The stretch of the elastic…….

It’s hard to believe. Just a few months back, I was wading through the waters of the great Gila River. I was wondering when, where, and what the next chapter was going to hold. Several months later and after the holidays, I find myself doing admin at a laptop. This job is nothing like what I signed up for. At the very least, I am experiencing another taste of corporate life. I am realizing that I don’t belong in it. I am grateful to have something to pay down some of my adventure debt. It also allows me to save up for the next adventure. Something that is in the background marinating and building with each passing day. I will be extremely excited to finally be capable of talking about it in a few months. While organizing my personal media, I found a photo from the 2004 Tour de Georgia. It features one of my heroes and got me thinking……

Close friends will confirm that I was a cycling fanatic for many years. I especially enjoyed any race I could snag on VHS or DVD. I would literally play them over and over again until they would wear out or quality would degrade. I spent thousands of hours on the stationary trainer and rollers. I often watched some single day race or grand tour to help pass the hours away. Over time the commentary would almost become a philosophy that would subtly influence my mantra and ethos.

Here is a specific example. Phil Liggett, a legendary cycling commentator and personal hero, describes a subtle attack. (That’s me and him from 2004 in the photo above.) He compares it to the stretching of an elastic band. The rider would attach and stretch the band, and the group or rider would reel them back in. Each time the rider made a move and attacked, Phil said that an elastic band will snap if you stretch it far enough. I would never compare my long-term breakaways from the South and subsequent return as an attack. However, I would certainly compare each move I have made over the years as a stretch of the elastic. It pulls me back. Each time I have returned, the pull has been from something or someone different. But when will the pull back become less than the pull away?

First collection of photos 🙂

Here’s the first collection of landscape photos I am putting out there for donations. Email me at walkwithcain@duck.com to make a donation and get a link to the complete collection. I am at Copper Mountain heading back on the #colorqdotrail / #continentaldividetrail and will check my email when I get to #leadville in a few days.  #colorado #landscape #photography

In lieu of resupply boxes

I have had a lot of friends from back home and in my social media world offer to send resupply boxes to me while I am on my trek around the U.S. While the thought and offer really means a lot to me, the reality is that it has been very difficult to schedule resupplies with how dynamic my trip has been. I am really trying to practice a simple principle of adapting, accepting, and appreciating adversity and being present in the moment and so many times that mean on the fly adjustments to my plan. A great example of this is  when I arrived in Cascade Locks on the PCT and the fire situation in Oregon and Washington was so awful that I decided to jump over to the Rockies and hit the Tetons and the Continental Divide Trail. Now I have to adjust all my resupply boxes to my new itinerary which can still change due to fires and early winter storms. Flat rate shipping and food is not cheap and trying to have boxes sent from the original destination to a new destination can be very difficult if not impossible. So in lieu of resupply boxes I am going to make some of my favorite photo collections available on a donation basis. Every few weeks I will put a new collection up and will accept donations through Zelle. I know everything is expensive these days and money is tight, so I will let you guys determine the value.

I will have the first collection posted to all my socials in a few weeks when I arrive in Lander, Wyoming after tackling The Wind River Range.

Thanks for all the support along the way everyone!

It’s been awhile……..

To take off on a sabbatical and hike around the United States and blog about it seemed like such an easy thing to do. Here I am nine months later and between a lack of consistent wifi and cell service, long days, and major shifts in my overall plan and I have zero post explaining what’s been going on. So as I get ready to hitch to the reroute due to fires to get on the Continental Divide Trail and head into the Wind River Range, I am going to work on getting the blog and website up to speed on what’s been going on. As with most journals this will be a great way to document all the stories and adventures before so many details get lost to times decay. Below is a picture of the Grand Tetons along the Teton Crest Trail.

The Great Escape

  Years ago I used to battle with what I could and could not control. It seemed that with enough leverage, effort, and muscle that anything was possible. That may be true for many lessons that I have learned, but I quickly learned that it wasn’t the case with people. The specifics of these struggles could easily be a stand alone post and maybe as time goes on I may dive into some of those experiences. For today I will just say that this constant adaptation to adversity is the purpose of the title of todays post.

To say that I had an abundance of health issues as a child would be an understatement, one thing for sure is all those sick days put me in a position to watch a lot of T.V., read, and listen to every song I could get my hands on. To be a captivated audience with the limited options of the day meant many hours watching, reading, and listening to things that weren’t normal for an average adolescent. I can’t place the first time I watched “The Great Escape”, but I do know that on some level the plot and the characters had made an impression on this sickly kid trapped inside. The Price is Right also played a huge part of my childhood, but what kind of story does that generate?

Fast forward through the years and the movie, the plot, the characters resurfaced as I wrestled with the adversity that was starting to feel like an avalanche of things outside my control. This idea of making memories and friendships in a situation that everyone is desperately plotting to escape from was coming more into focus. I wasn’t sure what the next chapter of life was going to be or when it might begin, the one thing I was sure of was that anything related to these thoughts would go under the file name “The Great Escape”. It’s fascinating to go back and look at these files and see how they evolved over time. How I used this space to day dream and work out what I was going to do while incorporating current events and interest. As with so many things it is so easy to define a journey while still on it or in this case defining the art of escaping while still tethered.

It’s was at this moment that the great escape started long before any specified date or plan.

Welcome to the journey.

Time management and priorities-

Setting out on this new chapter of life two years ago, it was easy to plan ahead with vision and hope of what the future would bring. The idea of maintaining Trained by Cain as it morphed into this hiking, trail runing, personal training hybrid experiment while managing all social media outlets has turned into a juxtaposition of gratitude and hyperextension. In other words I do just fine with the “go” and not so great with the “show”. Websites turned into Facebook, Facebook to Instagram, and now Instagram to Tiktok. The problem is they all have a unique reach and audiences. So here I am back to where it all started in the basic blog. A place where I can let my lack of interest in public education of my youth shine and talk about being outdoors.

Will use upcoming post to break down the specifics of the adventures I have gone on with clients, friends, and my solo outings. In the meantime let me bring the blog up to speed with some current metrics that are based on when I shut the studio doors 3/23/2020.

Hiking streak – 3/23/2020 – 3/18/2020 – 725 hikes, doesn’t include multiple hikes in one day.

Number of parks, trails, national forest, wildlife management areas – 108

Miles? It’s hard to say, I shifted focus to steps years ago with a goal that has gone from 14,000 per day in early 2019 to averaging around 40,000 per day currently. Funny to look back to when 1 million steps was a p.r.

Look forward to shifting focus away from social media and getting the trail jounal up to date. If you like trail candy in 30-60 second bites, check me out at Tiktoc @ Ricky_Cain

Happy Trails!