Time for an update

I realize I have been fairly quiet on here of late and I am hoping to address that with some more frequents posts, but I have a feeling I may be absent from this space for most of the month of November.  There are a couple of reasons for this and the biggest is that November is the National Novel Writing Month.  I am one again in the process of creating a novel of at least 50,000 words during the 30 days which is November.

On top of that my parents are coming to vist for 10 days at the end of the month. I haven't seen them since last year when they visited in September so that my dad and I could ride the Viva Bike Vegas ride together (Read about it here: Part 1 and Part 2). Obviously while they are here writing time is goingot be very limited.

One thing I will post about will be the wrap up for my personal challenge of riding 180 days in a row (today I am on day 178).  I will also go into a bit more detail on some of the health information I've found out from my doctor and several tests that I have undergone over the last few weeks.

One thing I do want to point out is that I've re-challeged myself to lose weight between no and the end of the year. So far, over the last 2 weeks, I have lost 6 pounds. This is a good start on what I'm hoping to be a 20 to 30 lb. loss by the time we go on the cruise in January.  It will be tough with the usual gluttounous holidays focused on food coming up, but I plan on doing it.  No more excuses.

So, thinkif this post as a preview of coming attractions for other posts soon to come.

Get on your bikes and ride!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best laid plans...

As I posted last week, I had been planning on riding in the 3 Feet for Pete ride.  The date of this ride was 9/14/13 which also happens to be my daughter's birthday.  It is also the date when my nephew and niece needed to get to the airport early.  To make a long story short, I was babysitting the grandkids instead of riding on Saturday morning.

I didn't mind not riding.  Its always fun spending time with the grandkids. We had breakfast together and watched some TV and they played.  When my wife and daughter got home, we then got the kids ready and went out for a combined birthday lunch for my daughter and myself.

Now, I didn't ride Friday morning, thinking I was going to ride on Saturday.  On Sunday morning I was plan lazy and didn't get out to ride before the temperature shot up into the 90's so I didn't ride then either.

So the weekend was a bust in terms of getting miles in.  I did get out this morning and put in 10.4 miles so I'm getting back into the swing of things.  I'm planning on riding at least 10 miles per day the next 3 days and then a bit less on Friday as my parents will be here and my dad and I will do a last ride before the Viva Bike Vegas ride on Saturday. This will be a shake down to make sure the bikes are ready for Saturday morning.

So, this morning's ride takes me over the 100 mile mark for the month of September.  In fact I'm at 102/2 miles for the month.  Not bad, but I have to make up some miles to hit my goal of at least 240.

I hope the rain isn't too bad across the country and you are able to...

GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!!!!!

August Challenge rides 8 & 9

So the weekend is starting off on a busy note starting yesterday.  I managed to squeeze in a quick ride in the morning before doing my errands for the day.  Today I just rode around with the grand kids - not far at all, but it was fun getting them out there.  Unfortunately it started getting dark so we couldn't go very far.

So, some stats:

Ride #8
3.3 Miles
15:15 Elapsed time

Ride #9
1.8 miles
13:01 Elapsed time

So far this month:

61.9 Miles
4:49:50 Elapsed Time

There have been challenges getting a couple of my rides in, but having this challenge has been enough to make sure I'm at least on the bike daily.

Keep those pedals turning!!!!

August Challenge Day 4

Got up this morning and wanted to get out earlier to try and beat the heat.  That didn't work so well.

I decided to head in a direction I hadn't gone for a few months - out Blue Diamond Road towards Blue Diamond.  As I got going I noticed that my legs weren't feeling the freshest.  They felt heavy and I had very little energy.  Looking back, I'm guessing I ate too little yesterday.  I only had a bucket of popcorn and a couple of chicken burritos after yesterday's short ride.

Anyway I was going along in an easier gear than normal and I noticed that I wasn't feeling any wind while I was moving.  Basically the wind was 5 to 10 mph from the ESE which meant a tailwind as I headed west.  All that really meant is I had no airflow cooling me off as I rode.

The heat was building, the sun was beating done and I was getting HOT.  With no shade I was really starting to feel it. (When I checked at home it was already 93)

When I got to the traffic information sign just before Hwy 159, I decided to stop in the little shade it provided for a minute.  He is what the view was looking towards the west:

After a couple of minutes I pushed on, but I knew I was just going to make it to HWY159 and turn around.

When I did then the fun started as it was all downhill back towards home.

One thing I noticed was the amount of debris and gravel on the Eastbound shoulder.  The westbound wasn't near as cluttered.

I got home and drank a liter of water to help cool off.

Totals for today:

9 miles
46:32 elapsed time

Total for August:

28.8 miles
2:16:14 elapsed time

How is everyone else doing this month?

Keep those pedals turning!

May Ride #9

Got up and got out there for the 4th morning in a row and it felt good.  I'm finally getting into a groove.  No mechanical issues, no weather issues, just getting out there and putting in a few miles every morning.

This morning it was another 22 laps around the block for a total of 10.48 miles.  I even did it faster than yesterday by 37 seconds!  That actually gave me an average speed of 14.8 mph!  It also got me over the 300 mile mark so far for the year.

As with yesterday's ride, I could have gone farther, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't too late to upload the data and put up my post this morning.

Hope everyone has a great day and is able to get out and enjoy the outdoors in some way!

Habits

I've been thinking a lot about habits the last few days, both good and bad.  I heard it said a long time ago that if you do something for 21 days, that it will become a habit.  It doesn't matter if its something good, or bad, just the act of repeating the same activity for that amount of time tends to imprint it rather deeply into our brains.

A web search reveals that this may not necessarily be true.  It really depends on the habit and how drastic of a change it is to our "normal" behaviour.  Simple things, like drinking a glass of water a day, could become a habit in as few as 18 days, but something more profound, like doing 50 sit-ups everyday before breakfast could take much, much longer.

Why all this talk of habits, you might ask.  Its because I've started developing the habit of riding my bike several times per week.  In fact, for the last 5 and a half weeks, I've averaged almost 4 rides per week.  That's 21 rides in 39 days.  Seems like its becoming a habit to get out there and ride.  I know it is becoming a habit, because I haven't ridden in 3 days and I'm really missing it!  In fact I just did a quick tally and came up with a total of 175.83 miles ridden during those 39 days and 226.47 miles ridden so far this year.

Now, I've been doing a bit of math, and having been inspired by fizzhogg in his blog 2k in 2k10 Unfat Project, and having done a bit more math, I'm setting a goal for myself for total miles biked in 2012.  That total is  2012 miles.  I figure its an easy number to remember and not a bad slogan "2012 in 2012."  In order to accomplish this feat, I simply have to average 55 miles per week for the rest of the year.

As soon as I do a bit more research I'm going to see how I can put some type of ticker on here to show miles so far this year and miles left to meet my goal.

Anyone want to join me in this?