5 July 2008: Les Derniers Jours de Un Condame
3:30 am. One hour to go, and I cannot sleep. The wind is howling outside like hell loosed in the wrong direction, and my stomach isn't much quieter.
I have been asked in every interview, "Why are you doing this?" It took me until this moment to realize: I am doing this so that I will no longer sleep.
Dad taught us long ago that the best way to enjoy Saturday morning cartoons is to hoe a row of corn. Both the prospect and the memory of pain, of work well-done, heighten the senses.
"Why am I doing this?" To set for myself the ultimate challenge. Right now, a bite of dark chocolate is God's own nectar; a sip of diet coke is apotheosis.
"Why am I doing this?" Why does anyone do anything deeply fulfilling? Is it not so that we can come as close as possible to living Hugo's "last days of a condemed man?"
My guillotine is packed and loaded, a baguette peeping out from the left pannier. I cannot wait for the blade to come down.
Before it does, one more "thank you" to everyone who has made this ride possible!
Jesse Czelusta poses with his bike at the starting line.
Photo courtesy of Thomas T. Lee.
