For the past few days, I’ve been cycling about in the nation’s capital – Ottawa, Canada – creating a doodle on behalf of the Canadian Association of Optometrists, or CAO.

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, the doodle underscores a key message of CAO’s new campaign, “It’s All Connected” – namely, that an eye exam by an optometrist can reveal health issues elsewhere in the body, like brain tumours, hypertension and diabetes.

In other words, an eye exam can reveal heath conditions that aren’t readily visible…in much the same way that I reveal images in the map that aren’t readily visible. And for me, as for the CAO, it’s all about seeing the big picture.

It was loads of fun to doodle once again on a brand new canvas. Total tracked distance of the CAO doodle was 41.4 kilometres (25.7 miles), though some extra mileage required to “connect the dots” where the map didn’t cooperate brought the total to 81.7 km (50.8 mi).

The doodle culminated with a short ride with some Ottawa dignitaries, including Mayor Jim Watson, Senator Nancy Green and Liberal MP Steve MacKinnon as well as CAO President Dr. Barry Thienes and CEO Laurie Clement.

SEE IT ON STRAVA *

* Note: The GPS points will render correctly only if you are logged in at Strava.com