The turning point is this: even after seeing an opportunity blown away by 100 km/h gusts of wind and a few panic attacks, you seize another chance and scale down your goals.

I didn’t finish the Atlas Mountain Race - not this year - but I didn’t stop pedaling, even after arriving late at Checkpoint 2 in the oasis of Asserraregh. I had to let go of the frenzy, the anxiety, and (though not entirely) the discomfort, and continue living my first time in Morocco (and on the African continent) at a different pace, in daylight, alongside old and new friends, spending long hours at café tables (where the menus, as always, offered little more than eggs or vegetables in tajine).

I had more time to linger with and within the Amazigh community, the Berber people who inhabit inland Morocco and the Atlas Mountains, to drink even more mint tea, to sip it for over an hour under the blazing sun at the top of the colonial road after Tagmout, and then to help shepherds load their livestock onto a truck.

I truly loved those bivouac nights under a starry sky, streaked here and there with shooting stars, and wished they would last and become routine. The nighttime climate of the Anti-Atlas in February is perhaps the best I have ever experienced for a perfect night’s sleep.

The three days of bikepacking after my call it “failure” were, as expected, an emotional rollercoaster. The satisfaction that comes from completing an ultra is immense. I hadn’t considered at all that I might not succeed (a mix of pride and clearly overestimating myself), yet failing turned out to be easier than expected.

Then again, I’m not an athlete but an enthusiast, in love with a means of transport that is really a lifestyle. And since a journey, a new country, a new people, and an unfamiliar language gives me that same joy, I kept going.

Both approaches are beautiful: fully embracing your limits, or pushing beyond them for days on end and proving to yourself that you can step outside your comfort zone. Every year I need to experience a bit of both, you can learn a lot.

Even if your butt hurts, I don’t think I’ll be able to hate the bicycle, at least not anytime soon. I have unfinished business with the Atlas.