The Chinese philosopher Laozi (c 604 bc – c 531 bc) famously observed:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

In June of 2012, I stepped on the scales and was shocked to see that I weighed more than I had ever weighed in my life. I determined then and there that I was going to get myself into shape. And that’s how my journey began. And my journey has been a lot more than just a thousand miles, and it began with a pedal stroke.  Starting my journey was pretty easy, actually. I got on my bike. And I started climbing a mountain. I wasn’t using Strava at this point, so I manually input this ride. I was 37 years old, and I was considerably heavier than I am now.

This was a pretty big accomplishment for me!  The ride was from my garage up to Battle Creek Park. The actual elevation of climbing is just over 400 feet. To put that in perspective, the highest elevation in the state of Florida is 345 feet!  There is a Kiwanis Park up there, and you are rewarded for your climb with a great view of the valley.

This ride took me about 20 minutes, and I had to stop 4 times, gasping for air.

But I determined that I was going to keep riding, and I was going to get better.  Not to give away the end of the blog, as of this writing, I’ve now climbed that same climb 113 times, and I don’t have to stop anymore.  🙂

As you can see, I’m King of the Mountain!!  This is s private segment — more about that later.  But you can also see that I’ve climbed that mountain 113 times now, and my new fastest time of 6:27 is considerably faster than 20 on my first ride.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Laozi implies that it’s going to be tough. And it is tough. Every day is tough going up that mountain. But it’s gotten much easier. And I have the times to prove it. That time didn’t come just by itself. There was a lot of work put into climbing that mountain. And there’s gratification for being KOM, even if it is just my own mountain.