Last year, my husband Trevan announced that Layne Gneiting (cycling trek coach for his last 5 international rides) was creating an "alumni" event for anyone who had been on a trek with him before, and their "plus one". Trevan invited me to consider joining him in Norway, June 2025.

I've never seen myself as one who would do such a thing. I've been glad that Trevan has his occasional trek, because he always comes home so happy. Germany, Budapest, France, Morocco, Austria... so many adventures. He's always been more athletically inclined than me, and I've been fine with that. In high school I focused on music and academics, he focused on music and athletics. In fact, he ranked #3 in the state for long distance running and went to college on a track scholarship.

So, to be invited to join him on a cycling trek, I felt a tremendous amount of trepidation and barely even considered it. This is a guy who has cycled India coast to coast, even completing the ride after crashing and breaking ribs halfway through. I'm not a cyclist! 

But I let the idea simmer and reluctantly accepted the invitation. It takes about 6 months to train properly for such a ride. We would be riding 8 days, covering up to 400 miles with over 10,000 feet in elevation gain. I started the training... get on the bike every day, even if it's just to go to the end of the block and back. Get used to the saddle. I did pretty good up until Christmas, but lost interest and instead spent my time on work and preparing our home for parents moving in.

With only a few months left to prepare, I started riding farther when I occasionally did ride. I started using the Peloton to see if I could do two days of 50 miles, back to back. I was not engaged in the group chat because all of the unread messages overwhelmed me. I was bracing myself to survive this trip at best.

With only one week left before the journey, Trevan talked me into climbing South Mountain, Phoenix with him. No time left to get conditioned, but maybe one good climb would at least help me believe I could do hills. I planned to go up it twice that day, to meet the training tier of 3000+ elevation gain. I only managed to get up it once. Trevan said he wasn't sure I'd make it even halfway. It felt good to surprise him by going the whole way: 15 miles, 1600 ft elevation gain.

I came home from that ride feeling stronger, but also sobered. With juggling so many other things over the last year, I had squandered my prep time. Ready or not, here I come.

Day 1 - Tromsø to Sommarøy

I wasn’t particularly nervous going into the day, just resigned to face whatever would come. We had spent two nights at an AirBnb up a nearby hill from our starting point, needing the extra day to adjust to the time zone.

The apartment was spacious, three-story, and had a kitchen and living room big enough for 13 of us to gather and build our bikes, which had previously been dissembled for our airplane rides to Norway. On the morning of June 2, we gathered at the church in the center square.

From there, we kicked off with a prayer for our safety, pulled up our navigation tools on our mounted phones, and headed out. The first segment was through a semi-busy town but we quickly found our way to a bike path that would lead us out and over a bridge to the more rural roadways.

The sky was cloudy and the air was brisk. It didn’t take long for me to realize how much work it was to get myself over the hills that rolled through the countryside. Trevan, having been up ahead quite a ways, unexpectedly passed us going back the other direction, since he had forgotten his bag at the church and needed to go back to retrieve it. Thankfully he met Dave partway who had picked it up and gave it to him.

Soon enough, Trevan passed me again and was off into the distance. We had agreed before coming that we would not travel together. He has been on enough of these treks with Layne for us both to know how important it is for each person to have their own experience, without the regular relationship dynamics from home getting in the way of what’s there for each of us to discover.

After what felt like forever, we rounded a corner to face our first big hill. Not one of the rolling ones, but a legitimate ascent that required that I get off my bike and push it up. Some riders were strong enough to climb it without dismounting, but Monica and I did what we had to do to get ourselves to the top.

Once the big hill was behind us, we kept going for a while, saw some reindeer run by...

...and stopped for a break.

I’ll be honest, the whole day was a slog.

I looked at each hill ahead with dread, and spent most of the ride worrying about the next day to come. Day 1 was just a 'warm-up' of 39 miles, 1400 feet elevation gain, and cloudy but dry weather. But by contrast, Day 2 tomorrow would be 55 miles with more than double the elevation gain through a frigid rainstorm.

Besides worrying about the stats of the next day coming, I was also discouraged at how much I lost momentum so quickly with each hill, and struggled to push through. Suffering through each mile (and questioning my life choices) I started identifying visual targets ahead and forced myself to get to each one, exhausted.

To survive the day, I drew from what I had learned on South Mountain in Phoenix the week before - to just make myself do ONE pedal at a time. One. One. One. But pretty soon that wasn’t cutting it; it just wasn’t motivating enough. So I began pushing up each hill by counting 1-10 over and over.

4 hours later, we rolled into town, long after everyone else had arrived, and found the restaurant where they had been ordering burgers. Someone asked how my Day 1 had been, and my answer was “traumatic”.

Trevan wanted to talk to me about it, but felt like it would be better for me to talk to Layne first. I don’t think anyone was surprised that I struggled so much. I had been unengaged in the group chat leading up to the event, and had barely done any actual training ahead of time. I had struggled to be excited about the trip and hadn’t found a super compelling reason to be there, besides just doing it for Trevan’s sake.

Sure, I had done enough to get myself accustomed to the bike seat, which was good. At least I didn’t deal with saddle sores. And yes, I had climbed South Mountain the week before, but that only got my head prepared for medium-sized hills, not the rest of my body. It certainly didn’t condition me or give me a ton of strength once I got to those Lofoten Islands.

Everyone was finished eating when I asked Layne if he had a minute to chat. I told him that basically Trevan wanted him to fix me, so…

Layne interjected, “No fixing. What’s going on?”

I got tearful and told him how hard the day had been for me, and how I couldn’t imagine how I was possibly going to face Day 2.

Layne told me about a man who cycled Norway with him years ago. He said, “Hal was raised as an athlete. You beat the other team. Everything is a fight. It's kind of adversarial. And on our second to the last day, we climbed this Trollstigen road at the end of a box canyon.

"It zigzagged its way up, and at the top we thought hey, we just climbed one of the top 10 roads of the world! It was constantly on those lists, but at the end of it, we still had some climb, and then drop to a fjord, and then across, and then another climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, and then another drop to a fjord. That was our day."

He continued, “At the end of the day, I knew that the next was going to be tougher, because instead of stretching it out over 50 miles, we had to do 5000 feet in 13 and a half miles. And I knew it was going to be brutal, that it would be a challenge. So that night, I said, 'Look, today was epic. You couldn't get a better day. But tomorrow is going to be tough, and our legs are jelly. So, Hal, if you want, we can just call it good and end it today and we're done'."

Hal said, "Layne, I was ticked off because all day I had seen everything as a fight: the rain, the climb, the mountain, the wind, all of it, I saw it as a fight. But in that moment, I realized if I'm going to see it as a fight, I'm gonna lose. I don't have the energy to tackle the wind, and the climb, and the rain. I just don't have it in me. Somehow, I've got to partner with the rain, and the mountain. I've got to GET energy from it instead of fighting it. And if I can do that, Layne, then it might work. But tomorrow, we're going to go slow. You've got to go my pace, and we're going to stop a lot.’”

Layne explained, "When we reached the top, he had finally let go of all the stories he had about how he should be. And when he threw his bike to the side and fell on my shoulders weeping like a baby, I've never seen anyone with such perfect clarity, no ego. There was nothing blocking his inner fire anymore, and it changed his life. Because of his upbringing, he had been conditioned to see things a certain way, and it wasn't until he created them differently that it made all the difference."

Layne then turned his attention to me. "So what's fantastic for you now, is that you can ask, what has conditioned you to think you're underprepared, that life is a fight, or that it's brutal?"

I thought about it, and yes, I could see places in my life where I've felt my best would never be good enough. In adulting, in parenting, in business... but for so many of those years we were in survival mode. We were doing literally everything we could; there was nothing else to give at that time. I've comforted myself to believe that the Savior makes up the difference, that everything is going to be okay eventually, and that there's just some suffering that may have to happen between here and there for not doing better, or being better prepared. But, like Hal, I saw life as a fight.

Layne reminded me that we create stories about ourselves and our circumstances. We look at our situation, and tell a story about it to help it make sense to us, or at least more palatable. But we have to realize, those stories are our own creation. The mountain just IS. Whether it's going to be hard or pleasurable for us to get over is a decision WE make.

I started to cry, and he said, "I love that you are being open. The tears, even though they're painful, they are a sign that you're giving something up, you're letting it out to get some healing. So, how do you reconcile giving yourself grace while dealing with the consequences?"

I told him, "I can say it's okay I'm not prepared. Let's just do this, you know. But if I could avoid the suffering part, I would prefer to do that!"

He reminded me: "Suffering is mental".

I've known this, that pain may be inevitable, but suffering is optional. But I was still so overwhelmed by the mountain in front of me, I couldn't remember how to think. "So how do you stop the suffering??"

He said, "There's a difference between giving grace and forgiving."

I said, "Tell me more."

He said, "Giving grace is almost like pushing it away, like it didn't really happen, or, 'this isn't okay and, like flinging your hands up in the air, c'est la vie. It is what it is'. But it's another thing to look at it and think, 'You know what, that happened. And I created a story about that. I forgive myself for creating that story'. We create those stories. So what? It always starts with a thought. That thought led to a feeling. So tomorrow, if you have feelings of angst, it's because there's a thought up here that's floating down river saying, 'This is going to be tough. You can't do it. You're not prepared. You're underprepared'. So, there are all of these adversarial voices. They're what's cascading down, and your body's responding with, 'Yeah, you're right, I can't'. The body responds to what the mind thinks. Now about all that chatter in the head, we can create a new train of thought. There are two different kinds. There's the chatter that's just constantly going, and there's creative thought. If we get curious about the chatter, it stops. It interrupts it. The whispering voice comes up and it's hissing and as soon as you look at it and go, 'Brain, why are you doing that to me?' Now, that's a creative thought coming from a place of curiosity. And the sinister whisper draws back, and there's a little gap. But then once you ignore it again, it'll come back and keep going. As long as you keep paying attention to those thoughts and ask, 'Why are you thinking that?', it gets interrupted for longer gaps, until your mind can finally be still. Think of it like a river and it's roaring, so keep interrupting it, replace it with a creative thought. Put another way, a negative thought flows in, and you can respond with, 'No, I have prepared what I could, and that's enough'. Whether it's enough or it isn't is something you get to decide. You're the one telling the story. Now suddenly that's different energy. How does that feel in inside you?"

As Layne gave me more empowering thoughts to consider, I felt stronger. I admitted that it's frustrating to have spent 25 years of my life studying mindset to still feel so weak at it. But Layne reminded me that I just have blind spots like everybody else.

He said, "Where you're strong, you're incredibly strong. But now you're experiencing it in the body, in a way you haven't yet, and that doesn't diminish everything you know and everything you've done. What you're experiencing right now, the wrestle, the questions, the frustration... that's the very purpose of this trek experience. Because it's not until we challenge ourselves physically on a level that's totally different, that we open up a new kind of spiritual channel. It's not a better one, it's just a different spiritual channel, and we gain access to it in ways that we didn't before."

Then he asked, "What's your takeaway?"

I said, "To get curious, look at the whispers directly so they'll shrink away. And that if needed, I will pull over and do that during my ride."

He finished our visit with a final thought: "Life doesn't happen the way it should, nor does it happen the way it shouldn’t. Life just happens the way it does. What you think about it is what determines how much you will suffer."

I went back to our hotel room and fell asleep thinking about what he said. The sun wasn't setting while we were on the trek, so our sleep schedule was sometimes a little crazy.

I woke up that night around 3am and got busy describing how I wanted to CREATE Day 2. Here’s some of what I put in my journal:

_______________

What I’m creating the mountain to be:

•  Strength training
•  Character building
•  Patience developing
•  My teacher
•  It loves me
•  It respects me
•  It cheers me on
•  It is proud of me
•  It is honored to grow me
•  These are the same rocks that would cry out if Jesus’ disciples had been stopped from praising Him

Even the sun is waiting for me.

What is my dream? My fuel? That on the other side of this experience I will be:

•  Fit and strong
•  A new creature
•  More confident
•  More athletic
•  A good steward of the gift of my body
•  Having stamina
•  Others-focused
•  More loving

What if I forget, and the climb ahead overwhelms me? I will remember Peter walking on the water and will return my focus to Jesus Christ.

When the whispers sneak in, I will stop, face them, and with curiosity I will seek answers to the question, “Why am I taunted by those words?” “What is the root cause or false belief that invited me to entertain such lies?”

When I feel I've hit my limit, I will ask, “Why do you taunt me, don’t you know I still have 60% more in me?” (This comes from something that I heard from Dave Madder the day before when he explained that a study was done proving that Navy Seals, when they hit their physical limit, were actually only operating at 40% of their capacity.)

I will forgive myself for judging myself as one who believed I was not athletic.

I will forgive myself for judging myself as one who believed I was not strong.

However prepared I am, it was and is enough.

I choose to believe that as I do these things to improve my life, I will see good things reflected in the lives of my loved ones. I entrust them to the Lord. I entrust their souls to Him and will turn my focus to improving what I can about myself.

As I considered what whispers might try to overwhelm me on the road tomorrow, I called them out using Layne's recommended format:

I will forgive myself for judging myself as one who - in my 'surviving' years:

• failed as a mother
• was a toxic wife
• was a cranky aunt
• was an impatient camp counselor
• was weak

I remembered how my friend Christy Lee tackled hills when she was training for a marathon and adopted the mantra, “Hello, hills, I’ve been expecting you! Come ride with me and make me stronger!”

It does me good to remember that everyone here—all the strong ones—had their struggles like mine. They faced their doubts like I am now. They pushed themselves when they thought they had nothing left. Trevan rode to Payson 70-80 miles after only 4 months of training because he didn’t know what it would take, and did it despite the 8000 ft elevation gain.

Monica did a 4700 ft mountain in Greece.

Today is only 2700. I did 1700 yesterday, fighting and hating it. Dreading the next incline. Screaming at it. Today I will ride in the flow of love and gratitude, for the opportunity to improve, and be changed for the better.

Through this experience I will become love. It will teach me to have love and patience for myself and my loved ones over the mountains of life. My belief and patience with others will expand and they will feel it subconsciously across the miles. They will feel a shift even when words are not exchanged. They will feel it in our home they they come to visit. They will bask in the love, safety, and protection that they feel there.

I trust that through my willingness to face and overcome my challenges, the Lord is strengthening those around me to also overcome their own.

I am stronger than I think.

I have stores of energy yet untapped. 

I will replay in my mind the “You Got it In You!” song

I can do this. I can learn this. It doesn’t matter how long I take today!

What is a key word that I can think of when the evidence overwhelms me to the contrary, to remind me of, and to represent all of these truths that I now choose to believe?

STOP AND REMEMBER THE ROCKS!

My body was designed to respond to the demands. My feet are learning to be more of what I need. My back is learning to be more of what I need. My knees and muscles and skeletal system are learning to be more of what I need. And all parts of me, from my mind to the sinews are waking up and rising to the occasion. They are excited to grow, too, and are enthusiastic about the opportunity to fill the measure of their creation.

I trust that miracles will be performed on my behalf, and that my needs will be met in the moment or times that I need assistance.

I will remember that to qualify for these miracles - to not be left on my own in the struggle - I must fear not. When I feel fear overcoming me, I will stop and wait until I am calm. I will stop even before I need to, to stay in the mode of choice / agency. I will keep calm and watch what happens with gratitude and great expectations.

_____________

At breakfast, Marc Garrett (who knows my books) made a remark that maybe I didn't make preparations a priority because I hadn't found a dream or vision for the trek. And he was right! I had been saying I wasn't prepared because I didn't have time, or because there were too many other things going on, but the truth is that I didn't make the time for it because, frankly, I didn't really want to go.

I thought about that, and reminded myself that when the vision isn't clear, or when you're not truly connected to a dream, excuses will always get in the way. And after suffering so much through Day 1, I realized I have GOT to get a dream or a vision for this trip, or I was bound to suffer the entire time!

So I added the following to my journal:

_____________

My Vision:

To come back together with everyone and honestly say: “Day 2 was easier than yesterday!!”

Writing this next part in past tense to make it more real, I added:

As I looked at the ground beneath me, I calmly declared, “THIS is where the other 60% shows up. Right here.”

_____________

And then the day began. This was what our app said we could expect:

(We later found out the app grossly underestimated the actual elevation gain. It was probably better that we didn't know that when we embarked.)

Monica and I headed out, committed to ENJOYING the day. We would face each hill with a smile. The hills were going to be there regardless, and we'd have to work our way up each one no matter how we approached them. But hating the hills always made it harder, so we decided very intentionally to love the journey.

That's the mountain we were about to climb. 

Plan for Solo?

I told Monica that I might need to do the extra big hill alone, since I have always found my greatest strength and peace in solitude. If that mountain was going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done, then I may need to go inward to take it on, just me and God alone. She understood, and was ready to ride ahead if it came to that.

Monica is a strong rider, and was only holding back by choice. Each time we hit a hill, she powered past me and waited at the top. At first, the visual of her passing me so quickly was a drain on my psyche. It was a visual reminder over and over of how poor of a rider I am. But Day 2 was challenging enough that it eventually burned that concern right out of me. I shifted to being proud of myself after every hill, no matter how I stacked against the others.

One thought that helped me get up the big mountain that day was this:

Y-Mount in Provo is 6000 feet up. I’ve climbed it maybe 3 times. I can do the 950 feet that this mountain is.

But my numbers were wrong. The Y-Mount hike is only actually 1074 feet in elevation gain, and the total we climbed on Day 2 was over 3000 feet. It’s all such a head game!

Sometimes we just had to walk it!!

Monica refilled her water bottle with perfect Norwegian snowmelt.

Inside the tunnel were emergency boxes, which told you how far you were from the opening in either direction. The total distance of this uphill tunnel was just over a mile:

The noise of cars coming through the tunnel was like listening to a freight train! All uphill.

We finally came out of the tunnel to find that we were at the top of the mountain next to a frozen lake.

Coming down the mountain, we thought it would be nothing but easy until we got to our next meeting point. We were wrong!

But the gorgeous views made the ride extra worthwhile!!

A Day of Miracles

Layne promised that if we would face the day in an attitude of flow, stopping to enjoy the scenery, feeling gratitude for the journey, and appreciating the challenges that were making us stronger, we would experience miracles, and he was not wrong.

Miracle #1:

In the middle of one tunnel, Monica and I stopped to rest where it opened up to the crisp winter mountainside.

While we sat there, we recharged and reflected on how far we'd come. There was still a long way to go, as we were only about halfway through our Day 2 ride, but we were still committed to enjoying the experience and not allowing ourselves to think about the climb still in front of us. A Norwegian postal driver came by and gave us thumbs up which put a smile on our faces. Then as he moved into the enclosed part of the tunnel, he had to stop and back up to let an oncoming driver through first, which gave me a chance to get his picture. He rolled down the window, handed us a couple of Coca Colas, and said, "Now you will survive!!"

It's the little moments like this where you see the heavens watching out for you, sending the message that you are seen and cared for. On Day 1 when I was hating every mile, I didn't see kindness or tender mercies like I did on Day 2 when we faced our ride with softer hearts.

Miracle #2:

After coming out of the tunnel and riding several more miles, I was feeling like we'd better find ourselves a bathroom. But we were in the middle of nowhere, and with our rain clothes and cycling gear it was extremely cumbersome to take care of business somewhere along the roadside. But I spotted a bend in the road up ahead where there was a path and an outbuilding, with lots of trees and craggy rocks. Maybe we could find a spot somewhere near there.

As we pulled up to it, and looked at the road stretching ahead for many more remote miles, we weighed out our options. Something told me to just keep going, so we rounded the corner, leaving the semi-workable solution behind and began coasting down a long hill. 

At the bottom of the hill we spotted our very first remote yet public restroom of the whole trip. How grateful we were for the nudge that we didn't need to battle the less-than-desirable option at the top of the hill, since the Shangri-La of Norwegian restrooms was waiting for us at the bottom, less than 2 minutes away:

Miracle #3:

Before we got to the top of the big hill, my fingers were wet and freezing. So it was a pleasant surprise to round a corner and find Mike Poindexter and Dave Fielding sitting at a picnic table next to the mini van carrying our luggage. I was sure we were hours behind everyone else, so this was a shock to meet up with some of our fellow riders! Turns out Dave's bike had been blown over by the wind, cracking his rear derailleur. They were trying to fix it when we rolled in. Layne's dad (dubbed Papa Smurf) was there with the van and invited us to get in and warm up. How badly we needed that little boost of unexpected support! I told Dave that his mechanical was a blessing in disguise for us, giving us what we needed at a critical time on that day's journey.

Miracle #4:

After warming up for a bit, we pushed on. But it didn't take long for us to get cold and wet again. I felt prepared mentally for everything we had been facing... the hills, the rain, the long hours on the road... but what I wasn't prepared for was how uncomfortable and freezing my hands were in my sopping wet gloves. We pulled over to take them off and try to warm my fingers. That's when Monica said, "Wait a minute..." and she reached into her bag and found a pair of super warm gloves that she had been carrying but forgot about.

I blurted, "You don't need them??"

She said, "No, my fingers aren't actually feeling cold right now." That was a miracle... she was wearing open-fingered gloves and didn't seem to be bothered, which meant I could use her super-thick, dry, and warm gloves to get me through the rest of the day.

Miracle #5:

I've got a few things to lump together in this one, and they all point to Monica. She was a God-send for me that day. I had planned on facing the big mountain alone, but like Hal, I realized that it was too big for me to go it alone. If I had tried to do Day 2 solo, the voices would have overcome me. It was too long and too hard of a day to battle both the elements AND the river of energy-sapping thoughts that continually flow in if you're not super vigilant. Monica would sing out loud to me as we rode. We laughed together. We stopped and took breaks together. We shared snacks and her Bonk Busters were amaaaazing. I realized, especially after the mile-long uphill tunnel at the top of the mountain, that while I AM stronger than I think, I overestimate how strong I am when I'm alone. I don't always watch carefully the discouraging thoughts that flood in when I don't have the distraction of a present companion. 

It got me thinking about how I do life. I started questioning the core belief I have that I survive best in solitude.

Maybe I don’t need solitude to survive. Day 2 flipped something in me. It helped me identify a false belief that I recharge best alone, and that people are draining. On that mountain I know for a fact that the whispering voices would have overtaken me without Monica there.

I came away from the mountain on Day 2 committed to seeing people differently, and looking forward to spending more time with those I love, without simultaneously longing to be alone. For it is sometimes through other people that God sends us the support we need. It's not like I didn't already know that, but that day on the mountain helped me understand it on a whole new level.

 

The Time of Our Lives

With about 3 more miles to go, Layne pulled up in the van and asked if we needed a ride. We surprised him when we replied, "No thanks - we're having the time of our lives!" We truly had created Day 2 to be easier than Day 1.

So he drove away. After all, the app said there were basically no more hills left. So you can imagine how I lost it when we kept coming up to more hills anyway. I asked Monica, “How can we still have fun for the last couple miles?”

She tried to play “I spy” but I wasn't in the mood. We rounded a corner to face yet another hill, totally absent from our elevation map. In fact, there were probably a total of 5 good hills at the end of our ride that appeared FLAT on the app.

“Hello, hill!" Monica yelled, "We were NOT expecting you!” haha!!

She asked how I was doing. "I'm MAD! Stupid hill!" She laughed, but I was done "thinking right". I just wanted it to be over!

Eventually, we finished. We had gone the whole way, through sleet and wind, and nearly freezing temperatures. 

This was our destination:

We made it! It was good to be having dinner with our friends.

I decided to treat myself to a cheesecake and laughed when this (below) is what the server brought me. Today was all about letting go of expectations, and even dessert fit the theme... whatever life brings you, there's nothing to do but choose to enjoy it.

We lodged in a tiny room which only had floorspace for two twins and our bikes, and sacked out with curtains barely blocking out the midnight sun.

I could hardly imagine getting up to do it all over again the next day, but there was yet more for me to learn.

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