Preparations: September and October

This one will be short and sweet! September and October were pretty slow months in terms of preparation. The single greatest action taken for the Big Year was purchasing tickets to fly out to Seattle the day after Christmas. I am so lucky to have my mom, dad, and sister joining me on the way out. They are sacrificing their post-Christmas decompression time and opting for stress-inducing air travel to be with me for a few more days of togetherness before my official start.

So if you thought that I was just dreaming out loud all of this time, think again. It's real, it's official, and it's set in stone. I look forward to what this year brings, and I hope that you do too.

Getting my sea legs (Photo by Traci Moss)

In the meantime, check out this sweet video that I was lucky to be a part of. It helps to explain one of modern life's greatest mysteries: what exactly is birding?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luJ49BwQ2u4


Whenever the subject of my adventure comes up in conversation, one of the main questions that I get is will I set a world record for unicycling. I could never answer this question accurately because I had never taken the time to look it up. Record-breaking just isn't one of my motivations. In fact, I had hardly looked up distance unicycling in general, partly because I was afraid that it would somehow dissuade me from my dream. I was grasping to faith in the idea through ignorance, but I eventually did break down to do some skimming on the subject.

So glad that I'm not looking for counseling on this subject

In all fairness, I cannot truly be surprised that the top hit is long-distance relationships and not long-distance unicycling. Still not sure how long-distance lamps rank above long-distance unicycling or really even what that is, but maybe, just maybe, this whole thing will shift Googles engines to favor one-wheeled nonsense. 

But back to what I really set out to find. It turns out that the Guinness Book of World Records website lists Lars Clausen's 2002 transcontinental American journey as the record holder. He traveled 9,125 miles over the course of eightish months. 

Still, this seems like an outdated record. According to Cary Gray's blog, his unicycle journey of 9,126 miles through North and Central America broke the Guinness World Record in 2014.

But wait, from 2015 to 2018 a British youngster named Ed Pratt circumnavigated the Earth on his 36-inch touring unicycle. I'm no mathematician, but a route circling the Earth must have exceeded 10,000 miles. Surely he owns the title that Guinness has the power to bestow.

So as you can see, I am in good company. I'm comforted by the fact that others have pedaled before me and that my own undertaking is nowhere near as daunting as theirs temporally, spatially, and conceptually. Yeah, I like unicycling, but I also like the prospect of returning home in good time. 

See you on the next post.