Tweet
Life is weird. I haven't seen or heard of failure stories or sadness in rides, till I faced one.
After getting a roadie ( I will write a review about that soon), I faced my first failure when I wanted to do 30 reps of a hill called Yelagiri , 220 Km from Chennai. It gives an elevation gain of around 650 m per climb.It is to gain 18,000 m elevation gain in 48 hours over 640 kms. A mad task indeed to complete strava challenge of gaining 21,000m elevation gain over 23 days !
We did a night ride starting in evening from Chennai. I ended up very exhausted in heat and sleeplessness hit me as soon as We reached the base. A climb and descent, I'm done.Hungry, looking for a shade and sleep !
After lunch and a good sleep, with lot of determination somehow manged to finish the second rep, but after that I got terribly exhausted. I felt terribly ashamed for boasting I did, about the ride and my ability to climb. Next day we did a 300 km odd ride to reach Chennai, but I felt that I have failed to do at least 10 or 15 reps.
After this incident, I met a cyclist who gave me a good lecture about caring about body and fitness. Since then, I started to observe body and fitness levels required to complete such tasks.
When I'm doing this, I came across a guy in Facebook who is attempting a Self supported double K2K ride. His plan was to cover 200 km appxly per day for around 30-40 days with some days where he has to ride 300 km per day. Finally when he finishes ride again at Kanyakumari ( covering 8000+ kms in 40 days), he will get a place in Limca book of records.
I was horrified looking at that plan. Even for some who is attempting RAAM that will be an very big task to accomplish, but one never knows capability of other individual. So I waited for the ride to begin.I have seen people do Kashmir to Kanyakumari rides, in may days, weeks or months. The fastest I have heard is by Dr. Srinivas Gokulnath who finished it in 17 days and got a place for himself in Limca book of records. So repeating that again is a big thing or nearly impossible with normal levels of fitness.
Today (26 th May) is fourth day of ride, where he was able to cover only 450 odd kms against 1067 km as per schedule. 500 Kms behind schedule is a big lag.
There are many reasons. Health issues, heat, rain, sudden change of plans etc, but finally the schedule is not being followed. Of course it's only fourth day and there is a long way to go.
Yet, that made me think a lot and post all this here. What kind of preparation does body and mind need to do achieve such a big feat ?
Of course, without a great determination one may not be able to start such a thing but reality is different. It hits so severely, changes plans and destroy dreams.So, how should one be prepared to do a task like this ?
After getting a roadie ( I will write a review about that soon), I faced my first failure when I wanted to do 30 reps of a hill called Yelagiri , 220 Km from Chennai. It gives an elevation gain of around 650 m per climb.It is to gain 18,000 m elevation gain in 48 hours over 640 kms. A mad task indeed to complete strava challenge of gaining 21,000m elevation gain over 23 days !
We did a night ride starting in evening from Chennai. I ended up very exhausted in heat and sleeplessness hit me as soon as We reached the base. A climb and descent, I'm done.Hungry, looking for a shade and sleep !
After lunch and a good sleep, with lot of determination somehow manged to finish the second rep, but after that I got terribly exhausted. I felt terribly ashamed for boasting I did, about the ride and my ability to climb. Next day we did a 300 km odd ride to reach Chennai, but I felt that I have failed to do at least 10 or 15 reps.
After this incident, I met a cyclist who gave me a good lecture about caring about body and fitness. Since then, I started to observe body and fitness levels required to complete such tasks.
When I'm doing this, I came across a guy in Facebook who is attempting a Self supported double K2K ride. His plan was to cover 200 km appxly per day for around 30-40 days with some days where he has to ride 300 km per day. Finally when he finishes ride again at Kanyakumari ( covering 8000+ kms in 40 days), he will get a place in Limca book of records.
I was horrified looking at that plan. Even for some who is attempting RAAM that will be an very big task to accomplish, but one never knows capability of other individual. So I waited for the ride to begin.I have seen people do Kashmir to Kanyakumari rides, in may days, weeks or months. The fastest I have heard is by Dr. Srinivas Gokulnath who finished it in 17 days and got a place for himself in Limca book of records. So repeating that again is a big thing or nearly impossible with normal levels of fitness.
Today (26 th May) is fourth day of ride, where he was able to cover only 450 odd kms against 1067 km as per schedule. 500 Kms behind schedule is a big lag.
There are many reasons. Health issues, heat, rain, sudden change of plans etc, but finally the schedule is not being followed. Of course it's only fourth day and there is a long way to go.
Yet, that made me think a lot and post all this here. What kind of preparation does body and mind need to do achieve such a big feat ?
Of course, without a great determination one may not be able to start such a thing but reality is different. It hits so severely, changes plans and destroy dreams.So, how should one be prepared to do a task like this ?
Comment