From “Bad Boy” to Bad ASS! New PR – AGAIN!!

This weekend, I did a LOT of thinking about my episode on Saturday. Felt terrible, knew I had done wrong, felt ashamed and a little embarrassed. I felt sorry for myself for a while, got mad at myself for a while, then talked to myself for a while. What did I say? Ill tell you what I said…

I said, “Dude, you screwed up. You let people down including your wife and little girl, but most importantly you let Allen down! You were doing SO good. Your head was right and your way of life was changing and you tried to throw all of that away and for what? A pizza? A Coke and a candy bar? Were they good? Was it worth it”?

“HELL no, it wasn’t worth it”, I told myself. “It wasn’t worth the suffering I was going to have to do to turn this setback around. It wasn’t worth the wasted calories with that poison that I was shoving in my face when I could have ordered a salad and gotten off of my ass and got on my bike. No, it damned sure wasn’t worth it”!

Then I got to thinking about what I SHOULD do to fix it. I decided to get off of my couch today and hit the trail on my bike. I put my bike in the car and headed to the Silver Comet Trail again. I didn’t know how long I was going to ride for, nor how far. I was thinking about doing eight miles, which would have been to the [URL=”http://silvercometdepot.com/”%5DSilver Comet Bike Depot[/URL] and back. I figured that would be about enough for me.

Off I went. The weather was PERFECT! Not a cloud in the sky and no wind to speak of. I was feeling pretty good, surprisingly. My legs didn’t burn much and I thought to myself that I was breathing really well compared to the last time. I kept about a 10-11 mph pace and was feeling pretty good. Figured that the bike depot would be a good place to stop and take a rest.

Got to mile marker 4.2 where the depot is and just decided to keep on riding. I figured maybe go a mile further and turn around. Got to mile marker 5.5 and said if I turn around now, Ill match my previous PR.

I just kept riding.

Thought about it for a minute and figured that if I could get to 7.5, then that would equal a 15 mile ride. Ive never done a 15 mile ride. I just kept riding until I got to 7.5 and figured I gotta ride BACK 7.5 now and turned around.

I thought it was going to be a tough return trip, but it turned out kind of pleasant. I figured out, on my way back, what someone told me to do with my cadence…get it to the point that you are comfortable and spin. I figured out what they meant by “Spin”.

I would be feeling resistance on my stokers when there was an incline but when there wasn’t and i was going down an incline, I just kept spinning the pedals at the same cadence like there was. It started feeling awesome! I wasn’t tired, my legs weren’t burning, my lungs weren’t burning, and I kept a constant speed whether I was going up or down an incline.

Anyway, I made it back to the trail head where the car was and I was at 14.89 miles and said there is NO WAY Im not going 15 miles. So I went out further past the trail head and turned around. Ended with a total of 15.4 miles…a NEW PERSONAL BEST!

I felt AWESOME after it was over! And to top it off…After the ride I had dinner (ribs and a sweet potato, baked) and STILL have 2000 calories left for the evening, which Im not going to use. So, according to myfitnesspal.com, Im going to LOSE weight.

Im proud of myself. I really am!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read it again…15.4 miles! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hills, Hills, HILLS!

It seems like Im always talking about hills. Well, I live in NW Georgia near Atlanta and unfortunately, hills are what we have here. I dont like them, but I can’t do much about them except to ride them and get used to them.

So, today, I went on a ride on a loop around my neighborhood. It has some pretty moderate hills. These are hills that I tried on the second day of owning my bike and they kicked me in the head. I couldn’t make it up ANY of them at that point. Today, however, I went up all of them without stopping. It was a rough ride and I definitely thought about stopping and walking them, but I refused to let myself.

After I was finished, I thought I was going to die! Heart felt like it was gonna beat out of my chest and my legs were sloppy. The entire ride was a little shy of two miles, but I was spent!

I would have never been able to do this without the advice from the guys at The Clydesdale/Athena forum at bikeforums.net as well as the advice from the Beginners forum at bicycling magazine Forums. Without those guys helping me with learning to change my gears and when to change them, I would have been walking up those hills today as well. I could not have done these hills without the advice from those guys regarding my gears. Im getting better with them, except when trying to switch my front ones into the lower gear on the way up at the bottom of the hill. TWICE today, I switched the front gears into 1 and the chain decided it didn’t like me and popped off. I think I need to get that adjusted. Will probably take it to my local Bike Store tomorrow to get them to look at it.

More later…