertens: And you're like, oh, I've got to, you know, ramp back up and stuff.
• 20:02
  Polly Mertens: So tell us about a day.
• 20:04
  Polly Mertens: Like just walk us through.
• 20:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 20:06
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 20:07
  Cary Hayes: So it evolved into every day was the goal was 100, 110 miles.
• 20:11
  Cary Hayes: Every day had about between, like I said, six and nine thousand feet of climbing, generally speaking.
• 20:17
  Cary Hayes: So every day is a huge day.
• 20:18
  Cary Hayes: Basically, I had the way I thought about it in my mind was every day is the biggest day you've ever had on a bike.
• 20:23
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 20:24
  Cary Hayes: And like this consecutively.
• 20:26
  Cary Hayes: Like so I would say it got easier.
• 20:28
  Cary Hayes: Like the first day, I'll tell you about the first day, was a huge slap in the face.
• 20:34
  Cary Hayes: I had all these spreadsheets, and I had this big plan going in, like you do, right?
• 20:39
  Cary Hayes: Right.
• 20:40
  Cary Hayes: Because you geek out and you research the stuff.
• 20:42
  Cary Hayes: And I had my spreadsheet about where I'm gonna camp and what hotels I could go to and where I'm gonna be on certain nights, and I had laid it all out, and I had looked at all these different YouTube videos of people who'd done it and all these things, right?
• 20:54
  Cary Hayes: Day one at the starting line, it's 38 degrees with moderate rain.
• 21:01
  Cary Hayes: So that was a tough start.
• 21:04
  Cary Hayes: And so about two hours into it, you do these wave starts.
• 21:08
  Cary Hayes: There's only 270 people that started, and I think about a hundred finished.
• 21:14
  Cary Hayes: So more than 50% drop out along the way.
• 21:17
  Cary Hayes: But like they do like a staggered start.
• 21:19
  Cary Hayes: So like every like groups of like 30 people depart, like maybe 10 minutes apart from this park and bamf.
• 21:26
  Cary Hayes: So we take off, it's like kind of lightly raining, and like an hour or two later, I'm totally by myself.
• 21:33
  Cary Hayes: I'm like in the Canadian wilderness down this like river, it's called the spray trail, like a modified single track, and I'm like alone in the woods.
• 21:43
  Cary Hayes: It's this is not Leadville, right?
• 21:45
  Cary Hayes: This is not like bells and whistles guys, and you know, people were cheering you on and totally solo in the rain.
• 21:51
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, wow, this is intense.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:54
  Cary Hayes: So that day evolved into like it rained all day.
• 21:58
  Cary Hayes: You know, I knew I needed to go about 100 miles, so I did.
• 22:02
  Cary Hayes: I saw some other people that day and kind of leapfrogged some other people.
• 22:05
  Cary Hayes: I got lost for like 10 minutes.
• 22:07
  Cary Hayes: I kind of came back.
• 22:08
  Cary Hayes: It rained and rained and rained.
• 22:10
  Cary Hayes: The road was all muddy and wet, it was hard to go.
• 22:13
  Cary Hayes: I got about 100 miles in.
• 22:16
  Cary Hayes: We just shot like 95 miles, and I camped at this like.
• 22:19
  Cary Hayes: Little spot.
• 22:20
  Cary Hayes: I hadn't seen anyone in a couple hours.
• 22:23
  Cary Hayes: So I was like, I'm just gonna camp here.
• 22:25
  Cary Hayes: And I was on the route.
• 22:26
  Cary Hayes: You have your route on the Garmin, right?
• 22:28
  Cary Hayes: You see your map.
• 22:28
  Cary Hayes: So like I knew I was on route.
• 22:30
  Cary Hayes: So I was okay.
• 22:30
  Cary Hayes: But that start like that that factor, that sort of isolation factor is a real thing.
• 22:35
  Cary Hayes: But anyway, I camped.
• 22:37
  Cary Hayes: I remember I was sitting in my tent.
• 22:38
  Cary Hayes: It was like lightly raining on my tent.
• 22:40
  Cary Hayes: And I'm sitting there going, Oh my god, here I am.
• 22:45
  Cary Hayes: It's so hard.
• 22:47
  Cary Hayes: Like, is it gonna be like this the whole way?
• 22:50
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 22:50
  Cary Hayes: This is like hard.
• 22:52
  Cary Hayes: That was a hard day.
• 22:53
  Cary Hayes: Like by yourself for a lot of it, in the rain, up six, eight thousand feet that day, multiple little passes we went over that day one.
• 23:03
  Cary Hayes: It was hard.
• 23:04
  Cary Hayes: And so that was like a rude wake-up call in a good way for me.
• 23:09
  Cary Hayes: Sort of set the stage for what it's gonna take.
• 23:13
  Cary Hayes: It's one thing on a spreadsheet, it's completely different in real life, right?
• 23:18
  Polly Mertens: You're like, oh yeah, 100, yeah, right.
• 23:19
  Polly Mertens: And and you sound like somebody like me, like you would watch other people's videos and kind of like take in what you could and prepare yourself, you know, as best as possible.
• 23:27
  Polly Mertens: But you're right, like you don't know, you don't you you know, and the thing see, I was gonna ask you like some of the things that surprised you, and it sounds a little bit like races you've done were and some of them can be supported.
• 23:39
  Polly Mertens: I you know, I think Leadville probably has you know stations and whatnot and cheering and fans and you go home that night and you know, whatever.
• 23:46
  Polly Mertens: Sure.
• 23:47
  Polly Mertens: None of that, none of that.
• 23:49
  Cary Hayes: No, you're truly you're really on your own out there.
• 23:51
  Cary Hayes: That's I knew going in that it was like a it's a combination of you need the physical to be able to do it, but really a lot of it's mental to be able to just get up every morning, rationalize you're gonna go on the biggest ride of your life that day, do it, stay in it, and then do it again the next day, and do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day for as long as you can think.
• 24:17
  Cary Hayes: Many times, like early that first week, I was like making the mistake mentally of like, okay, so I'm here right now.
• 24:27
  Cary Hayes: I'm traveling at like, you know, eight and a half miles an hour, according to my Garmin, like on average is my average speed.
• 24:34
  Cary Hayes: So that means I'll be here by then, which means I can be in this town tonight and I might get a hotel there.
• 24:40
  Cary Hayes: And every time I would start doing that, boom, I would get slapped with something.
• 24:45
  Cary Hayes: The wind starts blowing 30 miles an hour in your face.
• 24:48
  Cary Hayes: It starts raining.
• 24:50
  Cary Hayes: There's trees down over the trail, there's a river crossing, you can't there's a private pro there's barbed wire across the trail.
• 24:58
  Cary Hayes: You can't go like any number of things would blow up that we got in peanut butter mud, like all of it.
• 25:04
  Cary Hayes: So every time I did that and tried to plan, boom, never worked.
• 25:09
  Cary Hayes: So then I realized, okay, this is really about staying in the moment, like really in the next hour or two window.
• 25:16
  Cary Hayes: Wow, that's all I can really think about.
• 25:18
  Cary Hayes: So there was heavy intensity for me, and that was part of like coming down out of it, was is hard, it's still hard.
• 25:25
  Cary Hayes: It's getting easier now, but it's like really hard because I was so it was super intense every day because I was living in these like you know two-hour windows of like, okay, I just need to think about the next couple hours.
• 25:36
  Cary Hayes: I'm gonna go up this pass, and maybe it's gonna take four or five hours to get up it, but I'm gonna stay in there, right?
• 25:42
  Cary Hayes: And that's all I can really think about because I can't really plan because I don't know what the external variables are and so on and so forth.
• 25:49
  Cary Hayes: So yeah, there was a lot to it for sure.
• 25:52
  Cary Hayes: But it did get easier.
• 25:53
  Cary Hayes: Like for me, it was like the first week was real hard, real hard.
• 25:58
  Cary Hayes: And then two things happened.
• 26:00
  Cary Hayes: One, my body got used to it in a way, and my more well, I'll say my morning routine was two Advil, which was great, and and two electrolyte pills.
• 26:12
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, because the electrolytes were huge for me, and those really worked.
• 26:16
  Cary Hayes: So that was my morning, my morning pill taking.
• 26:19
  Cary Hayes: But on day eight on this mountain called Lava Mountain in Montana, I basically met a guy named his name's Jerry Seeger, Jerry, and he kind of became my partner for the rest of the ride.
• 26:34
  Cary Hayes: And uh we never said that we were gonna be partners, we never said like, hey, let's ride the rest of this together, but that's the way it worked out, and we became very like compatible, we're very different people, but it was great to have someone like that.
• 26:53
  Cary Hayes: We both commented multiple times to other people that I probably wouldn't have finished without him, and he probably wouldn't have finished without me.
• 27:03
  Cary Hayes: Because it it's so hard mentally to be that far out there and that deep in the woods every day for like a long time to be able to.
• 27:16
  Cary Hayes: There's like a safety factor to it, but there's also just like a companionship factor to it, right?
• 27:22
  Cary Hayes: So meeting Jerry was a great thing.
• 27:24
  Cary Hayes: If I ever write a book about this, I've already got the title.
• 27:27
  Cary Hayes: It's called Three Weeks with Jerry.
• 27:29
  Cary Hayes: But he was great.
• 27:31
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I met amazing people who were both racers plus community, which I guess is amazing.
• 27:41
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 27:41
  Cary Hayes: But yeah, Jerry was a key, a key guy in my adventure with me for sure.
• 27:46
  Polly Mertens: Wow, it's like your little trail angel or your yeah, just your partner in crime for this adventure that you didn't know you needed someone, like you said.
• 27:54
  Polly Mertens: And you probably wouldn't be like, hey, let's plan this and do it, you know, because it's I I find when I've had a little like there were a couple of days on that multi-day race that I did one time where I was just like, I'm gonna just stay on this girl's heels and just like go as fast as she's going.
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: And that's that was my job.
• 28:10
  Polly Mertens: And it wasn't like we were talking the whole time.
• 28:12
  Polly Mertens: It was just like, I'm latching myself onto you.
• 28:15
  Polly Mertens: So that you know, like a pacer kind of thing.
• 28:17
  Polly Mertens: And and it and it works, it helps, you know, with that.
• 28:21
  Polly Mertens: Now, I I didn't experience quite as much what you're talking about that like out in the wilderness.
• 28:26
  Polly Mertens: I mean, we were in some remote areas, you know, but I can imagine how far you felt like, you know, you're so far out there.
• 28:35
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I couldn't believe like listen, I've been hiking, I've been running wilderness areas in the woods my whole life, you know, since I was 18 or whatever.
• 28:43
  Cary Hayes: I couldn't believe that course.
• 28:45
  Cary Hayes: You are so far out there.
• 28:48
  Cary Hayes: One of the big realizations for me coming out of this, which was great, was we're so lucky to live in the US.
• 28:55
  Cary Hayes: Like most of the racers were you're either European or Australian or New Zealanders, some combination of those three.
• 29:04
  Cary Hayes: But heavy New Zealand and Europe.
• 29:06
  Cary Hayes: I don't know the actual numbers, but I would I would say that it was like probably less than like a hundred or so Americans and 170 Euros and Aussies and New Zealanders, Kiwis, I think they say.
• 29:20
  Cary Hayes: That was a big surprise, but but regardless, it was funny for me to hear, especially the Europeans, they they read about it, they they know it, but then all of a sudden when you're in Montana and it's you know 92 miles to the next town over three passes.
• 29:38
  Cary Hayes: And they're they just couldn't, they're just like, really?
• 29:41
  Cary Hayes: Can that really be?
• 29:43
  Cary Hayes: I'm like far.
• 29:44
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, it is that far.
• 29:46
  Cary Hayes: Yes, we are really that far.
• 29:48
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, like in yeah, it's the the the span, the the the western US and the camp Canadian Rockies, too, are so incredibly huge, and we are so blessed to have that kind of open space in this country.
• 30:03
  Cary Hayes: We sort of take it for granted by now, like, yeah, the West is wide open and it's all these big mountains.
• 30:09
  Cary Hayes: And but you get out there, and it's like you're a hundred miles deep into a dirt road, and there's the next town's not for another hundred miles.
• 30:16
  Cary Hayes: There's no cabin, there's no rescue, there's no there's no eating out.
• 30:20
  Polly Mertens: There's no coffee shop on the corner or Walmart or any of that.
• 30:23
  Polly Mertens: Like, no, you're not just popping in somewhere and getting heat or air conditioning or anything, none of it.
• 30:29
  Cary Hayes: We um we rarely saw people, I would say it that way on this course in large stretches of this course.
• 30:36
  Cary Hayes: Wow, you almost never saw cars or trucks on these roads.
• 30:41
  Cary Hayes: You would occasionally see ATVs, okay, hunters, the kind of ATV kind of guys and families cruising around.
• 30:48
  Cary Hayes: But that was really it.
• 30:50
  Cary Hayes: Like very few.
• 30:51
  Cary Hayes: I mean, you come into some you know populated spots, of course, but like for the majority of it, especially in Canada, which was three days, Montana, which was a week, uh, Idaho, and then even into Wyoming.
• 31:02
  Cary Hayes: This, you know, very remote, very remote.
• 31:05
  Cary Hayes: I was impressed by how remote for sure.
• 31:07
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 31:08
  Polly Mertens: So I want to come back to that.
• 31:09
  Polly Mertens: Well, there's two things I want to ask you about.
• 31:12
  Polly Mertens: Like not giving up, not quitting.
• 31:15
  Polly Mertens: But I also am curious about these, like, like the legit.
• 31:18
  Polly Mertens: So tell me a little bit about, you said, you know, five days in, seven, the first week, like it was hard, right?
• 31:25
  Polly Mertens: Or even on the first day, you're like, is it gonna be like this every day?
• 31:28
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, kind of moments.
• 31:30
  Polly Mertens: What did you have to do?
• 31:32
  Polly Mertens: What did you have to think about?
• 31:33
  Polly Mertens: What did you have to process?
• 31:34
  Polly Mertens: How did you go?
• 31:36
  Polly Mertens: I'm gonna keep going.
• 31:37
  Polly Mertens: Like what were you checking in with yourself?
• 31:39
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you didn't have any injuries, like like broken anything, it sounds like some soreness and stuff.
• 31:44
  Polly Mertens: But what what was your what were you doing when you wanted to quit, or some part of you wanted to quit?
• 31:49
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I never really wanted to quit.
• 31:50
  Cary Hayes: It was more like uh for like especially the first week or so, I questioned whether or not I could do it.
• 31:57
  Cary Hayes: I even questioned it like even on the la like the last week, like, can I continue doing this?
• 32:03
  Cary Hayes: Because you get worn down, you know, three and a half weeks in.
• 32:06
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, a lot of I watched a lot of people drop out who I had leapfrogged with or kind of new on the trail, who I had like perceived to be very strong, maybe stronger than me.
• 32:18
  Cary Hayes: And now these people are dropping out, and oh my god, like, whoa, this is hard.
• 32:24
  Polly Mertens: And I'm still here.
• 32:27
  Cary Hayes: But no, I never wanted to quit.
• 32:28
  Cary Hayes: It was more of like a can I, you know, can I keep going and can I continue to do this mentally first, physically second?
• 32:39
  Cary Hayes: My body held up well.
• 32:41
  Cary Hayes: I was actually quite surprised.
• 32:43
  Cary Hayes: Wow, not maybe not quite surprised, but I had good base fitness and I felt pretty good most of it.
• 32:48
  Cary Hayes: Advil and electrolytes seemed to be a good combo for me.
• 32:51
  Cary Hayes: Totally, totally.
• 32:52
  Cary Hayes: I certainly didn't need enough.
• 32:53
  Cary Hayes: I lost 22 pounds on this.
• 32:55
  Cary Hayes: Wow.
• 32:57
  Cary Hayes: Which was crazy.
• 32:58
  Cary Hayes: I'm like really skinny.
• 32:59
  Cary Hayes: I don't know.
• 33:00
  Cary Hayes: My clothes fit right now, but gained some more weight back.
• 33:03
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 33:04
  Cary Hayes: But you couldn't eat enough calories, right?
• 33:05
  Cary Hayes: So I would like we would come into like a resupply place, which is often a gas station or like a town, and there's usually a subway.
• 33:12
  Cary Hayes: So say subway was like the hit.
• 33:14
  Cary Hayes: So we go to Subway, I get three sandwiches, and I would maw one on the spot for like lunch or dinner, whatever time it was.
• 33:22
  Cary Hayes: And then we'd take two on the road, one was for the next meal, and then the next meal, and then hopefully you're usually like 24 to 48 hours between stops, although there's a couple more, but you couldn't eat enough, like, and that's why I lost a bunch of weight.
• 33:37
  Cary Hayes: But your question I don't know, like I had a lot of pressure on myself for this ride because it wasn't just me.
• 33:46
  Cary Hayes: I had sort of spread it out.
• 33:48
  Cary Hayes: It's a fundraiser, we got donors now.
• 33:50
  Cary Hayes: There's a lot of engagement.
• 33:52
  Cary Hayes: There's a it's not just me now, there's a lot of there's a lot of riding on it, right?
• 33:57
  Cary Hayes: Not that I couldn't have, if I got injured or something happened, like I would have been fine.
• 34:01
  Cary Hayes: Like it's okay to not finish because it's super hard.
• 34:05
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, but I had a lot of riding on it for me personally, like mentally.
• 34:09
  Cary Hayes: And there was nothing, I was like, nothing's really gonna like, unless it's really catastrophic, I'm not quitting.
• 34:16
  Cary Hayes: Like I'm I'm gonna do it.
• 34:18
  Cary Hayes: Like it could take me longer, which it did.
• 34:21
  Cary Hayes: I I originally thought on a spreadsheet I could do this in 23, 24 days.
• 34:26
  Cary Hayes: Took me 27, so you know, three or four days longer than I expected.
• 34:30
  Cary Hayes: But there was never a moment where I was like, there were certainly moments where I was hating my life and crying.
• 34:37
  Cary Hayes: I I cried a lot, which was interesting, which we could talk about.
• 34:40
  Polly Mertens: But uh that that guy you talked about who does all the videos.
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: I'm sorry, I can't remember his name, the in your area.
• 34:45
  Cary Hayes: The mine had been doozer.
• 34:47
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 34:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 34:47
  Polly Mertens: I heard him, I was so because after I saw you guys were friends and stuff, I was like, oh, let me see what he talks about.
• 34:53
  Polly Mertens: And he said, the tour divide, I'm calling it the the the cry divide or something, or something like that.
• 34:59
  Polly Mertens: He's like, I cry every day out here now.
• 35:02
  Cary Hayes: Maybe me and Deozer have that in common.
• 35:05
  Polly Mertens: That's what he called it instead of dry packing, crypacking or something.
• 35:07
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, cry that was it, crypacking.
• 35:09
  Cary Hayes: I can't explain it other than I I thought a lot about this because like it was weird.
• 35:14
  Cary Hayes: Like every day, as soon as I would think about like my family or think about like other things, I would just like start like like choking up a little bit.
• 35:25
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, I can only attribute that to like the intensity of like the situation I was in at all times, yeah.
• 35:33
  Cary Hayes: Like the emotional intensity of it, as well as like just like part of it is like the natural beauty, also in a way, which is maybe sounds weird, but I felt I was like so out there in this beautiful environment, like incredible.
• 35:48
  Cary Hayes: What that's another like takeaway for me.
• 35:51
  Cary Hayes: Like I'll tell you, this is a good story.
• 35:54
  Cary Hayes: So, Jerry what is what I would consider like a professional cycle tour guy.
• 36:01
  Cary Hayes: Jerry had he's a British guy, he had cycled from Alaska to Washington, DC, he had cycled from London to Hong Kong, he had cycled all around the world for 20 years.
• 36:13
  Cary Hayes: He's done this forever, never been on a mountain bike his whole life.
• 36:18
  Cary Hayes: I'm like the exact opposite.
• 36:20
  Cary Hayes: Never cycle toward one day, never bike packed one day in my life before this race.
• 36:26
  Cary Hayes: Right?
• 36:27
  Cary Hayes: But I've mountain biked a million days at a million miles and done all the mountain biking stuff all around the country and so on and so forth.
• 36:35
  Cary Hayes: So, in that respect, we're total opposites.
• 36:38
  Cary Hayes: But what one comment he made to me, which totally resonates, he's like traveling and and touring by bike is so amazing because you're immersed in your environment and then you meet people and you see things in a different way than you ever could by car or by any other medium, and that's so right on.
• 36:57
  Cary Hayes: And so part of like that immersion factor, I think was back to the tears, was part of that because you're like you just when you travel that slowly through a mountain range at eight miles per hour, and then transition through different zones and different, you know, the next range, and then the next state, and then into a desert, and then to other mountain, like you really see it, right?
• 37:22
  Cary Hayes: You really feel it.
• 37:24
  Cary Hayes: You're you're almost like on the Oregon Trail, you're almost like Lewis and Clark in a way, right?
• 37:28
  Cary Hayes: Like you're really feeling the environment.
• 37:31
  Cary Hayes: You you you need to stop with creeks and rivers and be aware of where water is, and just like you're really breaking it down to uh kind of a primal thing.
• 37:41
  Cary Hayes: So I think that was also part of the emotion for me in a way, like just being immersed in such a in such beautiful places, like the whole time was like so mind-blowing for me.
• 37:53
  Cary Hayes: It was like, wow, this is cool.
• 37:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, I yeah, that's one of the things I was gonna ask is like what was memorable?
• 37:59
  Polly Mertens: Was it the people, the awe-inspiring landscapes, the clung, you know, things that you didn't expect, or you know, it didn't sound like I don't know if you had any bike trouble or whatnot, but it doesn't sound like you zero mechanicals.
• 38:12
  Cary Hayes: I'm so lucky.
• 38:13
  Cary Hayes: My body performed just great.
• 38:17
  Cary Hayes: And I had zero mechanicals, not a flat tire, nothing.
• 38:22
  Cary Hayes: Like almost everyone else I knew had some sort of issue, like in big issues too.
• 38:27
  Polly Mertens: Like a lot of people dropped out with I was gonna say those two, checking those two, then it's really a mental and physical, you know, it's like kind of a mental game.
• 38:34
  Polly Mertens: And like I love this partnership with Jerry, like I could really see how that like you guys sort of propel each other, you know.
• 38:41
  Cary Hayes: Jerry is getting we we did.
• 38:42
  Cary Hayes: We had we became a great team.
• 38:43
  Cary Hayes: It was like an unspoken team in a way.
• 38:46
  Cary Hayes: It was so it was so funny because like the the last day or the last night before we finished, the the last night of camping, we were on this crappy, you know, like roadside pull-out.
• 39:01
  Cary Hayes: I think like dirt road, not crappy, but like, you know, in the woods, in the desert.
• 39:06
  Cary Hayes: We're not in the woods, we're in the desert at this point, and we're camping, and we were with this other guy, Bob, and this other woman, Sarah.
• 39:12
  Cary Hayes: We all kind of decided we're gonna try to finish together the next day, which meant we were gonna ride till midnight, which we did, sleep for two hours, get up at 2 or 2 15, hit the road by three, and then ride all day.
• 39:27
  Cary Hayes: And that's exactly what we did for the last day, which was crazy.
• 39:30
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 39:31
  Cary Hayes: But Bob commented that last night we were just and we had I had we had hung out with Bob.
• 39:37
  Cary Hayes: Bob is this awesome 63-year-old guy from Michigan, super fit guy.
• 39:43
  Cary Hayes: I still can't believe how gnarly this guy was.
• 39:45
  Cary Hayes: He was great.
• 39:46
  Cary Hayes: Anyway, he he commented, which was sort of telling about the the relationship between me and Jerry.
• 39:53
  Cary Hayes: He was like, he's like, well, hey, I don't want to like he said to me the fact like I don't want to like influence or like crash your party because you guys know each other and you're kind of together, whatever.
• 40:05
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, Bob, I Jerry and I met two weeks ago in Montana.
• 40:13
  Cary Hayes: He's like, What?
• 40:14
  Cary Hayes: He's like, No way.
• 40:15
  Cary Hayes: He's like, I thought you guys were like old buddies, like you were friends from like 20 years ago.
• 40:20
  Cary Hayes: I like this the whole time.
• 40:22
  Cary Hayes: So that sort of speaks to like the relationship that me and Jerry formed.
• 40:26
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, is that the depth you can the depth you can go from going through hard things with people, right?
• 40:32
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, so we had that for pretty much right away, and obviously other people saw it.
• 40:37
  Cary Hayes: And for for me and him, it was just unspoken.
• 40:39
  Cary Hayes: We're just like we're just riding together, and it was just like normal.
• 40:43
  Cary Hayes: But yeah, he was a big part of it for he's such a great guy, and I we report sort of yin and yang to each other in ways, so that worked out great.
• 40:52
  Polly Mertens: It was and um, you know, sometimes somebody could be having a low moment, and the other one's like, come on up, and then you know, if you guys are on that, but if you're both having low moments, listen, one of my favorite days on Tour Divide, I'll tell you this one.
• 41:03
  Cary Hayes: Probably one of my highlight moments.
• 41:05
  Cary Hayes: I have a few highlight moments, but this is definitely one of them.
• 41:07
  Cary Hayes: We were we came into New Mexico, and northern New Mexico mountains are just incredible.
• 41:13
  Cary Hayes: New Mexico is like this crazy unknown state, no one knows about it.
• 41:17
  Cary Hayes: I'm I don't want to say too much about it, but it's so incredible, right?
• 41:20
  Cary Hayes: It's an incredible place.
• 41:22
  Cary Hayes: And the northern New Mexico mountains kind of spill out of southern Colorado, and they're it's like this gorgeous, forested, like the hills get small, the mountains get smaller there, but it's still just equally gorgeous.
• 41:36
  Cary Hayes: It it partially reminds me of like North Carolina in a way.
• 41:40
  Cary Hayes: It's like lush green.
• 41:42
  Cary Hayes: You can't believe you're in the desert.
• 41:43
  Cary Hayes: It's just like amazing stuff, right?
• 41:44
  Cary Hayes: So like it spills out, and then you spill out after a day or two into this little town called Cuba, New Mexico, Cuba.
• 41:53
  Cary Hayes: And there's nothing in Cuba.
• 41:55
  Cary Hayes: There's like a gas station and a McDonald's, and that's it.
• 41:57
  Cary Hayes: And then from Cuba, there's a push, it's all on pavement.
• 42:01
  Cary Hayes: It's the only day of the Tour Divide that you're on pavement the whole day.
• 42:04
  Cary Hayes: And it's a hundred and it's like a hundred and twenty-five, a hundred and thirty-five miles from Cuba to this other town called Grants.
• 42:13
  Cary Hayes: And that's like it's more of a, you know, you're just transitioning out of the desert to the next mountain range, which is south of Grants, which is the Gila wilderness, which is another mind-blowingly cool place, the Gila.
• 42:29
  Cary Hayes: Little did I know, fun fact for the listeners out there the first wilderness, protected wilderness area in the country ever was made in the Gila wilderness of New Mexico by a guy named Aldo Leopold, Google 1920.
• 42:48
  Cary Hayes: No idea.
• 42:50
  Cary Hayes: The Gila is another just mind-blowingly cool place.
• 42:53
  Cary Hayes: Anyway.
• 42:54
  Cary Hayes: So, what was my point?
• 42:57
  Polly Mertens: Oh, you were telling me like memorable, like a something memorable.
• 43:00
  Cary Hayes: So we're in Cuba.
• 43:01
  Cary Hayes: We do this, we came out of the mountains that day, we'd ridden like 35, 40 miles, and then we get to Cuba at like lunchtime, we eat some.
• 43:08
  Cary Hayes: I think we went to McDonald's.
• 43:10
  Cary Hayes: I got like a McFlurry and like some calories.
• 43:14
  Cary Hayes: First McDonald's I've been to in like 30 years.
• 43:17
  Cary Hayes: Sparking.
• 43:19
  Cary Hayes: So we do this big big day.
• 43:23
  Cary Hayes: The wind's blowing 30 miles an hour in our face.
• 43:27
  Cary Hayes: We can't like make forward progress mentally.
• 43:31
  Cary Hayes: That's so hard, right?
• 43:32
  Cary Hayes: It's so brutal.
• 43:33
  Cary Hayes: All the things.
• 43:34
  Cary Hayes: It's like, I don't know, we're still like 90 miles from Grants, and it's like 7:30 at night, eight o'clock at night.
• 43:44
  Cary Hayes: It's starting to like get a little twilight-ish.
• 43:46
  Cary Hayes: Jerry's not feeling good, his stomach's upset.
• 43:50
  Cary Hayes: Not that's not good.
• 43:52
  Cary Hayes: And so that's when I basically said, All right, we need to make a move.
• 43:57
  Cary Hayes: So we got to this spot.
• 43:59
  Cary Hayes: It's now about eight o'clock, eight thirty.
• 44:02
  Cary Hayes: Maybe it's almost nine o'clock at night.
• 44:04
  Cary Hayes: It's getting dark.
• 44:05
  Cary Hayes: We got our headlamps on, bike light plus headlamps, so two forms of light on the bike for night riding.
• 44:11
  Cary Hayes: And I was just like, All right, we gotta go.
• 44:14
  Cary Hayes: We gotta get to grants tonight.
• 44:15
  Cary Hayes: If we don't get to grants tonight, we have major problems on like four different So, like, we need to get to grants.
• 44:21
  Cary Hayes: Plus, Jerry's not feeling well.
• 44:22
  Cary Hayes: So, we need to get to Grants.
• 44:23
  Cary Hayes: There's really no other option at that point.
• 44:25
  Cary Hayes: You're on like essentially like tribal lands.
• 44:28
  Cary Hayes: You can't camp on the side of the road.
• 44:30
  Cary Hayes: There's not really other great options.
• 44:32
  Cary Hayes: So I'm like, we're going to grants.
• 44:34
  Cary Hayes: And it was like from that point, it was like 85 miles on this.
• 44:40
  Cary Hayes: It's a paved road, so fine, but it's a long way, right?
• 44:44
  Cary Hayes: On a bike.
• 44:45
  Cary Hayes: So I put the hammer down and I had one of the most amazing rides of my life on a mountain.
• 44:50
  Cary Hayes: My bike is 70 pounds, fully loaded, a mountain bike with all your stuff, water, food, all your gear.
• 44:57
  Cary Hayes: It's 70 pounds.
• 44:58
  Cary Hayes: So we did this ride.
• 45:01
  Cary Hayes: I was in front, and he was basically behind me the whole time drafting and pushing on those pedals hard for four or five hours.
• 45:10
  Cary Hayes: And we rolled into Grants at 1 a.m.
• 45:13
  Cary Hayes: And I'll never forget that night.
• 45:15
  Cary Hayes: It was like I felt I just got this energy boost.
• 45:19
  Cary Hayes: I ate a caffeine pill that I had like emergency caffeine pills just in case.
• 45:24
  Cary Hayes: So that was another time I used one.
• 45:25
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 45:26
  Cary Hayes: Like 200 milligrams of caffeine or whatever.
• 45:28
  Cary Hayes: It's like a cup of coffee, basically.
• 45:29
  Cary Hayes: And I just got this boost and I just went, I felt like I was flying through the night.
• 45:34
  Cary Hayes: It was so fun.
• 45:35
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 45:36
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, it was a great night.
• 45:37
  Cary Hayes: And we got to Grants at 1 a.m.
• 45:38
  Cary Hayes: and got a hotel and it all worked out.
• 45:40
  Cary Hayes: That was a memorable night for sure.
• 45:43
  Polly Mertens: And that put, like I think I remember seeing the post you did about that.
• 45:47
  Polly Mertens: You're like, I didn't know I had like a second gear in me or something.
• 45:50
  Polly Mertens: Like you said, like you had the fifth wind or something, you know, like you came up with another whole nother push, you know, because you're probably pushing in like chunks, like between breakfast and lunch or something like that.
• 45:59
  Polly Mertens: And then like this, oh, until 1 a.m.
• 46:01
  Polly Mertens: push.
• 46:02
  Cary Hayes: I would go in these waves.
• 46:03
  Cary Hayes: Like oftentimes in the morning I didn't feel great.
• 46:05
  Cary Hayes: I'm not like the best morning persons at times, but I would go in different waves.
• 46:10
  Cary Hayes: But whatever, for whatever reason, that night I got off.
• 46:12
  Cary Hayes: Maybe it was the caffeine, maybe it was like the sort of desperateness of the situation, or I don't know, both, but I felt great that night.
• 46:20
  Cary Hayes: I was just on fire.
• 46:22
  Cary Hayes: It was flying.
• 46:23
  Cary Hayes: It was like, and this is like day 22 or something.
• 46:31
  Polly Mertens: Doesn't seem logically like that would make sense.
• 46:33
  Polly Mertens: Like, woo-hoo, epic day, right?
• 46:35
  Polly Mertens: There's so many things I want to unpack in that.
• 46:38
  Polly Mertens: But so one of the things I was thinking is you were saying, you know, the, you know, you make plans, and then the universe is like, nope, nope, nope.
• 46:47
  Polly Mertens: Like you can't plan, you know, like, oh, I'll do eight miles an hour, so I'll finish here and I'll whatever.
• 46:51
  Polly Mertens: It was like, nope, shorter time windows.
• 46:53
  Polly Mertens: So how were you navigating planning?
• 46:56
  Polly Mertens: Like, what was it?
• 46:57
  Polly Mertens: And, you know, like you said, like for the Ledville 100, like you had that down.
• 47:01
  Polly Mertens: You're like, oh, I know what this is going to be like and how many miles I can do and whatever with this every day.
• 47:08
  Polly Mertens: I mean, while it has its logistical goal or something like that, how how how are you logistically planning, thinking what to do?
• 47:17
  Polly Mertens: And how were you adjusting, especially if you didn't meet something?
• 47:20
  Polly Mertens: Like, was it at night you'd sit in camp and go, okay, that's what I gotta do, you know?
• 47:24
  Cary Hayes: Or yeah.
• 47:25
  Cary Hayes: What the the big change that happened was getting away, like I mentioned before, it's like sort of getting out of like this is gonna be our plan, and more into a camping mindset, which was really actually quite important.
• 47:38
  Cary Hayes: Sorry, didn't it be important?
• 47:40
  Cary Hayes: Sorry about that.
• 47:46
  Cary Hayes: So getting into a camping mindset was like the key thing.
• 47:54
  Cary Hayes: And so, like the planning going into it was like, okay, if we go 110 miles today, we end up in this town, and that town we can get a hotel or there's a cabin here or some other lodging.
• 48:07
  Cary Hayes: And then that started to not work well because you're not making it, or you're short, or you know, the the next town is 80 miles, but it's not far enough, and then we so there are like two factors like where can we where can you resupply for food and or water?
• 48:23
  Cary Hayes: Water becomes an issue towards the end, like in New Mexico, but it's really not an issue for most of it, especially up north.
• 48:29
  Cary Hayes: There's like tons of beautiful, beautiful mountain water creeks, like blue water.
• 48:34
  Cary Hayes: It's like you even need a filter, basically.
• 48:36
  Cary Hayes: But then getting into the camping mindset.
• 48:38
  Cary Hayes: And so that's what Jerry and I finally did, which became everything got a lot easier as soon as we did that.
• 48:43
  Cary Hayes: So it's like, okay, great.
• 48:45
  Cary Hayes: We're gonna try to ride 105 miles today, 110, 100, somewhere in that zone.
• 48:52
  Cary Hayes: If we get to, and he he thought in kilometers because he's European, so 160K, 160 to 180k, and then we're gonna camp.
• 49:01
  Cary Hayes: It's that easy, it's very simple.
• 49:03
  Cary Hayes: We're gonna go ride 100 miles and then camp.
• 49:06
  Polly Mertens: As opposed to like looking for lodging, you mean?
• 49:09
  Polly Mertens: Is that what you mean?
• 49:09
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, uh, okay.
• 49:11
  Cary Hayes: So it once we got to that mindset, everything got a lot easier.
• 49:14
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, like, oh, that's simple.
• 49:15
  Cary Hayes: Okay, we don't need to think about the whatever towns we go through or resupplies we go through.
• 49:20
  Cary Hayes: Well, yeah, we'll stop and get lunch or you know, get food or like whatever we need to do, but we're not married to staying there.
• 49:25
  Cary Hayes: Maybe we'll stop for an hour to take a shower at like a gas station or like a cabin or like there are opportunities like that along the way, too, which we would do.
• 49:33
  Cary Hayes: But if we can't get any of that, best case scenario, we're gonna camp between 100 and 110 miles, and hopefully there's a creek nearby, and we'll jump in the creek and wash off, and that's it.
• 49:43
  Cary Hayes: It's very simple.
• 49:44
  Cary Hayes: Once we got to that, it was like, okay, this is so much easier.
• 49:48
  Cary Hayes: Because remember, you're in incredible national forest and some of the most beautiful places in the world most of the time.
• 49:57
  Cary Hayes: So camping only means you're literally like parking your bike and walking 20 feet off the road to camp, like in some beautiful meadow with a creek running near nearby.
• 50:09
  Cary Hayes: Like it's like the most amazing place you've ever been.
• 50:12
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:13
  Cary Hayes: So it's in that respect, once we sort of got to that mentality, and that was sort of Jerry's pushing, yeah, then everything got way easier.
• 50:22
  Polly Mertens: And was he in that going in because he'd done a lot of these tours and stuff like that?
• 50:26
  Cary Hayes: Or did he propose or no?
• 50:27
  Cary Hayes: I think we kind of arrived at it together, but he was like the he it was more of his idea, like we should just think about our time.
• 50:35
  Cary Hayes: And it I even back back up even one step further.
• 50:39
  Cary Hayes: It was even less about the mileage.
• 50:41
  Cary Hayes: And his sort of vibe was more like, okay, well, we need to ride 12 to 14 hours a day and just see what happens.
• 50:48
  Cary Hayes: And we're about the same pace, and that's why we ended up together.
• 50:51
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 50:51
  Cary Hayes: And if we do that, we're gonna ride 100 to 110 miles and it's all gonna work out.
• 50:56
  Cary Hayes: So he was like, okay, so let's just back into that.
• 50:59
  Cary Hayes: Let's get up at alarm at 445 and riding by 5:30, 515, 545, somewhere in that zone, like basically first light, and ride all day until it's dark at nine.
• 51:13
  Cary Hayes: And then once it's like getting dark and we're about to put on headlamps, we camp.
• 51:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 51:20
  Cary Hayes: So that's really what it was.
• 51:21
  Cary Hayes: It was more the time than the mileage.
• 51:24
  Cary Hayes: But the way that worked out typically was not always, because there were hard days that we couldn't go that far.
• 51:31
  Cary Hayes: But usually that was like, okay, that equates to about 100 miles and we camp.
• 51:36
  Cary Hayes: Simple.
• 51:37
  Cary Hayes: Right on.
• 51:38
  Polly Mertens: And it seems like, you know, if your body and your bike are able to do it, you know, it's like, okay, then this, you know, and you just land wherever you land, right?
• 51:45
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 51:46
  Polly Mertens: And then there's things along the way.
• 51:47
  Polly Mertens: There's there's stops and food and and not, you know, and then lots of beauty.
• 51:51
  Polly Mertens: So tell me a couple of the other memorable moments, people, experiences, something that like you were out there and you're like, wow, that like I'm grateful for this, or some, or you know, you had crying moments, or like there's a lot of, I remember with the uh John Mirror Trail and the what's the other one?
• 52:09
  Polly Mertens: Pacific Crest Trail.
• 52:11
  Polly Mertens: There's a lot of trail angels, you know, the people that like come and get food and things like that.
• 52:15
  Polly Mertens: And I've I saw a video documentary about the tour divide, and there's both like lodging places or people that like they're on the tour or on the route and they put coolers out or something like that.
• 52:26
  Polly Mertens: Um and that may not have been memorable to you, but like what were what was memorable to you?
• 52:30
  Cary Hayes: What some of the things that's certainly memorable to me.
• 52:32
  Cary Hayes: Listen, one of my takeaways from this ride is my faith in humanity is completely restored.
• 52:38
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 52:39
  Cary Hayes: I am so happy that I got away from the media for 30 days and I got off of my normal world I live in here, because what I saw out there are the nicest people in the world, period, full stop.
• 52:55
  Cary Hayes: The the level of kindness and generosity and community that's out there that I experienced was like so mind-blowing.
• 53:04
  Cary Hayes: Not just the people who are the the riders, the communities that you go through, the trail angels, the places, so many people.
• 53:15
  Cary Hayes: I can't like hundreds of people along the way.
• 53:19
  Cary Hayes: Coolers put out.
• 53:21
  Cary Hayes: I'll give you a couple like specific examples, they're just mind-blowing, right?
• 53:25
  Cary Hayes: So there's a there's a series of like cabins and different places to stay that are like on this route, and people know about it.
• 53:34
  Cary Hayes: But there's one place in northern New Mexico which is my my favorite place to talk about.
• 53:38
  Cary Hayes: It's called the Davila Ranch.
• 53:40
  Cary Hayes: And it's like on our G it's on our garment, it's like on the map, but you don't really like it's not there's not any information about it, or like we didn't know much about it.
• 53:50
  Cary Hayes: So we're like one of those days we're like, oh, let's try to make it to Davila Ranch.
• 53:54
  Cary Hayes: So we we show up, Davila Ranch, like nine o'clock at night, it's getting dark.
• 53:58
  Cary Hayes: And there's like you don't even see, it's like you're on a dirt road, there's like a gate, and there's like this teeny sign, and you're like these low mountains basically.
• 54:06
  Cary Hayes: And it's like, you know, Davila Ranch, like, and then like a little teeny little thing under like Tour Divide or Connell Divide, Rider's Welcome, or something like that.
• 54:16
  Cary Hayes: Like you wouldn't know it uh unless you saw it somewhere else.
• 54:20
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, so there's like a little gate.
• 54:22
  Cary Hayes: So you it's like nine o'clock at night, it's a little sketchy, like you're going through this gate on someone's property in New Mexico, don't really know.
• 54:30
  Cary Hayes: Right?
• 54:30
  Cary Hayes: So we go into this gate and like the scene unfolds.
• 54:34
  Cary Hayes: You go down this little trail, and then there's like these series of buildings.
• 54:38
  Cary Hayes: We start like looking, there's no one there, and we start like walking around, and there's like building one has like three propane stoves with like all kinds of canned food in a sink, and then building two has two showers and towels.
• 54:52
  Cary Hayes: Building three has a refrigerator full of coke and beer and Dr.
• 54:56
  Cary Hayes: Pepper's and waters and all this stuff.
• 54:59
  Cary Hayes: Building four has a washer and dryer, all this, and you're just going, like, you're kidding me.
• 55:05
  Cary Hayes: And then there's like a sign on the wall.
• 55:07
  Cary Hayes: It's like, hey, this is Davila Ranch.
• 55:09
  Cary Hayes: This is a free place to stay.
• 55:12
  Cary Hayes: Here's our Venmo.
• 55:13
  Cary Hayes: If you want to donate, you don't need to, it's not required.
• 55:16
  Cary Hayes: Like, leave it as you found it.
• 55:19
  Cary Hayes: Kind of like you're just like, oh my god, like this is incredible.
• 55:24
  Polly Mertens: The amount of infrastructure those people had to put into that, right?
• 55:28
  Cary Hayes: Yes.
• 55:28
  Cary Hayes: And I think almost every day tour divide, there's a place like that, or similar.
• 55:34
  Cary Hayes: Maybe not every day, but like there's lots of places like that.
• 55:38
  Cary Hayes: And I couldn't believe so.
• 55:39
  Cary Hayes: That was like mind-blowing to me.
• 55:42
  Cary Hayes: There's another woman, forgetting her name right now.
• 55:45
  Cary Hayes: What's her name?
• 55:47
  Cary Hayes: But she has this place called the Llama Ranch.
• 55:50
  Cary Hayes: And the Llama Ranch is in Ovando.
• 55:52
  Cary Hayes: No, it's before Ovando.
• 55:55
  Cary Hayes: It's it's it's north of Helena, Montana.
• 55:58
  Cary Hayes: And it's just like this iconic place that people know about on the tour.
• 56:01
  Cary Hayes: You show up, this woman is so gracious.
• 56:04
  Cary Hayes: She she basically makes sandwiches and just like lays them out, and she's like making them in her kitchen.
• 56:10
  Cary Hayes: She's like, Come on in, Carrie.
• 56:11
  Cary Hayes: Like coolers full of drinks, the whole thing.
• 56:15
  Cary Hayes: And then she has all these cabins under her project.
• 56:17
  Cary Hayes: She stays as long as you like, shower, whatever you need.
• 56:20
  Cary Hayes: All free.
• 56:21
  Cary Hayes: And her her vibe is like, hey, I just want you to pay it forward.
• 56:26
  Cary Hayes: Like, we don't ask for money here.
• 56:28
  Cary Hayes: You don't need to pay for anything.
• 56:30
  Cary Hayes: I don't take any money.
• 56:31
  Cary Hayes: I I literally tried to pay her.
• 56:33
  Cary Hayes: She's like, no, no, I will not take your money.
• 56:35
  Cary Hayes: She's like, I only ask that you pay it forward.
• 56:38
  Cary Hayes: So, like, the level of humanity that's out there.
• 56:42
  Cary Hayes: And those are like the trail angels, but like it's it's it's way deeper than that.
• 56:46
  Cary Hayes: Like, there's like other guys.
• 56:48
  Cary Hayes: One this one day, there's another good one.
• 56:50
  Cary Hayes: So we're we're coming up to the west side of the Tetons.
• 56:56
  Cary Hayes: The route is really cool.
• 56:57
  Cary Hayes: It goes down through uh Montana, and then you come through like Idaho for a day.
• 57:03
  Cary Hayes: And as you're coming into from the Idaho sort of Wyoming border, you're on the west side of the Grand Tetons, which is a view you don't normally see.
• 57:12
  Cary Hayes: You usually see it from Jackson or the east side, but you're on the west side.
• 57:15
  Cary Hayes: So you got this really wild view of the sea of the Grand Tetons unfolding in front of you, and you're on these long dirt roads, kind of in and out of the trees that are kind of up and down.
• 57:25
  Cary Hayes: And when I we we come up to this like corner, and it's like a T intersection, right?
• 57:31
  Cary Hayes: And you can see the intersection maybe a few miles away, and there's this white Jeep parked at the corner.
• 57:37
  Cary Hayes: And see, Jerry and I are tunneling along and cruising along, and it's like 6 p.m.
• 57:42
  Cary Hayes: It's like a big bright sunlit day, gorgeous.
• 57:45
  Cary Hayes: And we we get to the corner, and these two guys get out of this white jeep, and these are two guys in their 70s, these total farmers are both wearing like overalls, and they got this beat up white jeep, and they get out like, hey, hey Carrie, how's it going?
• 58:01
  Cary Hayes: And I was like, How do you what?
• 58:06
  Cary Hayes: And this is another like thing about this ride.
• 58:10
  Cary Hayes: The there's a website called trackleaders.com that you you you connect your garment to so they can see.
• 58:18
  Cary Hayes: I could not believe there's a there's a whole world out there of people watching, they call it dot watching.
• 58:26
  Cary Hayes: There is a whole world of people dot watching and that you wouldn't believe.
• 58:31
  Cary Hayes: And so these guys know about the race and know about how to dot watch just on this website, and then your dot on the wet on the site just says your name, where you shows exactly where you are because your Garmin inreach is connected to your body basically, and so it shows where you are.
• 58:48
  Cary Hayes: Hey Carrie, hey Jerry, how you guys doing today?
• 58:52
  Cary Hayes: Like, what?
• 58:54
  Cary Hayes: Like, I don't know, how are you, man?
• 58:56
  Cary Hayes: And like here comes the cooler out of the back.
• 58:59
  Cary Hayes: What do you got?
• 59:00
  Cary Hayes: You want a Gatorade?
• 59:01
  Cary Hayes: I got beer, I got water, I got Coca-Cola, you know, whatever.
• 59:05
  Cary Hayes: We got some food, I got some bars.
• 59:07
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, are you kidding me?
• 59:10
  Cary Hayes: Where are you?
• 59:11
  Cary Hayes: You're from you're the web said you're from Colorado, right?
• 59:13
  Cary Hayes: Is that right, Carrie?
• 59:14
  Cary Hayes: So just wild stuff like that.
• 59:17
  Cary Hayes: And so these guys were great.
• 59:19
  Cary Hayes: They're like, you guys are we come out here every year.
• 59:22
  Cary Hayes: Look, you got you, you nutbags riding this thing, you guys are crazy.
• 59:26
  Cary Hayes: This is good entertainment for us.
• 59:28
  Cary Hayes: Oh so we had a million of like those kind of interactions.
• 59:34
  Cary Hayes: Wow, but the dot watching thing is real.
• 59:37
  Cary Hayes: We had there was another one just like that in New Mexico where I came up this six-hour climb, one of the hardest climbs.
• 59:44
  Cary Hayes: It's called Palvedera Mesa.
• 59:46
  Cary Hayes: So hard.
• 59:47
  Cary Hayes: It's brutal.
• 59:48
  Cary Hayes: It's this rocky road, chunky road, six hours to go like it's like a 17-mile climb straight up 5,000 feet.
• 59:58
  Cary Hayes: So brutal.
• 59:59
  Cary Hayes: Get to the top, almost identical scenario.
• 1:00:02
  Cary Hayes: And this is like a week or 10 days later.
• 1:00:04
  Cary Hayes: There's a guy standing up there in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:00:09
  Cary Hayes: He's like, You must be Carrie, and I'm like, What?
• 1:00:13
  Cary Hayes: No, yeah.
• 1:00:13
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, you're obviously looking at the site.
• 1:00:15
  Cary Hayes: He's like, Yeah, this wife comes over, they've got like this camper up there.
• 1:00:19
  Cary Hayes: Oh, we've been tracking you for two days, man.
• 1:00:22
  Cary Hayes: We've been watching you for a while.
• 1:00:23
  Cary Hayes: We figured you'd get out coolers, burgers, whatever you guys need, the whole bit.
• 1:00:29
  Cary Hayes: So there was so much of that going on.
• 1:00:31
  Cary Hayes: I was so blown away.
• 1:00:34
  Cary Hayes: So blown away.
• 1:00:35
  Cary Hayes: Like again, one of my big takeaways was just like, wow, humanity out there, let's not demonize each other.
• 1:00:41
  Cary Hayes: Like the humanity on display is wonderful in the in the Western US, in my opinion.
• 1:00:48
  Cary Hayes: So that was great to see.
• 1:00:49
  Polly Mertens: And so tell me, you know, extension of that is let's say the greater social media.
• 1:00:53
  Polly Mertens: So these guys are dot watching.
• 1:00:54
  Polly Mertens: So talk about like what this, you know, you know, you're in REC America and maybe REC, you know, international came up with this, or you you know, you got buy-in and stuff.
• 1:01:04
  Polly Mertens: Tell me what that was like.
• 1:01:04
  Polly Mertens: Like, were you did you always know what you wanted it to be like, or did they have ideas, or how did what came about there?
• 1:01:11
  Cary Hayes: Well, first I was completely blown away by the whole thing.
• 1:01:13
  Cary Hayes: I had no idea.
• 1:01:14
  Cary Hayes: I mean, sure, I've been on Facebook and some social media for a long time now, but like this is the first time I've really witnessed the power, I guess, of social media in real time for myself.
• 1:01:26
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:01:27
  Cary Hayes: Because I didn't think much of it.
• 1:01:28
  Cary Hayes: So basically, the setup was hey, we want to attract attention to this so we can drive fundraising dollars for Honnold, which was the primary goal.
• 1:01:37
  Cary Hayes: So I'm like, cool.
• 1:01:38
  Cary Hayes: So I have a marketing guy who works with us, his name is DeMarco.
• 1:01:42
  Cary Hayes: He's fantastic.
• 1:01:43
  Cary Hayes: And Hannah, I have Hannah Rains and DeMarco Brea on my marketing team.
• 1:01:47
  Cary Hayes: They're both fantastic.
• 1:01:48
  Cary Hayes: And we sort of brainstormed it and like, well, Carrie, just you know, do like a quick video of you or however you want to do it, like in the morning, and send it to DeMarco and he'll curate it a bit and post it.
• 1:02:00
  Cary Hayes: That's easy, no problem.
• 1:02:02
  Cary Hayes: So I started doing that, and it wasn't that really much effort.
• 1:02:06
  Cary Hayes: I was literally just like I was filming myself and then I got feedback like some somewhere like halfway through.
• 1:02:13
  Cary Hayes: Maybe stop like your face, maybe just like show like what you're seeing instead of you.
• 1:02:17
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, I got mixed reviews on that, but whatever.
• 1:02:20
  Cary Hayes: But anyway, it's just like a check-in.
• 1:02:22
  Cary Hayes: I I'm just talking about how I'm feeling or what's going on, or it's you know, it's not hard, right?
• 1:02:26
  Cary Hayes: It's basic stuff.
• 1:02:28
  Cary Hayes: I can't, I I am stunned by how many people came along for the ride with me.
• 1:02:36
  Cary Hayes: I have gotten dozens and dozens and dozens of people who are fully engrossed in my story who are like, oh yeah, I was with you every day, man.
• 1:02:48
  Cary Hayes: I would get my coffee in the morning, I would open Instagram, and there you were talking about what I was with you.
• 1:02:55
  Cary Hayes: I was right there next to you the whole.
• 1:02:57
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, wow, that is so crazy.
• 1:03:00
  Polly Mertens: And that's your friends or people like otherwise, everyone.
• 1:03:04
  Cary Hayes: It's friends, family, people I don't know, work people, customers, like anyone, like all kinds of randoms, like hundreds of people are actually watching this.
• 1:03:15
  Cary Hayes: So I actually became aware of that, like maybe around halfway through it.
• 1:03:20
  Cary Hayes: And I think I made a post about this.
• 1:03:22
  Cary Hayes: I became aware of two things.
• 1:03:23
  Cary Hayes: One, that social media was happening and people were actually engaging and watching this.
• 1:03:28
  Cary Hayes: And then two, that people, once I had that first interaction where the guy was like, hey, Carrie, the the guys in the white jeep in Montana or in Idaho, I was like, Oh, so that's a thing too.
• 1:03:39
  Cary Hayes: So once I understood that, that's when I was kind of like, I feel like I'm in the hunker, the Hunger Games.
• 1:03:45
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 1:03:46
  Cary Hayes: I had made a video about this.
• 1:03:47
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, I'm pretty sure I'm in the hunger games.
• 1:03:49
  Cary Hayes: We're not trying to kill each other, but like there's this whole level of humanity people watching.
• 1:03:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:03:55
  Cary Hayes: And we're we can't see because you're not in the internet most of the time.
• 1:03:58
  Cary Hayes: You come to a town, you get internet for a minute, but that's it.
• 1:04:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:04:01
  Cary Hayes: So you're like, you're kind of in it, but all these people are like watching from above.
• 1:04:05
  Cary Hayes: It was a weird sensation or a weird feeling, but equally cool.
• 1:04:09
  Cary Hayes: So the social media, I'm I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with it now.
• 1:04:12
  Cary Hayes: Because all of a sudden I have all this, all these people who are engaged with me who are like, tell me more.
• 1:04:19
  Cary Hayes: Like, what are you doing today?
• 1:04:20
  Cary Hayes: Like, what's happening now?
• 1:04:21
  Cary Hayes: Like, I'm like, I don't know.
• 1:04:23
  Cary Hayes: I'm just figuring out my life after the tournament.
• 1:04:26
  Cary Hayes: I'm not really sure what I'm doing today.
• 1:04:28
  Cary Hayes: So that was a big success, and it drove a lot of donors to Huddled, which is great.
• 1:04:34
  Cary Hayes: But I was very surprised and kind of overwhelmed by the level of engagement with it, which is pretty cool.
• 1:04:41
  Cary Hayes: Pretty cool.
• 1:04:42
  Cary Hayes: That's awesome.
• 1:04:42
  Polly Mertens: That's and I reached out to you.
• 1:04:44
  Polly Mertens: Like, I forget what day I've picked you up, but it was like four or five.
• 1:04:47
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 1:04:47
  Polly Mertens: I was like, no, I think it was I saw some of your pre, like when you're in Banff.
• 1:04:51
  Polly Mertens: Like I saw you, I saw you in the car ride with the guy who was like had your car and or your bike, and it was like, or this woman, you're like, I'm just getting from this person, and here we go, you know, and then you're in Banff walking around and stuff like that.
• 1:05:04
  Polly Mertens: So it was like, oh, this is happening.
• 1:05:05
  Polly Mertens: Okay, here we go, you know.
• 1:05:07
  Cary Hayes: So the social media part was wild.
• 1:05:09
  Cary Hayes: It's very powerful stuff.
• 1:05:10
  Cary Hayes: I I maybe have underestimated how powerful.
• 1:05:14
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I know people are all over it and it's a huge thing in this country, but yeah, pretty cool.
• 1:05:21
  Polly Mertens: Giving me ideas, you know, and I know timing-wise, I I did a a couple of so I did when when I came and saw you, when I saw you when I was in Colorado, it was on a hundred days in Colorado trip.
• 1:05:30
  Polly Mertens: And before that, I had done 90 days around the western US and I did 10 national parks.
• 1:05:35
  Polly Mertens: And so I would just post like here I am, whatever.
• 1:05:37
  Polly Mertens: But I didn't have like this concentrated, you know, and it was different when I did this.
• 1:05:42
  Polly Mertens: This was probably like 2015 or something, but I didn't have this concentrated, you know, I've got this hard thing that I'm doing.
• 1:05:48
  Polly Mertens: It was more like, oh, here and I'm playing.
• 1:05:49
  Polly Mertens: And my friends were really just supportive, and they were like, or like when I was flipping houses and I would show the journey of that, and people were like, oh my God, how did that house turn out?
• 1:05:58
  Polly Mertens: And you know, and things.
• 1:05:59
  Polly Mertens: So you're right.
• 1:06:00
  Polly Mertens: It's it's kind of surprising.
• 1:06:02
  Cary Hayes: The number one post I did, I get according to like the feedback I just got, you know, accidentally from people.
• 1:06:08
  Cary Hayes: I did this one post when I was in, I got to Colorado.
• 1:06:10
  Cary Hayes: I got to like just north the steamboat there.
• 1:06:14
  Cary Hayes: And it was like six in the morning, and I just did like an off the cuff post.
• 1:06:18
  Cary Hayes: I was like, I'm done.
• 1:06:20
  Cary Hayes: I'm done.
• 1:06:22
  Cary Hayes: I'm done.
• 1:06:24
  Cary Hayes: Like long pause.
• 1:06:27
  Cary Hayes: I'm done with Canada.
• 1:06:29
  Cary Hayes: I'm done with Montana.
• 1:06:31
  Cary Hayes: I'm done with Montana.
• 1:06:32
  Cary Hayes: I'm done with Wyoming?
• 1:06:33
  Cary Hayes: I'm in Colorado.
• 1:06:35
  Cary Hayes: Apparently that was like the best post for people.
• 1:06:39
  Polly Mertens: Little, little, little surge, little like cliffhanger for us.
• 1:06:41
  Polly Mertens: Well, let's see.
• 1:06:44
  Polly Mertens: So tell me about the Hunneld Foundation and why did you why I mean you said you're an impact advisor or board member.
• 1:06:51
  Polly Mertens: So how did your like, you know, that moment with your wife in the car and you're like, I'm doing the tour divide?
• 1:06:57
  Polly Mertens: And then the Hunneld thing, like, how was it either marrying those two or having something like that?
• 1:07:03
  Polly Mertens: Like you said, you know, I wanted something not so like selfish or whatnot, but what what was it like having the Hunneld Foundation behind you?
• 1:07:10
  Polly Mertens: And and Yeah.
• 1:07:12
  Cary Hayes: I mean it was quite simple.
• 1:07:13
  Cary Hayes: I I've been associated with the Hunnell Foundation for seven or eight years now.
• 1:07:18
  Cary Hayes: So long like a couple years before Alex Honnold was the Alex Hunnold, which he is now.
• 1:07:24
  Cary Hayes: He remember, he was a dirtbag climber, and I vaguely knew him through some people I know in Boulder.
• 1:07:31
  Cary Hayes: I used to climb a lot.
• 1:07:32
  Cary Hayes: I don't climb much now.
• 1:07:33
  Polly Mertens: Oh, okay.
• 1:07:34
  Cary Hayes: So I had a loose connection to him pre Free Solo, which was his big famous movie where he's right.
• 1:07:41
  Cary Hayes: So I think it was a year or two before Free Solo came out.
• 1:07:48
  Cary Hayes: I reached out to him on behalf of REC to say, hey, I you have a solar foundation.
• 1:07:56
  Cary Hayes: Like I didn't know that, but now I do.
• 1:07:58
  Cary Hayes: And tell me about your solar foundation.
• 1:08:00
  Cary Hayes: And I'm a solar guy and I run a module manufacturing company.
• 1:08:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  Cary Hayes: We should hook up.
• 1:08:06
  Cary Hayes: Yeah.
• 1:08:07
  Cary Hayes: And so we did.
• 1:08:09
  Cary Hayes: And REC started first donating solar panels, modules to the Hunnold Foundation, and then money, and then we've grown our relationship over time, and it's been great.
• 1:08:19
  Cary Hayes: But the Honnold Foundation essentially does community solar projects in the developing world.
• 1:08:24
  Cary Hayes: And they're blowing up right now in such a great way.
• 1:08:29
  Cary Hayes: It's an amazing story.
• 1:08:30
  Cary Hayes: But they came from very humble beginnings.
• 1:08:33
  Cary Hayes: And if you go back and look at early Alex Honnold stuff, he did these videos.
• 1:08:38
  Cary Hayes: One's called Sufferfest One and one's called Sufferfest Two.
• 1:08:42
  Cary Hayes: These are like 15 years ago, maybe two years ago.
• 1:08:46
  Cary Hayes: And it's early Alex before he was famous, and he's cruising around with his buddy Cedar Wright, and they're riding bikes, they're doing these long distance bike rides to different climbing places in the southwest, like around Four Corners and the Navajo Nation.
• 1:09:00
  Cary Hayes: And they they stop in to the Navajo Nation and do a couple solar installs.
• 1:09:06
  Cary Hayes: And so I saw I think I saw that at the time.
• 1:09:08
  Cary Hayes: I was like, wow, that's interesting.
• 1:09:10
  Cary Hayes: So they've grown from there, but their roots are the same.
• 1:09:14
  Cary Hayes: They take grant applications and they get way more than they can handle, of course, but they are installing and I would say less installing actual solar, but more engaging with the community for solution-based kind of stuff.
• 1:09:29
  Cary Hayes: In Puerto Rico, in Central America, in Ecuador, and all over, right?
• 1:09:34
  Cary Hayes: All over the world in Native American reservations in the US.
• 1:09:40
  Cary Hayes: So they're doing the important and really good work.
• 1:09:44
  Cary Hayes: And it's been fun for me, like as an early sort of person in there with a partnership with them.
• 1:09:50
  Cary Hayes: And then I became an in fact advisor and so on.
• 1:09:54
  Cary Hayes: One thing about Honnold Foundation that most people don't know is Alex created the foundation when he was a dirtbag living in the back of his van.
• 1:10:04
  Cary Hayes: And this is before he even had a nice van.
• 1:10:06
  Cary Hayes: This is like a shitty van before like the ones you've seen in the movies, right?
• 1:10:10
  Cary Hayes: Like a really bad van.
• 1:10:11
  Cary Hayes: He created the foundation, and then he's been donating a third of his income every year to his foundation.
• 1:10:18
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 1:10:19
  Cary Hayes: He did that before he had any money.
• 1:10:20
  Cary Hayes: So he made 100 bucks.
• 1:10:22
  Cary Hayes: He gave 30 bucks to his foundation, right?
• 1:10:24
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 1:10:25
  Cary Hayes: So he still does that, which I love because now that I'm sort of learning more and getting engaged with not nonpro, this is my first sort of nonprofit engagement.
• 1:10:34
  Cary Hayes: I'm aware in the nonprofit world that it it can be said that money doesn't always go to the places that it should.
• 1:10:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Cary Hayes: And it gets burned by overhead or gets burned by like other things.
• 1:10:48
  Cary Hayes: So it's nice because Alex, with his one-third, his third of his income covers all the overhead of the foundation.
• 1:10:56
  Cary Hayes: So donations that go in go directly to projects.
• 1:11:00
  Cary Hayes: So it's like a one-for-one.
• 1:11:02
  Cary Hayes: So it's great.
• 1:11:03
  Cary Hayes: So I love that.
• 1:11:04
  Cary Hayes: That's sort of direct impact.
• 1:11:06
  Cary Hayes: So yeah, they're doing great work.
• 1:11:08
  Cary Hayes: They're growing like crazy.
• 1:11:10
  Cary Hayes: They're hiring people.
• 1:11:11
  Cary Hayes: They just landed a couple mega, mega donors, which is awesome for them.
• 1:11:17
  Cary Hayes: And they're gonna, you're gonna watch them grow over many, many years.
• 1:11:21
  Cary Hayes: So they're they're in an exciting place in their growth phase right now.
• 1:11:25
  Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 1:11:26
  Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 1:11:26
  Polly Mertens: Well, it's such a good cause.
• 1:11:28
  Polly Mertens: I know you with the solar, it's like, okay, what else can can you be touching?
• 1:11:32
  Polly Mertens: How else can you be having that impact?
• 1:11:33
  Polly Mertens: So I love, and Alex seems like just good freaking human.
• 1:11:37
  Polly Mertens: Like anytime I see him, I'm like, oh my god, like you know, totally hang out with you.
• 1:11:42
  Polly Mertens: Love him.
• 1:11:43
  Polly Mertens: So you've done Leadville, now you've done Tour Divide.
• 1:11:46
  Polly Mertens: Is there is there a next yet?
• 1:11:48
  Polly Mertens: Do we know what Carrie Hayes is like up to?
• 1:11:51
  Cary Hayes: I don't know what I mean.
• 1:11:52
  Cary Hayes: I asked my wife that the other day.
• 1:11:53
  Cary Hayes: I'm asking myself that today, every day right now, as I'm sort of questioning what I so what I used to think was hard was Leadville.
• 1:12:00
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, I'm gonna go back in three weeks and do it.
• 1:12:03
  Cary Hayes: It's still hard, but it's just one day for 10 hours of your life.
• 1:12:06
  Cary Hayes: So my my my reference now is completely different.
• 1:12:12
  Cary Hayes: Because what I used to think was hard, it's not hard.
• 1:12:15
  Cary Hayes: So yeah, I need a new goal.
• 1:12:18
  Cary Hayes: I need it, probably does involve bikepacking, which I think is the coolest thing ever now that I've gone and done it in a big way.
• 1:12:26
  Cary Hayes: But I don't know what it is exactly.
• 1:12:29
  Cary Hayes: So I'm searching for that.
• 1:12:31
  Cary Hayes: I need uh I'm the kind of person I need something on like my calendar and my in my future to kind of strive towards.
• 1:12:38
  Cary Hayes: So I'm questioning what that is because I like tour divides about as hard as it gets.
• 1:12:44
  Cary Hayes: I think.
• 1:12:45
  Cary Hayes: I mean, there's always something harder, but like that's really hard.
• 1:12:49
  Cary Hayes: It's really, really hard.
• 1:12:51
  Cary Hayes: So I don't know.
• 1:12:53
  Cary Hayes: Someone asked me the other day, would you go back and do it again?
• 1:12:58
  Cary Hayes: And I think my current answer is like I don't know that I couldn't do it again.
• 1:13:05
  Cary Hayes: Like, I feel like there's like a calling a bit.
• 1:13:09
  Cary Hayes: One of the things I noticed on the race was like I would talk to people and like, oh yeah, I've done this twice.
• 1:13:15
  Cary Hayes: Or I did this five years ago and now I'm back.
• 1:13:18
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, really?
• 1:13:20
  Cary Hayes: Like, there's a lot of people out there that are go back.
• 1:13:25
  Cary Hayes: It's not just a lot of rookies.
• 1:13:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:13:27
  Cary Hayes: So that was an eye-opener.
• 1:13:28
  Cary Hayes: So I feel like I don't know if it's next year or the year after or whenever it is, but I feel like I kind of feel like I'm gonna end up back in Banff at some point at the start line in the future in some future moment.
• 1:13:42
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, whether it's next year or a couple of years from now, I don't know.
• 1:13:46
  Polly Mertens: Wow, faster.
• 1:13:47
  Cary Hayes: It's less about going faster and just more the absolute insanity and beauty and experience of it all.
• 1:13:54
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, I could care less if I could go if I beat it by a day or two or like whatever.
• 1:13:59
  Cary Hayes: Like it's more the whole the experience.
• 1:14:01
  Cary Hayes: I was out there for the experience.
• 1:14:03
  Cary Hayes: I went into it like I want to have a big experience, and I really did.
• 1:14:07
  Cary Hayes: And so yeah, I think that would be the the reason to go back.
• 1:14:11
  Polly Mertens: Carrie, was there a version of yourself that you discovered out there that you either weren't aware of or you just got to know better or like or solidified something that you knew about yourself?
• 1:14:21
  Polly Mertens: Was there a new carry that you was like, wow, I I you know, like you can do multi-day hard things.
• 1:14:27
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, okay, but you you know, but I would say I would say two things to that.
• 1:14:32
  Cary Hayes: One, what you just said, like you can do hard things.
• 1:14:35
  Cary Hayes: Like you really can.
• 1:14:37
  Cary Hayes: Like what seemed impossible, like it happened.
• 1:14:42
  Cary Hayes: It wasn't easy.
• 1:14:43
  Cary Hayes: I I would argue it was more mentally challenging than physically challenging, but it's a good testament to you really can do hard things.
• 1:14:52
  Cary Hayes: You just break them down into small chunks and start chunking it out, and you can do hard things.
• 1:14:58
  Cary Hayes: So that was one.
• 1:15:00
  Cary Hayes: Two was more of like a life takeaway as I'm I'm I just turned 56.
• 1:15:05
  Cary Hayes: I actually finished on July 9th, I was 55.
• 1:15:08
  Cary Hayes: The next morning, I turned 56 on July 10th and flew home on my birthday, which was great.
• 1:15:14
  Cary Hayes: So as I'm 56 and I'm like thinking about retirement soon and like what I'm gonna do after retirement, or like how are my future one of my takeaways from it, which maybe isn't unsurprising or not revolutionary, was like, wow, I just went camping for a month in the woods, and like what do you really need in life?
• 1:15:37
  Cary Hayes: Like, do I really need all this stuff, my big house and all my big stuff, and all my big overhead?
• 1:15:43
  Cary Hayes: Like, what do I what do you really need?
• 1:15:46
  Cary Hayes: I just live in a tent and my number one concern was food and water.
• 1:15:50
  Cary Hayes: So, like, that sort of reframes things, right?
• 1:15:53
  Cary Hayes: Like, all I had to do was get up and ride my bike and find food and water, and that that was really it.
• 1:15:59
  Cary Hayes: So, like that sort of reframes things in a in a way that is good, right?
• 1:16:03
  Cary Hayes: You need to be reminded, like, I've been working hard and have been very fortunate and successful in my career, which is a testament to uh, you know, some luck and a lot of great people I've worked with and all the things, but like, yeah, it's like, well, so what do you really need?
• 1:16:22
  Cary Hayes: Like, do you really like I mean there's money, there's a money factor to that, but there's also just like a reality check of like, why are you pushing so hard to make another X dollars per year?
• 1:16:34
  Cary Hayes: Or like, you know, I don't know.
• 1:16:35
  Cary Hayes: I'm I'm sort of have those thoughts as I probably as I get older too and like contemplate what's next and all the things.
• 1:16:41
  Cary Hayes: But that was a good wake up for me.
• 1:16:43
  Cary Hayes: Like, you can live very simply and it costs no money.
• 1:16:48
  Cary Hayes: And like you don't need like what do you really need to be happy, right?
• 1:16:54
  Cary Hayes: Like, so those are good questions that are floating around my mind right now.
• 1:16:59
  Polly Mertens: Well, it sounds like a new perspective, like like not that the old one was bad, but just like a wider perspective of life is available to you now, you know.
• 1:17:09
  Polly Mertens: Not that, like I said, yeah.
• 1:17:11
  Cary Hayes: It's good to get those reset moments.
• 1:17:13
  Cary Hayes: Like it's hard to when I went into it, I remember and I told Jerry this when we we sort of talked about like why we're here.
• 1:17:20
  Cary Hayes: We talk about that occasionally.
• 1:17:22
  Polly Mertens: I was gonna say, that many hours on a bike with a guy you guys.
• 1:17:24
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, we always amazing.
• 1:17:25
  Cary Hayes: When I said it, when I write the book, it's gonna be three weeks with Jerry and like all these crazy conversations we had.
• 1:17:30
  Cary Hayes: One of them, like a recurring one, was like, like, why why why did you come here?
• 1:17:35
  Cary Hayes: Why am why am I here?
• 1:17:36
  Cary Hayes: Why are you here?
• 1:17:37
  Cary Hayes: And my one of my big whys was like, I want a big adventure.
• 1:17:44
  Cary Hayes: And a big adventure is so hard to come by, these in my opinion, at least in my old life.
• 1:17:51
  Cary Hayes: They're hard to find, right?
• 1:17:53
  Cary Hayes: Where else?
• 1:17:54
  Cary Hayes: How how do you really get out there anymore?
• 1:17:57
  Cary Hayes: You you're uh you got your phone with internet and like you know all these comforts, and yeah, it's hard to really, really get out there.
• 1:18:05
  Cary Hayes: And this was like I knew going in, like, this is gonna be an adventure because I'm gonna be really out there, like really out there.
• 1:18:12
  Cary Hayes: So that was part of it for me was I wanted to like really push out to adventureland to like really have an adventure, which I did, which was cool with Jerry.
• 1:18:26
  Cary Hayes: With Jerry, and Jerry's reasons were totally different.
• 1:18:29
  Cary Hayes: He was like more of on the he's more tactical than me and less of like a dreamer like me, but he was more on the yeah, you know, I've I've cycled toured around the world and I know how to do this, but this seemed like a good challenge to yeah, you know, I've never been on a mountain bike, so I should try to figure out this mountain biking thing a little bit.
• 1:18:50
  Polly Mertens: Well, that's adventure too, in a different way, so yeah, crazy, right?
• 1:18:54
  Polly Mertens: And how did he do it?
• 1:18:55
  Polly Mertens: Was he getting the hang of it, or was it like like riding with his left hand?
• 1:18:59
  Cary Hayes: No, no, he was amazing.
• 1:19:00
  Cary Hayes: He would be able to ride down and up very difficult single track and double track with ease.
• 1:19:08
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 1:19:09
  Cary Hayes: With like, you know, he basically had like a a very small fork on the front of his bike and like more or less a rigid bike.
• 1:19:16
  Cary Hayes: So he had he had so the guy was so efficient, like he oozed efficiency.
• 1:19:22
  Cary Hayes: You could just see it from years and years of cycle touring, like he oozed, like in like eking out every last watt and every last like everything.
• 1:19:31
  Cary Hayes: He was so good at it.
• 1:19:32
  Cary Hayes: You could just see it while dialed in.
• 1:19:34
  Cary Hayes: It was so graceful to watch.
• 1:19:35
  Polly Mertens: It was like watching a master.
• 1:19:37
  Cary Hayes: I was like more like raw power, like he was more just like so graceful and like awesome.
• 1:19:44
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, it was cool.
• 1:19:45
  Polly Mertens: So I'm just picturing you guys with 70 pounds.
• 1:19:48
  Polly Mertens: Like, I've had to push my bike.
• 1:19:50
  Polly Mertens: I was I was in an adventure race in Colorado near Glenwood Springs, and I remember there was like it felt like two miles uphill that I had to push my bike, and that was not with gear on it.
• 1:20:03
  Polly Mertens: It was like the bike, the bike wasn't light, you know, so it was a heavy, heavier mountain bike, and then I had a backpack, you know, because I was out just self-sufficient or whatever.
• 1:20:10
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, this is crazy, but 70 pounds of bike pushing.
• 1:20:15
  Cary Hayes: I mean, that was a big that was a big eye opener for me.
• 1:20:18
  Cary Hayes: Like that was that was one thing I completely underestimated because I didn't really do it much.
• 1:20:22
  Cary Hayes: Like I did two or three, you know, prep rides, and I had like the packs and things on my bike, but I wasn't fully fully loaded, and so when I went up there, I took too much stuff.
• 1:20:35
  Cary Hayes: And one of the things that happened along the ride is I started just hooking things.
• 1:20:39
  Cary Hayes: I left like a nice Patagony jacket at a at a hotel in Montana.
• 1:20:43
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, don't need this anymore.
• 1:20:45
  Cary Hayes: I started getting lighter along the way, totally brought too much stuff.
• 1:20:49
  Cary Hayes: That was sort of a rookie mistake, but yeah, like day two, after that first night camping in the in the in my tent in the rain, day two is this famous thing called Cocoa Claims.
• 1:21:01
  Cary Hayes: And Cocoa Claims is a four-hour hike a bike.
• 1:21:04
  Cary Hayes: It's little it's like literally the the worst, most brutal thing you've ever seen in your life.
• 1:21:10
  Cary Hayes: It's literally a straight up callus uh road like road.
• 1:21:16
  Cary Hayes: I guess it's barely called a road, but it's a road.
• 1:21:19
  Cary Hayes: And it's just like you know, it's very steep, it's probably 15, 20, 30 degrees steep.
• 1:21:25
  Cary Hayes: And there's no you can't ride it.
• 1:21:27
  Cary Hayes: It's not rideable.
• 1:21:29
  Cary Hayes: And so everyone hikes it.
• 1:21:31
  Cary Hayes: And so you just mentally prepare, like, okay, I'm gonna be this is a four, like a three to four hour hike a bike.
• 1:21:38
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 1:21:38
  Cary Hayes: And it's like two to three miles straight up, and that's what it's gonna take you.
• 1:21:43
  Cary Hayes: And so that day I started getting up there, and that was like I instantly realized, like, oh shit.
• 1:21:50
  Cary Hayes: This like every one step with a 70-pound bike is a lot of effort.
• 1:21:58
  Polly Mertens: So I mean, like, imagine backpack, I mean, backpacking you try and do under 40 pounds, right?
• 1:22:03
  Polly Mertens: Or something, but like 70 pounds, and you're pushing it, you know, next to you.
• 1:22:08
  Cary Hayes: You're pushing it, or like I would grab like the back of the seat and like yard it up.
• 1:22:12
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, that was a big eye-opener for me.
• 1:22:14
  Cary Hayes: I didn't fully appreciate that until day two.
• 1:22:17
  Cary Hayes: And then on day three, you do this other thing, it's called the wall, and it's it's not as gnarly, but it's kind of gnarly, where you end up going through this, you're still in Canada, and you still you go through this like swamp, basically, where you're like up to your like knees in water, and your bike's like in the muck and you're trying to lift it through, and then you have to go up this this hill.
• 1:22:40
  Cary Hayes: It's not a long hill, it's like maybe, I don't know, a few hundred yards, but it's like quite steep and muddy and wet and slippery, and there's trees and other things, like it's hard, and and like going up that.
• 1:22:55
  Cary Hayes: I watched a guy like he he slipped, dropped his bike, his bike tumbled down, total yard sale.
• 1:23:02
  Cary Hayes: I mean, it's gnarly, right?
• 1:23:04
  Cary Hayes: So, like the heavy bike was a huge thing, which I did not appreciate, which I do now for sure.
• 1:23:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's one thing, like those long straight rides in New Mexico where you're like, Oh, just gotta get through this.
• 1:23:18
  Polly Mertens: But it's I swear, that was so mentally just like I wanted just to be over.
• 1:23:24
  Polly Mertens: You know, I think it was like 90 minutes of pushing my bike up the hill, and you're there for four hours, 70 pounds, no less.
• 1:23:29
  Polly Mertens: So, oh dude.
• 1:23:31
  Cary Hayes: It's for me, it was just like, okay, I just like it's so painful and so ugly that it's like you just gotta get in the mindset of minute to minute.
• 1:23:38
  Cary Hayes: You're just I'm just gonna like forget it, forget about the big picture.
• 1:23:42
  Cary Hayes: Like, I'm just gonna, the next you know, half day of my life is gonna be on this hill, and I'm just gonna break it down to the next tree and the next little milestone I can see, and like that's that's where I need to stay.
• 1:23:54
  Cary Hayes: Like that's it.
• 1:23:55
  Polly Mertens: Yep, yep.
• 1:23:55
  Polly Mertens: We're getting through this.
• 1:23:56
  Polly Mertens: There, there's nobody coming to rescue me.
• 1:23:58
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, yep, gotta get to the top of that.
• 1:23:59
  Cary Hayes: Okay, no one's coming, so I better gotta do it one way or the other.
• 1:24:04
  Polly Mertens: Yep, yep, for sure.
• 1:24:05
  Polly Mertens: Well, Carrie, what is I have this strange question I was thinking about.
• 1:24:09
  Polly Mertens: Like, if there was a bumper sticker for this race for you, what would it call what would it say?
• 1:24:14
  Polly Mertens: Or what would you call it?
• 1:24:15
  Cary Hayes: Like, what is great question?
• 1:24:19
  Cary Hayes: It's really hard.
• 1:24:21
  Cary Hayes: How about some numbers?
• 1:24:23
  Cary Hayes: 2716 172, 2716 miles, 172,000 feet of climbing.
• 1:24:31
  Cary Hayes: 2716, 172.
• 1:24:34
  Cary Hayes: I don't know.
• 1:24:37
  Cary Hayes: Those are two ideas.
• 1:24:39
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, heart wide open.
• 1:24:43
  Cary Hayes: That's how I feel after it, which is really cool.
• 1:24:45
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:49
  Cary Hayes: Oh so much good happened on that ride for me.
• 1:24:53
  Cary Hayes: It is so special and so meaningful, so cool, right?
• 1:24:57
  Cary Hayes: It was so cool.
• 1:24:58
  Cary Hayes: So yeah, I think my if I was like a hardcore like triathlete, whatever, which I'm kind of not, I would do like the numbers like 27 15, 172.
• 1:25:12
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like Iron Man or something.
• 1:25:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, something like that.
• 1:25:14
  Cary Hayes: I think I'm more of a softy.
• 1:25:16
  Cary Hayes: So I think for like from my experience, I think all you would just put like a heart with like a like a wilderness and like a bike or something.
• 1:25:24
  Cary Hayes: That'll be my bumper sticker.
• 1:25:26
  Polly Mertens: Nice, nice.
• 1:25:27
  Polly Mertens: Oh, Carrie.
• 1:25:28
  Polly Mertens: Well, is there any last message you want to leave for anybody that's listening to this?
• 1:25:32
  Polly Mertens: Maybe that is either, you know, living, you know, not up to something epic, or maybe they're on the fringe of something, or they had something in the back of their mind for epic.
• 1:25:40
  Polly Mertens: What would you just like?
• 1:25:40
  Polly Mertens: What would be your last piece of advice to somebody who hasn't done something like this?
• 1:25:46
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, I mean, I would just say, like, it's sort of cliche, but like you can do hard things, right?
• 1:25:51
  Cary Hayes: Like, listen, I never bike pack a day in my life.
• 1:25:54
  Cary Hayes: Jerry couldn't believe that I had never ever he's like, You shouldn't know that.
• 1:26:00
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, he's like, You should have to the tour divide, you never ever camped on a bike, basically.
• 1:26:06
  Cary Hayes: I'm like, no, I'm like, I researched it, I bought all the stuff, but no.
• 1:26:11
  Cary Hayes: So the I guess the message is like, like, you can do hard things, like you can do it if you put the time and research and motivation and mental energy and physical energy behind it.
• 1:26:22
  Cary Hayes: You can do hard stuff, right?
• 1:26:24
  Cary Hayes: And you don't have to be scared off and super intimidated, whatever.
• 1:26:29
  Cary Hayes: Like, you can do it, and like, what's the worst case?
• 1:26:32
  Cary Hayes: My worst case was like I don't finish, like the worst case was like, okay, I'm gonna get to someplace, I'm gonna have a mechanical, my body's gonna fall apart, something's gonna happen, and I'm gonna have to scratch.
• 1:26:44
  Cary Hayes: Big deal.
• 1:26:46
  Cary Hayes: I come home, tail between legs, I cried out for a day or two, and then I did it.
• 1:26:52
  Cary Hayes: I tried it, right?
• 1:26:53
  Cary Hayes: Like, yeah, I go back next year or try again, right?
• 1:26:56
  Cary Hayes: Like a lot of people that happened to this year, and I no doubt a lot of these people go back, right?
• 1:27:02
  Cary Hayes: So, like, yeah, just don't be afraid, just go go try stuff, don't be afraid of things that seem crazy hard.
• 1:27:10
  Cary Hayes: I mean, I think that's goes beyond sport too, right?
• 1:27:13
  Cary Hayes: It's just like you build these things up in your mind as like these crazy obstacles, right?
• 1:27:19
  Cary Hayes: Like, well, you could you could do it.
• 1:27:20
  Cary Hayes: And what's the worst case if you don't?
• 1:27:22
  Cary Hayes: You try it, right?
• 1:27:23
  Cary Hayes: Big deal.
• 1:27:24
  Polly Mertens: And I think you know, if something's calling you, it's gonna keep calling you.
• 1:27:27
  Polly Mertens: And it sounded like something epic like this was like stirring inside of you.
• 1:27:31
  Polly Mertens: And then when you went, yes, like just the rest, just yeah, you'll get there.
• 1:27:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, we'll figure it out, you know.
• 1:27:36
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I've never bike packed before.
• 1:27:38
  Polly Mertens: Okay, well, you know, I get I got the gear, like Jerry's here, look, yay.
• 1:27:43
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, the universe has an interesting way of sort of you know doing things like that.
• 1:27:47
  Cary Hayes: There, I think there was some serious universal input with me that happened on this ride, which was cool.
• 1:27:54
  Cary Hayes: Yeah, it's really cool.
• 1:27:57
  Polly Mertens: Well, Carrie, thank you so much for coming on to our show today and for letting me hear your story and share it with our listeners.
• 1:28:04
  Polly Mertens: It's just and it's great to reconnect with you, my brother.
• 1:28:06
  Polly Mertens: And I can't wait to see you.
• 1:28:07
  Cary Hayes: Super great to connect with you, Polly.
• 1:28:08
  Cary Hayes: It's been too long.
• 1:28:09
  Cary Hayes: So I'm glad I was able to do it.
• 1:28:11
  Cary Hayes: And um, thanks so much for having me.
• 1:28:13
  Polly Mertens: You're welcome.
• 1:28:13
  Polly Mertens: You're welcome.
• 1:28:14
  Polly Mertens: And for those of you listening, please always remember as we tell you every time how your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 1:28:22
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 1:28:24
  Polly Mertens: So go get it.