Peddling down the road less travelled

Recently I peddled from Colombo (from Parliament grounds) to Hiru Villas Maggona which I am told is 57 KM . It took me almost 5 hours for the journey. If not for my new found riding mates Dirk and Gareth I would have never made the journey. During my peddling journey I passed some of the beautiful scenaries inclduing paddy fileds, large ponds etc.

The route we took was not the main road but one that was suitable for mountain biking. Hence the route was unfamiliar and I have not personally travelled on that route before.

To make matters worse, iOS 6 upgrade had made sure we were without any form of reliable mapping help that we were so use to!

However I had a general sense of direction and that was all that was required. We started pedding around 5.15 in the morning and yard by yard, kilometer by kilometer we moved in the direction we were suppose to go. By sunrise we had reached a decent distance (10+ KM, I was the weakest and holding the other two guys back). Junction after junction, we peddled past without knowing much about the territory. Our focus was on the immediate few meters ahead of us.

The terrain was indeed challenging. There were puddles of water, pot-holes etc, but we navigated our way thorugh all of that. Our focus was on what was lying ahead of us. That's it. Then there were plenty of 'hilly' areas. The general view is that, when you climb a mountainous stretch you have a nice down hill. It wasn't the case in this ride. When you give all what you've got to ascend, you come to a flatter stretch and then you have another ascend to conquer!!

Despite all of that, we did make it thorugh to Maggona!

The important lesson over here is the fact that I did not know the complete route till the end. All that I was focusing on was the immediate few meters ahead of me. In the end, I still reached the destination!

I beleive it was Jack Cranfiled who said in life you don't need to have clarity of the entire path that it takes to reach your destination. As long as you know you are in that direction all what you need to know is to how to navigate the immediate steps just ahead of you.

If you do that, like me, you'll rech your final destination may be even after 5 hours! Trust me, when you reach there, the feeling is worth every drop of sweat!