Avoid/Limit “Glimpse of Future”

I collect data a lot in  my personal life but not so much for the purpose of creating success in the future nor trying to give unsolicited advice to the world but for the purpose of personal note taking [I think it is a form of self-psychotherapy, I made that up] nor telling the world how “great” or “not so great” I am.  I think it is cool to have a history of life.  I’ve learned journaling from someone.  One time I discovered a pocket journal of my father [1929-1983] filled with fragments of places/names but no thoughts and opinions.  I’ve also discovered his box of pictures taken during his travel with the US Navy in 1950’s and hand written notes at the back of the pictures.  One thing lacking of his journal – details.  I had a hard time connecting information.  With the availability of technology now a days, one can just write anything and publish it. So here I am sharing with you something of no importance, enjoy it anyway ;-]. 

I used to be a planner and an execution of a carefully crafted plan but I’ve changed mindsets a few years back due to my knowledge and experiences of uncertainties. Life is hard to predict. Life is full of uncertainties. Yes, you can learn from experiences and extrapolate the future. Yes, you can say that it happened before and one should avoid/do it because we learned a lesson from bad/good experiences. Nor I say that “hey I was successful the other day and I will succeed also in the future”. If a person had a formula of success, I will be successful too. If another individual finds a solution to a problem, then me too will be able to get the same results. [synthesized version of Illusion of Sameness]  I am a very optimistic person but I don’t dwell so much of what the future looks like. What I do instead is “do the best I can at the moment”. Having said that in a very broad context – it can be anything else I am currently interested. It can be my job, my relationship, my friendship, my reading, my research, my hobbies, my sports, my downtime, my thinking process, my problem solving etc.

Saturday’s ride was hard.  I started so energetic and as always on a long distance bike ride, the activity ended with full body exhaustion – nothing left in my leg at mile56.  I think when a person reaches a certain point of exhaustion, there is no more distinction.  I was just tried and there is no numerical scale that I can describe it.  When I got home, I checked my weather app  and it was 97’F – no wonder.  Looking back now, If I had known that the weather will be that high, I might have avoided the heat by changing my route or choosing a an alternate time to ride  or shorten the ride– but I did not.

I seldom checks the weather when I go out riding.  I have several reasons for this but the most important aspect is – “If I check the weather, a bias will linger in my mind that will put a limit to my capacity of accomplishing something that I want to do.”   It happened to me last year at the 2014 Outlaw 100 bike ride [view report here].   I did not know that there was a storm in the morning of October 11, 2014.  The event organizer delayed the ride that morning and after 1 hour of waiting they cancelled the event.  Surprisingly/daringly, I end up riding the 100miles by myself with no food and water at any rest stops. 

Uncertainty can surprise us  – that is “we have strengths we never knew we had”.  Too much glimpse of the future can plant a seed of doubt, therefore limiting us in some way. 

I don’t really checks the weather when I go out riding, instead I made sure that I have provisions for the journey like 2 water bottles, 3 clif bars, 2 spare tubes, bike tools and knows the route where a gas station is located just in case I need an electrolyte refill.

 

Ride Data

Temperature during the ride, 97’F

20150718, Saturday, 56 Miles [90km]

 

20150718 Heartrate Data [Road Bike]

20150711 Heartrate Data [TTBike]