I work two jobs–your typical full time Monday through Friday 8:30-5 deal (with the twist of working weekends and holidays four to five times a year) plus a class I teach on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. To fit in workouts, I need to do a lot of them in the mornings–at least two bike rides […]
Rain days are one of the things totally out of my control. I woke up on Sunday morning to do a ride before 5 am and found it raining and wet. There wasn’t a lot I could do but go back to sleep. Flake days, however, are much more in my control. Despite the fact […]
Interestingly, for a single day, I had a serious blip in my weight–I’ve been between 183 and 185 for awhile now, and suddenly, one day I was up to 190. The only thing out of the ordinary was I had to buy dinner on Wednesday night while on my way to my class rather than […]
Creaky. That’s how I feel when I’m rolling out of bed. I would like to say that things were better when I was younger, but realistically, I don’t remember ever not being creaky, back to high school. I’m sure it had everything to do with being heavy. I was far from the most athletic kid. […]
What’s realistic in terms of your goals? That’s a tough question. I think when I started this journey back in 2002, if I said my goal was to lose 80 pounds, I’d have thought of myself as crazy. Yet here we are, more than 80 pounds later. Of course, that 80 pounds took years to […]
Editor’s note: this entry was written before yesterday’s entry, “What 40 Miles Looks Like”. How much of getting into shape is psychological rather than physical? My guess is that it’s about 75% psychological and only 25% physical–if not closer to 100% psychological. Yes, you have to physically exercise to get into shape, so it’s not […]
It’s a Sunday. I traded training days this week–instead of doing my long ride on Saturday and my midlength ride on Sunday, I did my midlength ride on Saturday and I’m doing my long–this time, 40 miles–ride on Sunday morning. It’s also a day when I want to go to Sunday morning service (starting at […]
The day after, in this case, anyway, isn’t about the morning following a one night stand, but rather the day after you start on your exercise regimen. If you’ve been pretty sedentary, there’s certainly a strong chance you’ll be sore. Muscles you’re not used to using–heck, muscles you didn’t even know existed!–have been used harder […]
The relationship between a cyclist and bicycle is not unlike a marriage. Many scoff at the concept, but when you’re relying on a piece of machinery powered by your legs to take you 100 miles in a day and it’s the only thing between you and the pain of pavement at 50 miles per hour, […]
What’s it like to start an exercise program? It is, for lack of a better term, the opposite of glamorous. For those of us with an illness like diabetes, it needs to start with an okay from your physician. I can’t stress this enough–your doctor will probably love the idea, but make sure you actually […]