I jammed my bike onto the rack, hustled into the drivers seat, and without even taking off my helmet, slammed the door shut and started back for the cabin. I didn’t want to be late for dinner. The family was waiting.

It was 5:20 p.m. by the time I’d finished squeezing in my 90-minute road ride on our final night at Bad Medicine. I’d snuck out as everyone else was loading the boat for an afternoon waterski. Part of me wanted to be with them. Another part was solemnly OK with a solo reflection over 25 miles. I’d told my wife I’d be back for supper by 5:30. At 5:32, I pulled in, ran past my tail-wagging dog and sat down at the table — bib shorts, sweat and all.

“Where did you ride?” my dad asked as he passed a tray of salmon around the table.

“I just did the same road we did,” I replied, referencing a route I had completed with him, my mom, and my brother just a couple days prior. Providing perhaps unnecessary additional clarity, I spoke through a mouthful of my mom’s crab salad: “The Long Lost Lake Road.”

I knew no one at the table needed to know (or cared to know) about any other details from my endurance escape, but I added (because I can’t help it), “It was great.”

Knives clinked and forks clanked. Hugo, our 9-month old, let out a cute sigh as he shoved fishy fragments into his face. Novi and Ella, worn out from a hard week of play, devoured all their food silently. My mother and father in law, who’d brought the fish, sat next to each other. They were stopping through on their way to Montana, where they planned to spend the next week or so elk hunting. The last time they’d been at the lake was on the day I’d proposed to their daughter. Now, here we were with three kids of our own.

Needless to say, the table was full of family and food.

“No wind,” I continued (storytellers need to add some details). “Which meant it felt like I was going against the wind both ways.”

My dad nodded empathetically. I knew that last comment — a subtle jab at a singular aspect of cycling that (in his mind) could probably justify permanent skepticism for the whole enterprise — would probably land well. My mom asked how fast I went, but I couldn’t say, since I didn’t record anything. It was one of those rides which couldn’t be characterized by metrics.

Then my dad unexpectedly asked, “Did you think about us?”

“Yes,” I replied quickly, shoveling my mom’s dill-seasoned steamed carrots onto my plate. “Of course.”

My answer was true in at least two senses. First of all, anytime I leave for a workout as a father of three I think — dwell even — on the people I’m leaving behind. I ponder whether making more mitochondria is worth lost time with loved ones. Introspectively assessing my hobbies in this way is probably healthy and necessary, but it can admittedly cause cortisol spikes in my already thick, hemoglobin-rich plasma. I digress.

The second way is probably closer to what my dad was getting at.

Did I think about them on my bike ride down the Long Lost Lake Road?

The 11-mile segment stretches between the two remaining geographic centers for my family — and my childhood: Bad Medicine Lake and Bagley, Minnesota. The latter location — where my dad grew up and where I collected countless memories with my cousins — now seemingly exists only in whatever cherished moments I’m able to replay on my mental movie screen.

As I crested the large hill halfway down the road, I could see the small town somewhere off in the distance. As the wind whipped past my face, I smelled those chaotic Christmas dinners — the kind Grandma prepared all day for in her packed, undersized kitchen as aunts bumped into each other to check, stir and season various cheese-laden (healthy?) vegetable dishes.

I swept past a nicely manicured lawn in front of a house my dad had pointed out to me on the last ride, as if to say, “move here — it will be as good as Colorado you know….” As I peered into the nestled grove of trees shading the home’s dark brown siding, I saw the lonely dark corner of the Bagley house’s entryway, where stacks of bars stored on top of a bottom-less deep freeze waited patiently for the dishes to be done so they could be paraded out. The rarely-visited corner remained under the watch of a Dalmatian named Spot, the one dog who, while he was viewed as being about as valuable as a human (just like every other dog in this family), couldn’t quite behave enough like one to gain admittance to Grandma’s carpeted dining room, or — better yet — Grandpa’s side, where beloved long-haired muts down through the ages repeatedly received large slices of garlic-soaked lasagna directly off the old man’s fork.

I readjusted my handlebar grip. As my salt-crusted, white bike gloves came to rest in the drops, I felt my wet black winter gloves, drenched from sweat after a long trek through the woods, across the plains and back to our stick fort. It was light and partly cloudy when we started, but the late-December sky quickly blackened. Would we ever get back to Grandma’s house? Maybe, but only by the smell of a slow-cooking beef roast’s smoke seeping out of the charcoal grill outside the garage.

I looked at my mature, muscular quads churning the pedals around and felt the burn in my prepubescent legs from trying to keep up with my brother and older cousin, Derek. As my ears remained subservient to the sports podcaster droning on about how terrible the Twins are (some things are as true at the present moment as they were 30 years ago), I listened in my flashback to my elders’ wise solutions for building a jump here or marking a trail there — waiting for my chance to contribute philosophically about as much as I strove to be a part of Lewis and Clark’s number physically.

Hardly any cars passed me. In the silence of the Wednesday-afternoon ride, I could hear the low din of a movie playing in the den, the crackle of the basement furnace and the secret conversation transpiring in the unfinished room between my massive grandpa and equally large uncle. Tucked away next to enormous shelves of old relics, older cans of peaches and strange items from my grandparents’ winter trips to Texas, the two hid in their fish-gut stained overalls and flannel shirts, analyzing a bullet or some obscure tool maybe, it was hard to tell.

Eighteen miles in, I’d absorbed all the views a humble central Minnesota route could offer, and yet, with another little fence post or gravel driveway passed, I could see other things, too: The fisherman portrait hanging by the pullout sofa, the mysterious collection of large leather bound books, the even more mysterious bags of (literally) ancient flour lining the basement stairs and the white rocking chair that great Grandma used to sit in.

“This is where my great-grandma is buried,” I said to my 5-year-old daughter as the two of us stood in a graveyard in Milaca, MN, five days before the bike ride. Right after grandma had been placed in the earth, I noticed I was standing next to Helen’s gravesite. She’d passed away in 2004, which was probably the last time I’d stood in this exact location. But this was the second time I’d been to this small Minnesota town in three months. Our summer was bookended by funerals.

My grandpa’s took place over Memorial Day and his wife of 71 years was a week before Labor Day. That’s why we were up at the lake on this late-August evening. And, I have a hunch that’s at least partly why my dad asked his question. Grandma, as he said during the service, was the glue that held the family together. The one who made sure we got together. With her and Grandpa gone … would we?

Or, was it the case that when we all gradually dispersed from the church parking lot, a sad, unceremonious location considering the other places etched into familial lore — the baseball diamond at Roger’s on Red Lake Campground, the Mille Lacs Lake beach and of course, grandma’s dining room at the Bagley house — and said our goodbyes, that this was a final gathering of sorts?

Minnesotans are known for their long goodbyes. Perhaps it’s because we’re nice, or at least not as blunt as people from say, Boston. If people want to or need to hang around for another cup of coffee, what’s the trouble? Or maybe the long goodbye stems from a more serious place of doubt. Deep down, we Minnesotans, especially the well-versed Lutherans often mocked by Garrison Keillor, know that not even tomorrow is guaranteed.

Regardless, I think part of the reason we’re finally able — after a little lunch, leftover pie, a conversation where everyone (stands) in the (kitchen, living room and then, finally….) entryway before following family members to their cars — to give a parting hug or wave, is because we possess a hopeful anticipation for the next gathering.

Though it’s a lot less serious in nature when you think about it, the same can be said in sports.

The hopeful anticipation of the next race, next game, next build-up, next cycle, next quadrennial, next phase, or next challenge fuels our fire. I doubt I’m the only athlete who gets excited about making their race schedule. Planning out a season is the caffeine in my morning coffee. Simultaneously pondering long and short-term goals, perhaps along different trajectories which consider multiple (opposite!) counterfactuals (where is William Lane Craig when you need him!) is something one could think about for an entire over-distance double pole! There’s nothing like dreaming and scheming.

Not only does a mission inherently provide structure and direction, a goal-oriented individual’s vision optimistically overlays the general tenor of each and every day. He stacks bricks, “chips away” and gains increasing traction with every momentum-building habit. He finds purpose in all the little workouts, all the big workouts, all the drills, all the shots and even all the setbacks … just as much as the one or two wins he’s maybe afforded. It’s all part of a grand story. He fancies himself as the main character, and he’s on the edge of his proverbial seat, waiting — with tremendous hope — to see where the author will take him.

And then again, some races, or even entire campaigns, are just simply lackluster. So are some family get togethers.

You thought you were going to set the Ada-Borup school record in the 400-meter dash at state this June, but you pulled your hamstring when your coach forced you to run at the West Fargo Invite on a windy, cold Tuesday in April. That same spring you silently rode along with your pa and ma on a gloomy Saturday afternoon to a non-holiday-related family reunion.

As you followed the light rain drops streak across the window, your soul remained buoyed by a belief that you were going to get to ride four wheelers at the sand dunes with your cool cousin Travis. Instead, everyone sat around Grandma’s lawn eating leftover roast beef and mustard sandwiches (all of which were lathered with way too much butter and pepper on each slice of bread), talking about how Aunt Ethel’s step-brother, Frank — whom you’ve been told you met once, 14 years ago, as a toddler, apparently (probably at a get together as dull as this one) — left Janice to chase a waitress he met in Winona that no one knew about and NOW the kids (the ones you apparently did a sack race with at a different family reunion) are having to change school districts. Meanwhile, Travis didn’t even come (because he slept in past noon and his mom just left without him) and Grandpa’s four-wheeler is in Grand Rapids because next week he’s going hunting with his friends Carl Johnson, Bart Nelson and Jim Henson.

Alas, when everyone finally said goodbye, the hope of an exciting July 4 reunion kept you afloat on the long, dreary drive back across the freshly-planted plains.

I don’t know about you, but I often ignore — or at least don’t always openly acknowledge — the reality that I won’t be able to indefinitely say, “Well, there’s always next year.” I was recently lamenting to someone about how simultaneously rewarding and exhausting our family trips can be in this stage. When all three brothers stay at our parents’ cabin, we bring a total of 8 kids — 7 of whom are 5 or younger — and worse, 4 dogs. Toys are sprawled everywhere. Someone is always “struggling to go down for a nap.” Someone else is usually throwing a fit because they probably need a nap. Someone’s dog is ALWAYS a problem. Every adult is basically required to either watch a toddler, just to make sure they don’t eat the sand out of the sandbox or fall into the lake, or monitor a dog, just so they don’t dig up the sandbox or bark at someone falling into the lake.

Don’t worry, I say to myself, trying to soothe my selfish soul. One of these years, you’ll be able to come to the lake and take a nap in a hammock! Or, read a book on the deck! One of these times, we’ll all be able to go to Itasca and bike the loop without thinking about nap schedules or loading up snacks and diapers in multiple pull-behind trailers.

Then again, when that happens, mom and dad will be older. Your brother might have a new job and he’ll live in Tennessee, so he’s not going to be there. Plus, you won’t be able to run anymore and you’ll probably have sold your bike anyhow. Or at the very least, you traded the S-Works idea for a more proper ‘dad’ bike. A heavy metal flat handlebar commuter with a state park sticker on the front and large bag in the back that screams ‘Dad’ the same way white New Balance shoes do. And something else you haven’t even thought of will change at the cabin, too.

I suppose, theoretically, next summer could be better, but you never know.

As you pack up your bags and your kids’ bags, romantically saying goodbye to the birch tree out back, the shady spot by the island and the chipmunk chirping under the step, just like in “Up North at the Cabin,” you comfort yourself, just like the book’s main character does, by trusting that all those things will still be there when you return. You reminisce on a sort of make-shift future-past, hoping you’ll be back next summer to rip across the wake on one water ski, just like uncle Bob. When the sun goes down, you’ll be able to sit on the same side as your grandparents, who never age, at the dinner table, eating corn on the cob and watching the loons dance down the sun.

But what if one of these days, when “you’re far away from summer,” you realize the only way to “be up north at the cabin” is to imagine it? To conjure up the memories while you ride on a lonely stretch that doesn’t even technically link either place, just like those images in your mind don’t technically bring up anything tangible.

Funerals have a way of bringing the sobering sentiment of our own finality to the fore.

“I started and ended my summer here,” I said to a family friend who attended both grandparents’ memorial services. “It makes me wonder … how many more summers do I have left? 60? …. 6?”

I intellectually know my athletic seasons are numbered, just like my family gatherings. The last race I did could be the last race I ever do and the last time we all sang grace — and Auntie Paola added a fifth to the harmony and I tried, but failed, to throw in a third to the triad — around the table might have been the last time that ever happens, too. But every time I put a bib on or get together with relatives, I don’t necessarily think about it like that. I’d say I approach it more like an exhausted young mother whose toddler raises both hands skyward, longing to be held. When she somewhat reluctantly picks her baby up, the thought doesn’t occur to her that one of these times will be the last time she picks that future man up.

In other words, the inevitable, impending end to everything doesn’t define how I race, sing or hug. And whether it’s the hubris inherent to not yet going “over the hill” (or feeling knee pain) or the distraction of being a busy parent to toddlers, I don’t find myself debilitated by such sobering realities.

Does that mean I’m doing life wrong?

Or should I keep holding onto my mortality with just enough tightness that I’m able to also maintain a separate grip on this paradox: the last workout could be my last one ever, or it could also be a tiny preface in a thousand page epic. Last month’s breakthrough race might be the mountain top, but it could also be a new trailhead. I might never hug Mom again — or I might be hugging her hundreds more times, right up through her 100th birthday (just like her mom).

I know it’s delusional to think I might have unlimited bibs to pin on. Or unlimited do overs, unlimited miles, unlimited storage wax, unlimited PBs, Unlimited Birkies, Unlimited FKTs, etc. Then again, maybe I sort of pretend to view it that way because I understand myself and my life as having eternal qualities. In other words, maybe I really can be eternally optimistic.

“But what about when you can’t race the Pikes Peak Ascent ever again?” the doubter asks.

I’ll just switch to cycling hill climbs.

“What about when you can’t ski, run or bike?”

I’ll shift to body building. …my testosterone levels will thank me by that point.

“What about when you’re too old to workout?”

I’ll just shift my focus to trying out for Team USA’s underwater basket weaving squad, of course!

As the bike ride came to an all-too early end, I depressing thought came to my mind.

When I partake in those long Minnesota goodbyes, if all I am holding onto is the tentative promise of the next family reunion, then at some point, I’ll have nothing to hold onto. At some point, everyone really will go their separate ways, start their own families, and center their lives in a place that isn’t Bagley, MN.

If, when I cross the finish line, the thing pulling me out of bed the next morning was always the allure of another starters gun, what happens when I can’t get to the line anymore?

If the truth is that we are just dust returning to dust, then these truths are too heavy for me to handle. I can’t grapple with the hopelessness of that situation. The hopelessness of a ‘this is really all there is.’ The hopelessness of no more family reunions.

But thanks be to God.

“What about when you’re dead? …and gone?” the doubter finally asks.

I won’t be ….

That funeral doesn’t have to be the last time our whole family gets together, even if it is the last time we’re in the same spot on this earth. And my last bike ride won’t be my last brick-stacking workout.

In heaven, I’ll probably spend the mornings conducting my own compositions with a perfectly well-behaved children’s orchestra (all the pieces will demand 10 trumpets and force the first and second violins to count 124 measures of rest). I’ll go out for a perfect 3-hour mountain run, write my perfect novel, have a perfect cup of coffee with Christie, play (perfectly, with no outbursts of frustration and without stepping on a Lego) with my kids, do another perfect 50-kilometer ski with my mom (who didn’t have to miss making dinner to do it) and help my dad stain his barn…as I assume he’ll be one of the only people up in heaven still working on those types of projects.

And since I’m a crazy person, even after all that, I’ll probably still pull out my bike in the early afternoon. I’ll look around at all the angels doing things I know I should probably be doing, like sharpening swords or working on another harp sonata for the Lord, and I’ll sneak out with my ridiculously ultra-light S-Works steed perfectly fitted for my short torso and long legs. I’ll squeeze into an equally ridiculous, bright-colored spandex suit, with “The Skieologian” emblazoned on the front and a Kwik Trip logo on the arm. And, even though I’ll be straddled with some guilt for driving away from the central celestial clouds to complete a third workout, I’ll do it anyway. Once I get to a freshly paved stretch of blacktop, I’ll pull over and park. Then, I’ll start riding up and over the hill until I see the small town off in the distance.

And with the wind somehow at my back no matter which way I go, I’ll ride all the way to Grandma’s house out in the woods. And I’ll step into the entry way and hear the clang of the wooden door bang shut behind me, a sudden cacophony of barking dogs erupting over the electronic musical Santa swinging from the knob.

“Come on,” the sensor-driven decoration will say, yet again, just like it did when I was a boy. “It’s WARM inside.”

And when I walk in, I’ll smell the roast getting carved up and I’ll see aunts bumping into each other in the tightly-packed kitchen. And the whole family will gather around the table. And I won’t be late. And we’ll all be in glory. And we’ll hold hands and sing grace again.

And this time, I’ll nail the harmony part.