Finding Ultra, Revised and Updated Edition by Rich Roll

Author:Rich Roll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony
Published: 2012-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

DAY THREE: MOLOKAI

THE REAL HAWAII

When I awoke around 10:00 A.M., the fatigue was deep but manageable, especially knowing that we’d have a little recovery time before taking on the Island of Molokai, Hawaii’s most remote and mysterious atoll. Rebecca returned our van and arranged for an afternoon flight while I stayed in bed for two more hours, eating and talking to my wife and kids on the phone.

“Hi, Daddy! Are you still riding your bike?” The greeting from Mathis boosted my spirits higher than any double espresso. “Mommy says you’re very tired. You should really get some sleep, you know. Sleep is very good.”

Truer words had never been spoken. Julie was anxious to hear all the details of our previous day. I did my best to recount the highlights, but in truth I was simply too tired to spin a proper yarn. But that was okay; just knowing I was safe was all Julie needed.

Around one o’clock Jason, Rebecca, and I met in the hotel lobby, where Jason proudly greeted me with a copy of the day’s Honolulu Advertiser, Oahu’s primary newspaper. Right there on the front page was a picture of Jason and me biking along Oahu’s eastern shore.

“Cool!” I said, amazed that our adventure had made the news. Reading the piece, my disappointment that we’d blown our tight schedule faded. People were watching, taking notice, reminding us once again that we weren’t alone. What was important now was that we finish what we started.

After a brief and stress-free bunny hop of a flight, we landed in the tiny, sparse, and relatively unpopulated island of Molokai. Measuring only thirty-eight miles long and ten miles wide, Molokai is best known for its history as a quarantined leper colony. Now acknowledged more for its staunch preservation, the arid and tourist-free hamlet was a welcome and stark contrast to the urban landscape of Oahu.

At the airport—more like a landing strip—we were greeted by Jessie Ford, the field administrator for Coffees of Hawaii, a five-hundred-acre premium coffee plantation. The business is family-run by Albert Broyce, a fellow Stanford graduate as well as an accomplished and passionate endurance athlete who’d graciously agreed to sponsor our efforts. And the support was superb, soup to nuts.

Jessie didn’t waste time filling the role of our very own Molokai Princess, helping us load our gear and then driving us straight to the plantation. As we pulled away from the airport, we saw a road sign that read: SLOW DOWN, THIS IS MOLOKAI. And as we’d soon discover, Molokai indeed has a velocity all its own.

After a short drive, we arrived at the Coffees of Hawaii plantation, where Jessie gave us the keys to our own guest house—a first-rate home complete with kitchen, laundry, and fully stocked refrigerator. Not to mention our own vegan chef, who later that evening brought us a cornucopia of home-prepared dishes sufficient to feed a dozen people. Talk about ohana!

For the first time since we began the journey, I was able to fortify with the foods my body was screaming for.

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