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| My Bicycle |
This crazy desire had its inception way back in 2007 when one of my college friend proudly told me that he had travelled more than 90km (Royapuram-SSN College-Royapuram) in his bicycle. Since this act of him had impressed me, I too wanted to do this. After joining college, I developed a habit of tracking all my desires. So, I have added this to my desire list. This is how this crazy desire got its place in my ever growing desire list.
Though I had added this desire to the list, I hadn't put any effort to bring a closure to this desire. In fact, I was busy in spending my time and energy in other priority desires. As time passed, the desire/goal list was growing with more priority ones. So, this cycling desire got least/no attention from me. Time flew by so fast, I graduated from college and joined as a Software engineer in a MNC. Unfortunately, the company/project I joined had lot of work and required me to support during weekends too. The amount of work and the sedentary nature of it made me a couch potato and my stamina level had decreased considerably over time. I thought that I may never able to achieve this desire, and was also concerned about my health. So, to give it a break, I shifted to an organization where there is a good work life balance. After joining the new organization, I got enough time for myself, so I was able to work on my unfulfilled desires and brought down many of them to closure in a very short time. The cycling desire had also gained my attention soon, below is the full story of how I achieved my endurance cycling ride desire.
The Preparation:
In order to increase my lost stamina level I started doing some basic exercises like rope skipping, walking and work outs in orbitrack. I also took out my bicycle and test ridded to check my stamina level. I used Mytrack mobile app to track my progress. During my test ride sessions, I found it difficult to ride bicycle with bare hands, so I had bought a new biking gloves. Within 2 weeks of continuous training and exercise, I got the confidence that I am completely ready for the cycle ride that I was planning for.
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| Test rides |
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| My biking gloves and water bottle |
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The Plan:
- I had chosen March 9(Monday) as the execution date and also sketched out a very detailed plan for the ride. I ran through the plan many times in my mind to make sure that the plan would work perfectly.
- I read the blogs of many experts experience to get tips and to know the do's and don’ts while going for an endurance ride.
- I have also very carefully prepared my playlist. So, that the songs give the right level of spirit and motivation that is needed at the right time during the journey. For example my first song in the playlist was ‘Singa nadai pottu sigarathil eru..’. And after 1 hour I had included some motivational songs like ' Unnal mudiyum thambi thambi' and during the end of the ride, included achievement songs like 'Evan endru ninaithay ethai kaandu sirithay' to make the ride more beautiful.
- To track my ride, I used Mytrack mobile app.
The Execution:
In order to avoid the Chennai traffic I started little early from home (around 7 A.M). I perfectly worked out the plan without any deviation. So, at around 8.45 A.M I reached the entrance of Ascendas IT Park. After parking my bicycle in the same location where I usually park my Scooter. I went to the restroom, freshened up and changed my clothes. I was damn hungry by the time I reached my cubicle. I turned on my laptop to check my mails but even before the OS boots up, my hungriness made me to go to the office cafeteria to grab 4 Good day biscuits and a cup of Elachi tea. After finishing the biscuits and tea, checked my mails and started my work for the day.
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| Ride Map |
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| Ride Stats |
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At around 5’0 clock in the evening I began my return journey to home. I took out my mobile to start the Mytrack app, the mobile battery level was down below 20%, then only I realized that I had forgot to charge my mobile battery. I realized that with this 20% battery charge level, I wouldn’t be able to record my full return journey. For a moment I even thought I would go back to my cabin, charge my mobile and then start after some time. But, I thought about the 6’0 clock traffic in Chennai, so without delaying further, I started pedaling - compromising the fact that I may not record my full journey. I thought I could escape from traffic but even at 5’0 clock, Chennai’s traffic is very high. I somehow managed the traffic and reached home safely at around 7’0 clock.
After settling down in home, I checked the calorie meter, it showed that I had burnt more than 600 kcal because of the bicycle ride, I thought that I would lose some fat also because of this cycle ride. But what I thought didn’t happen. It was ‘Sangadakara Chatthurthi’ So, mom had prepared Kesari(A sweet). Since the Pooja was over by the time I reached home, she gave me a cup of Kesari (as Prasadham) to me. Dad to his part added 3 small sized onion samosas to my plate to show his love. The Kesari and Samosas I consumed had easily made me gain the calories I lost in the bicycle ride :-). I was very happy that I finally executed my 7 year old desire successfully…
