Well, so much for biking this summer.  My mile total so far is zero.  I’ve done some indoors (very little), but absolutely none outdoors yet, a whole month into the season.  So what’s taking up my time?  Work primarily, during the day, and guitar practice and yard work evenings and weekends.  Oh, that yard work.  I’m all gung-ho on the garden this year, and I’ve gotten a great start.  I finished up all the planting this weekend and I have the entire thing fenced in with cedar corner posts and 3-ft critter-caging – hopefully that will keep out the rabbits.  I’m going to use this blog as my gardening log, and I’m a bit behind already, though I’ve been keeping a log the old-fashioned way – with pen and paper – so my next post will be a catch-up and then I’ll try to keep it updated regularly going forward.

I realized today that I only have about 2 months until biking season starts and I have done absolutely nothing to keep my resolution that I would start the season in shape for a change.  I picked up an indoor cycle trainer last fall for my Trek road bike and have only used it a handful of times since.  I resolved last year to keep in shape over the winter so that I could hit the ground pedaling come spring.  My goal for the next 2 months is to ride at least 3 times per week, starting at 30 minutes.

I did the full 30 minutes this morning, followed by 150 sit-ups and 30 bicycles.

I’ll probably also work some push-ups, tricep curls, and shoulder lifts in the coming weeks.  One of the biggest problems I face every year is upper back, shoulder, and neck tightness and soreness.  The additional upper body exercises will hopefully alleviate that this year.

I’m going to lose 30 pounds by Tax Day, 2009. That’s only about 10 lbs per month. It’s do-able, right?

For my Christmas present, Peggy hooked me up with a nutritionist/personal trainer. I met with her last week about the nutrition part and I start work-outs Monday morning. So far the diet is easy. We’re focusing more on how to get the nutrients I need, rather than portion sizes (for now).

So I finally went grocery shopping today and stocked up the fridge with healthy food. I’m looking forward to this new, healthy lifestyle!

My goals are simple – I want to lose that 30 pounds and get into shape so that I can hit the ground running (pedaling) when bicycle season starts. Every spring for the past three years I have had to start basically from scratch with the bicycle training, and it seems like it takes half the season to get up to speed. I don’t want that to happen again this year. I’d like to be able to do a century in May instead of September.

Wish me luck!

A recent BBC report suggests that

Cyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be knocked down by passing vehicles.

This could cause me to rethink my previous statement. Now the question is, together with the ugliness of those helmets is the increased safety risk enough to make you not wear them? Personally, I think this is somewhat less relevant that the “But then I can’t see where I’m going” argument that motorcyclists use with their helmets.

Read the article, it’s funny. Particularly:

Dr. Ian Walker was struck by a bus and a lorry during the experiment.

I’m sorry – no, it’s not funny that he was struck.  Luckily he had a helmet on both times.

Today I realized how far I have come since the beginning of summer.

I wanted to take a longer ride this weekend, but things didn’t work out. I had about an hour this afternoon so I decided to just sprint my old 10 mile loop. This loop is pretty hilly and when I started training four months ago, I could average maybe 14 or 14.5 mph on this loop. I since graduated to longer and longer distances (although also flatter), and after awhile I quit doing the 10 mile loop altogether. So it’s probably been a couple months.

Today it was raining and 55 degrees, but the ride was surprisingly comfortable. I’ve been pretty fortunate this summer and haven’t gotten caught in the rain, so I was also intrigued by the idea of some poor-weather riding. I finished the ride in less than 40 minutes and averaged 16.4 mph (you road-bike riders keep in mind this is on a mountain bike with fat tires). The hills seemed a lot smaller than I remembered them! In the past, I would climb the hills slowly and at the top I was out of breath and coasted down the back side. Today, my legs pumped me up those hills like they weren’t even there, and on the backside I cranked up the gear and shot down to the next uphill.By the end I was quite out of breath and my heart was racing, but my legs felt perfectly fine (though slightly shaky as I got off the bike). I realized that this was probably the first ride this summer that my heart got a better work-out than my legs. It was a neat feeling. I’m going to have to do more sprints like that in the future.

This was really my first ride since the century last weekend. That ride took a long time to recover from. But I think I have just experienced the benefits of those longer trips. I must have put on a lot of muscle mass.

Also keep in mind I was a flabby couch potato at the beginning of the summer. I guess I still am, but I’m starting to replace some of that flab with muscle. And it feels real good. I really hope I can keep up with some kind of exercise routine through the winter so that I don’t have to start from square one with my riding next summer again.