My Secret Tips and Cheats to Ultimate Success (At Least in Sports)

I have always been a bicycle lover. I just love to mount by bike and ride it and it doesn’t matter whether it’s 4 am in the morning or 13 pm. Last year, me and my uncle set one big bet with my family and some people in the city: To ride from Porto to Fátima in just one day. Bicycle pro’s in the city said it was impossible for a non professional rider to ride that distance in just one day even with intense training. Nobody believed us, neither our family, friends, citizens, nobody. I must confess that every single day we both thought that it was impossible too. So how did we turn something impossible in something possible? Does it work for business too?

It all started with setting a definite goal. The goal was “From Porto to Fátima in just one day” and we never ever changed that goal. The second definitive decision was the day, 30 th of June no matter if it’s raining or snowing. Finally we had a simple non definitive plan just too see how things were going to be.

Before the Big Day

We trained as hard as we could every single day, with sun and rain, tired and untired, day and sometimes night. I used to ride more than 100 km every single day for two weeks before the event.

We made a simple plan about the speed we were going to need to reach our destination.

We didn’t know it was exactly 250 km so we planned for between 200 and 250 km. We could only ride at a max average of 25 km so we expected 14 hours of total time with stops and 10-12 hours of riding. We planned to stop 5 minutes every hour to rest and we planned to drink 50 cl of water every hour and to eat something too.

We were leaving at 5 am in the morning so we had to go to bed earlier the night before.

Finally we would need one car to support us with food, drinks and one extra bike and all the parts we might need along the way such as an extra tire and oil and brakes.

We stopped training 2 days before the event.

On The Big Day

We went to bed at 9 pm to sleep so we could sleep at least 7 hours. What happened? I slept 2 hours and my uncle just 1 hour! We were exausted before the race because of stress and hard train. This was the first big success threat. Did we let that tear us down and make us quit? Not at all! Is was even another reason to race and to show the city we were as tough as steel!

So with only two hours of sleep and dark night at 5:30 am we started the ride. We planned not to ride faster tha the average speed we would need to save all the energy we could. It was night and very cold!

We didn’t know the road to get there, we only had an “idea” about how to get there, we had to follow directions and trust we would make the right choice because one error ensures failure is inevitable.

The support car left the city only at 8:30 and we were meeting somewhere in the middle of the course at 10:30 am, this another big success threat because with no water and food we would not last much.

With 80 km on the legs and knees the pain started and it started soon and fast! We were not tired, not at all, we were in pain.

We rode through the rain about one hour, after riding in the dark and were riding in the rain, another success threat. My bike speedo was all wet and I hardly could see the numbers. We were wet and cold but did we stop? Nah!

At 11 am we were lost. Nobody could tell us which road was the correct one and no direction to the place, did we stop? We choose one road and expected the best.

With more than 100 km on the legs we had to stop for lunch. Around 12 am we stopped one hour to lunch and to rest. I was so tired that I fell asleep about 15-20 minutes.

After that it was time to go through Coimbra.

The city was being completely changed due to traffic jams. The entire city was watching the workers working. We had to cross the entire city without knowing which road to take, we asked one old citizen and another one which road to ake but nobody knew. When we told them we were from Porto and heading to Fatima they all started laughing. It was impossible, at least for them.

After reaching a spot we knew very well, it was a city symbol called “Portugal dos Pequeninos.

We headed for the right place. We already had about 160 km on the legs and a lot of pain on the back as well.

We never saw one sign saying Fatima, we always followed the road to the nearest place.

Around the kilometer 180 we started slowing down and stopping more often. We were completely exhausted because of stress and weather conditions. Rain then hot and sunny then cold and raining again and then like a desert.

One hour later we achieved 200 km and the road seemed like a downhill so one big advantaged to our side.

In the kilometer 210 we saw one sign “Fatima”! We were in the right direction, all exhausted but in the right direction! Thank god we managed to ride so far!

Little did we know that the last 30km would be the worst of all. We had to climb 30 km! Up all the time. Sometimes we considered stopping for a while to rest and to recover some energy. I don’t know if you ride a lot but there is a time when you stop and you still feel tired and stopping for a long time doesn’t help at all!

We had an average speed of 23 kmh in the Speedo and riding the up hill at 15 kmh so we still would have to ride more than one hour and thirty minutes (ouch).

We jumped of happiness when we started to see the count down sign. “Fatima 13 km” then “Fatima 10 km” and so on.

When we finally reached the city we couldn’t be happier! We DID IT!

Truths about success: It’s never guaranteed, everything is against you even the weather, conditions will never be right, you will always have unexpected situations, a lot of pain and critics as well, nobody will help you as nobody cares…, you will need to keep your eyes on the goal and more important, you need to keep your eyes on your goal measurement system which was the Speedo in this particular case, you will need a backup plan such as an extra bike just in case. Finally you will feel AMAZING as soon as you reach the goal! You will even jump of happiness!