One of my privileges is living in Chennai close to the India’s longest beach Bay of Bengal. I often cycle across the highway stretch from OMR to Mahabalipuram on the scenic east coast road on the weekends. I get to do this from Sept to Feb every year. Thanks to amazing Chennai weather during Sep to Feb,and the rest of the year, it’s horrible. The physicality of cycling is one thing, but reflecting on my life, I think I am more grateful for the lessons it teaches me about perseverance and mental strength.
At first, the experience was awful, even 5-10 KM was exhausting for me. My heart spiked even for a short distance of 2 KM. But the people I cycle with – all more experienced on endurance biking than myself – pushed me to keep going.
Almost 3 months later, I’ve started feeling comfortable cycling 50-100 KM average every day, I’ve gradually improved my distance by 1% every day with a lot of consistent efforts.
I use this cycling experience to ground me when I think about life challenges. Almost 6 months back, when I could barely cycle 2 Km distance and now covering 50 KM average is become a routine and reminds myself that anything can be possible by simply showing up and doing the work, every single day.
Another insight I gained from cycling with remarkable people. They are remarkable because they remind me of how accessible success are, only if we put in the effort every day. In the beginning, I used to avoid cycling with people thinking whether I could match their speed and distance. (I still feel this way). But I have slowly gained the confidence by practice.
Being with the remarkable people every day shows me the important aspects of human condition. I understood that, all human being will have bad days, bad weeks and, injuries. We all keep going anyway and this is most important action we can choose to take in cycling, as in life.
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