Day 3: ouch

Have you ever had the feeling of getting really excited about doing something, knowing very well its going to be useful, and then while you are mid way through it, start to wonder why in this logical world you even thought of doing such a moronic task? Take that feeling and multiple it four times over and that is the gist of what the third day was like.

The start itself was bad enough. We left at around 7 this morning so that we would have enough time to make it to the top. Inigo had actually given a motivational speech the previous night just so that we would feel charged enough for the next day.
We were all charged up but for me it died within the first 50 meters of cycling.
It was a steep 30 degree slope for about 10 kms and after that a very very steep climb at about 45 degrees for about 8 kms. Slow and dreadful are understatements to describe that first bit. It was crisply cold too as we were at a bit of a height and so to warm up took some time. I just made up my mind that I would do it. All I had to do was struggle through 6 hours of the day and I would reach the top. It was that really. The first flat road we would get would be the 15 meters to our camp on top of the mountain.

Very soon i was alone. I took each slope as a hurdle and each turn as a goal. I could see every turn and bend as I grunted my way through them and each time I completed one I patted myself in the back. Ten points for me. Pat. 20. Pat. 30. Pat. 40.Pat. Where was i? Forget it. It wasn’t a race but a battle I was fighting and I had all the time in the world to win. I just could not even venture of thinking how far I would have to go to get to the top.

My legs just pedaled along on their own. It was as if they were totally separate from me, my spirit and my mind. I thought of them. My friends, I have some really solemn news to tell ya. They were beyond exhaustion, beyond recovery. Disloyally, I kept quiet. I thought of the book ‘Discovery Road’ where two cycling enthusiasts Andy Brown and Tim Garratt, give up their comfortable and safe lives and cycle around the world in search of themselves. It was a hard and arduous adventure for them and if they can cycle for a year through so much hardship, I could well do this for a day.
The sun was stronger than ever now and my skin itched, eyes stung from the salty sweat that poured down and my face was fixed in a grimace that no one could see. I wondered about the others. Were they ahead or behind? I let my mind rescue me to the joys and pleasure of the safe and easy world. I thought of my brother and my parents and the nice cozy dinner I would have with them, laughter, the main menu for the evening, growing every minute. I thought of Ron and Sam and the steaming hot cinnamon cups of chai we would have on a cold winter’s night by the kiosk on Deccan road; of Priya and the fun times and how I had troubled her; of my first sight of the white sheet of snow in Darjeeling, of lazy summer afternoons curled up and sunk into my soft blue sofa watching Godfather, of gentle waves in Goa lapping me in warm sheets, of Sunday mornings and French toasts, of apricot yoghurt, of pistachio milkshake….WAKE UP!!
You’re here for a purpose. Pull yourself together.

With breaks in the middle solely for energy bars, bananas and water refills slowly but surely we were consuming every inch of the uphill we had to climb. I think I died a few times that day.
And as if it wasn’t enough, the last bit was hell frozen over. Although only 2.5 kms, it was the steepest slope ever known to mankind I think. I got off my cycle and walked it up. I was with Jo and Steve but we were wrapped up in our own personal battles with fatigue and exhaustion that none of us had the energy to talk . It was cloudy as were at 9000 feet almost and we could hardly see more than 5 meters in front of us. Every breath in that eerie cloudy surrounding sounded like a road construction site in downtown Mumbai.

I rode a bit where i thought i could and caught up with Philip who was grunting along alone. And then I saw it. A little flat at first, but very noticeably a gradual slope down. And that was it really. The top! I had made it without trouble and without help.
“We did it, Puneeth, we did it!” exclaimed Philip. The first words I had heard of someone else since morning.
“Yes we did”.
We had pushed ourselves to the limits of what our minds or bodies could take. I had pushed myself to where I would never have done and in doing so delved a little deeper into myself.

It wasn’t over though. We knew. But we had gotten through the most difficult part of the journey. We knew it in our hearts we had, when we went to sleep that night . We had climbed from about a 1000 feet to 10,500 feet above sea level that day. I was cold to the bones when I retired into my sleeping bag after a sumptuous dinner. (We were getting used to it by now.)
But in my heart I knew I had stood the test of the promise I had made to myself and for the brief moment between when I crawled into my sleeping bag and went into a deep slumber, I felt warm.