Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => Life Advice => Topic started by: JoshuaFH on May 07, 2016, 03:54:53 am
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I've spent all three days of my 3 days off riding my bike. With my new cycle computer, I have an odometer that tells me how far I've been riding.
On the first day I rode 14 miles, on the second 9 miles, and on the third 10 miles. I'm really trying to push myself hard. On the last stretch before I end my ride for the day, I'll sprint as fast as I can to see how fast I can go. Right now my fastest speed is 21 mph, but I was only able to maintain it for a few seconds. I'm hoping to be able to hit 30 mph before Summer is over, even if I just graze it for a second and then have to slow down, I want to push myself that hard.
(...) I mentioned before that I'm stuck in my trailer park and don't have a choice but to go up and down the same stretch of road over and over. It's a fairly long and smooth road that lets me pick up speed without needing to turn, but the unobstructed wind that flows over the nearby farmlands can get intense and forces me to slow down or burn myself out against it. One lap is very conveniently about 1 mile, so doing the mental math on how many laps I need to do is very easy. There's other roads, but they're slathered in cracks, crowns, bumps, and potholes, and obviously slows me down lest I wreck myself.
The ultimate goal is to lose some weight and reach something resembling fitness. The immediate and more pressing goal though is to try to keep up exercising, to not give up or give myself unwarranted breaks like I'm so prone to doing, to finally conquer the lazy piece of shit that's been me my entire life.
I Ithink, rather than pestering the Happy Thread for every small achievement I have in my quest for fitness, I'll just catalog it here. That's important right? Cataloging things?
Currently I'm enjoying my expensive (now only new-ish) GIANT brand bike. Bright orange with 3 front gears and 8 back ones, and is just a really nice ride. I outfitted it with a tiny cycle computer that acts as speedometer, odometer, and clock. I currently have 60 miles on it according to the odometer, and a max speed of 22.8 miles per hour.
The personal scale in my house has seemingly disappeared, so I'm just gonna guess that I'm still roughly 200 lbs. The absence of the scale doesn't bother me, since I intend on only weighing myself on September 22, the Fall Equinox aka the end of summer, and then again on the end of fall (if weather permits me to keep going outside by then). Bi-Weekly or even monthly weigh-ins I feel would generate too much anxiety and expectancy, when the ultimate goal isn't immediate gain, it's the benefit of a lifestyle change. Weight is something that's controlled by a lot of factors, like diet and genetics and how quickly your muscles grow and I'm sure some magic bullshit too, and while the lowering of weight is the goal, the most desired result is the change in behavior that will lead me towards it; that's the important thing to focus on.
I have no set schedule for riding or resting, with how turbulent both weather and job schedule, and soon school schedule will be intent on making my life, I won't be picky, I'll just be riding whenever I'm not sick, overly tired, and have free time.
I just recently bought an MP3 player too, it's currently packed with Iron Maiden, the Godannar soundtrack, and select Jojo songs for manly inspiration to accompany me on the road. I'm hoping me and this little device will be great friends in the future to come.
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Awesome man! This is great, Bay12 needs more fitness threads. Although, why exactly are you limited to just the road around your trailer park?
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Neat. PTW.
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Awesome man! This is great, Bay12 needs more fitness threads. Although, why exactly are you limited to just the road around your trailer park?
Well, not AROUND my trailer park, but rather my preferred route is one that goes straight through it from one entrance, carves a circle around our little children's park, and then goes to the next exit, which I repeat over and over. That's the nicest road. Why I can't leave the park is pretty easy: my trailer park lies in the middle of a cropping of cornfields that extend in all directions for miles and miles. All the roads attaching me to civilization are two-lane highways that have *recommended* speed limits, that people will only respect if there's a cop watching them. There's actually a steel railing on an intersection that you'd swear was secretly a powerful electromagnet, considering how many vehicles have smashed into it. So yeah, I'm scared shitless of going onto either of those roads, so in the park I stay.
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Oh fishie o_o PTW! :D Nice to see you doing this Joshua!
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If anyone needs any bicycling-related tips, regardless what, you can write me a PM.
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Awesome man! This is great, Bay12 needs more fitness threads. Although, why exactly are you limited to just the road around your trailer park?
Well, not AROUND my trailer park, but rather my preferred route is one that goes straight through it from one entrance, carves a circle around our little children's park, and then goes to the next exit, which I repeat over and over. That's the nicest road. Why I can't leave the park is pretty easy: my trailer park lies in the middle of a cropping of cornfields that extend in all directions for miles and miles. All the roads attaching me to civilization are two-lane highways that have *recommended* speed limits, that people will only respect if there's a cop watching them. There's actually a steel railing on an intersection that you'd swear was secretly a powerful electromagnet, considering how many vehicles have smashed into it. So yeah, I'm scared shitless of going onto either of those roads, so in the park I stay.
Do you have a train-line near you? That's usually the easiest way to deal with the nowhere safe or interesting to ride problem.
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Awesome man! This is great, Bay12 needs more fitness threads. Although, why exactly are you limited to just the road around your trailer park?
Well, not AROUND my trailer park, but rather my preferred route is one that goes straight through it from one entrance, carves a circle around our little children's park, and then goes to the next exit, which I repeat over and over. That's the nicest road. Why I can't leave the park is pretty easy: my trailer park lies in the middle of a cropping of cornfields that extend in all directions for miles and miles. All the roads attaching me to civilization are two-lane highways that have *recommended* speed limits, that people will only respect if there's a cop watching them. There's actually a steel railing on an intersection that you'd swear was secretly a powerful electromagnet, considering how many vehicles have smashed into it. So yeah, I'm scared shitless of going onto either of those roads, so in the park I stay.
Do you have a train-line near you? That's usually the easiest way to deal with the nowhere safe or interesting to ride problem.
There's a nature trail or something like 5 or so miles down one of the highways. I've never been there though, and getting there means either braving the road or fitting my huge bike that *barely* fits into the back of my Mom's van and chauffeuring it there, which honestly sounds like too much trouble.
Today is a very nice sunny day, though quite windy. I rode another 15 miles, with a short break to sit down and sip some water at the five and ten mile marks. Still very wore out from yesterday, I couldn't do a sprint today, not even when I had the tailwind.
Odometer reading: 75 miles total.
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Took one day off both to rest and because it was my first day at the local community college, so just sick with worry and doubts. I'm only taking the one class so far, Business Mathematics before I take Introduction to Business. I had thought that my financial aid would have covered my textbook, which I was very wrong about and I would up shelling out $240 right there for the class's textbook just so I can attend the class. There was most definitely a better alternative, but I didn't plan ahead. First day we get right into it though... with a refresher apparently on how multiplication, division, and percentages work... $240 for a book where the first two or three chapters is middle school shit, I'm hoping the class gets a LOT harder and more challenging, otherwise I'll have to applaud the school for the goddamn excellent con artistry. There's some interesting stuff I'm not familiar with in the book's index, I just don't know if we'll be covering it all.
TODAY, I went out for another 15 mile ride. The wind is more intense than the other day, but fortunately it's aligned just right so I have the headwind all one way, but the tailwind all the way back. So I'm traveling miserably slow at a low gear for one half, and I speeding back in a much higher gear than I usually pedal at for the other half. As near the last mile, I have the headwind, and while I'd been taking it easy so far I go all out stand-up pedaling (or Dancing as the anime Yowamushi Pedal puts it) against the wind, and it's extremely hard and exhausting with the heavy wind today. I make it though without switching to the low gear I'd been using for the whole run, and I feel proud of that cause the wind had been kicking my ass for that entire 15 miles. I can't wait until I'm fit enough for this to feel easy.
Odometer reading: 90 miles total.
Also I'd been trying to do stretches to limber up my muscles before every ride, but my lazy sedentary life has made my muscles so extremely stiff and stubborn. I'm trying to do some from videos I'm seeing on youtube specifically for the legs, and every part of me is just so tight and not willing to negotiate on that tightness. It's very uncomfortable and difficult, even just doing half the stretch makes my leg muscles feel like they're maxed out and will snap if I push them any harder. Once again, it feels like a dream that I could ever be fit enough for this to feel easy, like the instructors on the videos make it seem, but I'll keep doing it for that to become true.
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Be sure to do dynamic stretches before biking, not static ones. Stuff like leg swings, ass-to-ground squats, active stuff like that. Static ones just weaken your muscles in preparation for athletic activity.
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Thanks man, I was doing static ones. I didn't know there was a difference.
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I just recently bought an MP3 player too, it's currently packed with Iron Maiden, the Godannar soundtrack, and select Jojo songs for manly inspiration to accompany me on the road. I'm hoping me and this little device will be great friends in the future to come.
As a lifetime cyclist, can I dissuade you from insulating yourself from the real world by removing your ability to hear the actions of traffic and other potential dangers?
You can hear and react to things happening behind you, or to the side you aren't currently looking at junctions or along routes with scenic sides, much easier if you don't plug your ears up, let alone pump intentionally distracting music into them as well.
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Stretching afterwards is generally good and feels pretty good. Your muscles are a little more limber when they're warm from exercise.
Stretching is also, in my experience, something that gets a lot easier fast. But different people are different.
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I just recently bought an MP3 player too, it's currently packed with Iron Maiden, the Godannar soundtrack, and select Jojo songs for manly inspiration to accompany me on the road. I'm hoping me and this little device will be great friends in the future to come.
As a lifetime cyclist, can I dissuade you from insulating yourself from the real world by removing your ability to hear the actions of traffic and other potential dangers?
You can hear and react to things happening behind you, or to the side you aren't currently looking at junctions or along routes with scenic sides, much easier if you don't plug your ears up, let alone pump intentionally distracting music into them as well.
Not to sound in defense of what I have to agree with as generally unsafe biking habit, I don't ever feel in danger in my park. The focal point of my route is a children's park with a very slow speed limit that people actually obey quite obediently, and my route is basically the safest I can make it, with few intersections, large sightlines, and wide roads that make it so that so long as I stick to one side and always check my blindspots before changing lanes, I'll basically never get blindsided. (Famous last words). I honestly feel less safe in my car, but then again I have nightmares about car accidents all the time.
I felt the irreconcilable need to push myself today, my poor social behavior at college has to be compensated for, so it's has been my longest ride yet, at 20 miles, with a short break every 5 miles. It was a very hot and moderately windy day. I'm just goddamn beat up.
Odometer: 110 miles
There's two other someones in my park that ride, but I've never encountered them. There were just two bikes, probably nicer and more expensive than mine, sitting in someone's driveway. One very sporty looking one with curly handlebars, and another with a short straight handlebar. That about encompasses my knowledge of different bikes, but I'm glad I'm not alone, even if I don't know and might not ever know these mystery bikers.
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I'm going to PTW and cheer you on from the sidelines.
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Riding in a park... With a speed limit... Strange situation, to me. I also pretty much assume that you're not in the UK, where anyone who looks old enough to shave (or would do, if they were male) really ought not to be on footpaths (unless so designated for cyclists as well). If you were, I could probably point you to a cycling club (one that didn' t just do racing) and soon get your milages up to perhaps 50 to 60 miles by way of newbie-friendly clubrun, if you were so inclined.
But you're probably elsewhere, and I wouldn't even know what your Road Traffic Act says about cycles.
There's two other someones in my park that ride, but I've never encountered them. There were just two bikes, probably nicer and more expensive than mine, sitting in someone's driveway. One very sporty looking one with curly handlebars, and another with a short straight handlebar. That about encompasses my knowledge of different bikes, but I'm glad I'm not alone, even if I don't know and might not ever know these mystery bikers.
The curly (or 'drop') handlebars are likely of a traditional road bike. a.k.a.'racer', but also 'tourer' because it's just the normal hanlebars for bikes, up until the '90s, certainly. The straight ones are likely on a pseudo all-terrain bike, where nobody bothers much with dropping down, and the simply handlebars also don' t catch terrain/rider in so bad a way if you're tumbling off on rough ground. Although there's all kinds of bikes, including hybrids, and not every bike with thick, inefficient but dirt-grabbing tyres does much more than mounting or riding off a curb.
I forget if you described your machine. Drop or straight bars? Cantilever or disc brakes? Gears include multiple chainrings (pedal end)? Rear-wheel gears are derailer or hub-gear? Suspension, or entirely rigid frame and forks? Pedals are plain, toeclips or clipless with shoe-plates to lock onto? LED lights (even for daytime use)? Optional saddlebag/etc, or are you doing your back in by wearing a backpack with whatever you're carrying? Puncture repair kit (and know how to use it)? And, for that matter, tools enough to not need to walk the bike home if something simple bursts/fails/unscrews/falls off/unwinds/overtightens/jams? ;)
(Again, over here, the MAMILs (Middle-Aged Man In Lycra) tend to go and buy a bike and loads of accessories, upon deciding they want a bike for the first time since their childhood, and don't actually know what to do with it. They don't even know what rules of the road apply to bicycles, save for misconceptions during their time as a car driver.)
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Riding in a park... With a speed limit... Strange situation, to me. I also pretty much assume that you're not in the UK, where anyone who looks old enough to shave (or would do, if they were male) really ought not to be on footpaths (unless so designated for cyclists as well). If you were, I could probably point you to a cycling club (one that didn' t just do racing) and soon get your milages up to perhaps 50 to 60 miles by way of newbie-friendly clubrun, if you were so inclined.
But you're probably elsewhere, and I wouldn't even know what your Road Traffic Act says about cycles.
There's two other someones in my park that ride, but I've never encountered them. There were just two bikes, probably nicer and more expensive than mine, sitting in someone's driveway. One very sporty looking one with curly handlebars, and another with a short straight handlebar. That about encompasses my knowledge of different bikes, but I'm glad I'm not alone, even if I don't know and might not ever know these mystery bikers.
The curly (or 'drop') handlebars are likely of a traditional road bike. a.k.a.'racer', but also 'tourer' because it's just the normal hanlebars for bikes, up until the '90s, certainly. The straight ones are likely on a pseudo all-terrain bike, where nobody bothers much with dropping down, and the simply handlebars also don' t catch terrain/rider in so bad a way if you're tumbling off on rough ground. Although there's all kinds of bikes, including hybrids, and not every bike with thick, inefficient but dirt-grabbing tyres does much more than mounting or riding off a curb.
I forget if you described your machine. Drop or straight bars? Cantilever or disc brakes? Gears include multiple chainrings (pedal end)? Rear-wheel gears are derailer or hub-gear? Suspension, or entirely rigid frame and forks? Pedals are plain, toeclips or clipless with shoe-plates to lock onto? LED lights (even for daytime use)? Optional saddlebag/etc, or are you doing your back in by wearing a backpack with whatever you're carrying? Puncture repair kit (and know how to use it)? And, for that matter, tools enough to not need to walk the bike home if something simple bursts/fails/unscrews/falls off/unwinds/overtightens/jams? ;)
(Again, over here, the MAMILs (Middle-Aged Man In Lycra) tend to go and buy a bike and loads of accessories, upon deciding they want a bike for the first time since their childhood, and don't actually know what to do with it. They don't even know what rules of the road apply to bicycles, save for misconceptions during their time as a car driver.)
Scouring google image search for a minute, I believe this is the exact model, or atleast very nearly identical to what I have:
(http://ride914.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Roam-3-Red-500x500.jpg)
I believe it's just pad-on-wheel brakes, whatever the name of those are. There's the toggleable suspension in the front there. Normal pedals (it'd be outrageously cool to try clipped pedals though, I've never even met someone that used those). I don't ever carry anything of any significant weight with me, so no backpacks or saddlebags or anything. and I'm never more than 1/4 mile away from home so even if the thing spontaneously breaks down, wheeling it back home isn't a big deal.
It'd be cool if there were a bicycle club nearby. That kind of community is nonexistent in my corner of the world though.
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Riding in a park... With a speed limit... Strange situation, to me. I also pretty much assume that you're not in the UK, where anyone who looks old enough to shave (or would do, if they were male) really ought not to be on footpaths (unless so designated for cyclists as well). If you were, I could probably point you to a cycling club (one that didn' t just do racing) and soon get your milages up to perhaps 50 to 60 miles by way of newbie-friendly clubrun, if you were so inclined.
But you're probably elsewhere, and I wouldn't even know what your Road Traffic Act says about cycles.
Also I forgot to mention this explicitly, but yeah I live in America. Michigan. Saginaw. The stinky finger crotch of Amercia, right next to Flint which was just recently found to have lead in the drinking water, just to let the world know that we're shitty and backwards in all ways possible. Also, I'm not sure if the United Kingdom has trailer parks, I always think of everywhere in Europe as being very highly cultivated and developed, so I don't know if the concept of trailer parks exists in the mind of your ordinary European. I wanted to point out though that I've been using the word "park" too loosely in my various posts, cause I'm using it both to mean the Trailer Park which are massed produced side-by-side rectangular houses that the stereotypically poor and uneducated live in, and the Children's Park which is just a field with a swingset, slide, gazebo, and Springy rocky-horses for the kids of what is basically this small neighborhood that IS that trailer park. As far as my biking route is concerned, I'm riding *through* the trailer park, but *around* the children's park. Just for utmost clarity, because I feel I miscommunicate very often, and it frustrates me to no end when I want to communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible.
The size of my trailer park is about roughly 1/2 square mile if I had to guesstimate, as it requires one back & forth lap to go 1 mile, so yeah, the place isn't very big, and I'm trapped in it for all intents and purposes barring enormous personal effort involving car trips to the next town over or whathaveyou.
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We don't have trailer parks; we don't have the space. Low-cost housing is usually in a tiny apartment in a huge block.
Would you ever consider bike touring in addition to normal biking?
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Sounds like an adventure, though I have no clue where I'd start.
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Sounds like an adventure, though I have no clue where I'd start.
Although I find a number of... 'strange' things on the site, perhaps the League of Michigan Bicyclists (http://www.lmb.org) might be a starting point. Their advocacy for cycling (even in its stranger forms!) looks commendable, and similar(ish) to the Cyclists' Touring Club, here in the UK (national cycle advocacy group - they changed from the term 'bicyclists' in 1883, however, to not show discrimination against other configurations of machine... ;) ).
I saw a few places named under a Michigan Cycle Club search (Royal Oak is 90 miles away, unfortunately, and Lansing only slightly nearer according to the usual on-line tools) but perhaps a search of your own would be better, given that I don't know your area/state well enough to understand either its geography or its communities.
(Not saying you should run off and immediately join a club or other organisation, just perhaps keep an eye on the calendars (apparently May is the month for cycling advocacy) and other announcements. And if a Slow Roll (not, as I feared, a disruptive protest, but a casual 'pootle' suitable for all ages and abilities of cyclist) is organised within easy getting-to distance of you..? Might be worth a look, right?)
Getting your milage up would be good. Going round in circles, for multiple laps isn't exactly rivetting, but at least you're always near your base of operations. (OTOH, it's also easier to give up when passing by for the umpteenth time, when you were planning on doing half a dozen more circuits but are feeling a bit sore.) I really don't know if I want to send you on long-looking journeys on the open road, alone, but it can be rewarding to do them, so if you do find some friendly club-run or other that you can tag along with.
Don't worry too much about hitting that 30mph you mentioned earlier. Even 21mph is more 'racing speed', and perhaps 12-15mph sustained (on the flat) for 10 miles (perhaps by circuits of your par for half an hour) , 20 miles (using out-and-backs on routes radial to your starting point on friendly-looking roads, for a couple of hours including a lunch-break) and upwards, and building up that way would be a suitable aim to get you to a group-riding level of capabity. Talk this through with anyone you're prospectively joining, though. You don't want to find youself joining a 90-mile 'burn up' training session or attempting half of the Race Across America, too soon. ;)
Build up endurance, first, even if it means 'windmilling' in a low gear for very little forward speed, when you'vre getting tired. Pushing the big gears for short periods isn't something you should overdo at the start, but you could perhaps set up a beeper on your watch/phone/cyclecomputer to prompt you to do maybe a minute of power-training and then four minutes of a more sustainable speed without straining yourself, repeated for the hour, two hours or more that you can stand to keep it up.
Meant to comment on the bike, but forgot. Looks Ok, and Ivve seen far less 'road capable' machines in use. Remember to lock off that suspension for normal road riding (so long as it isn't rutted dirt-road, anyway!) as it tends to soak up pure forward effort as much as minor irregularities in the road surface, so you have to balance the two demands. Or perhaps exploit this effect for your endurance-training?
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I appreciate the advice there Starver. I've actually been riding with the suspension on, as I wasn't sure what the difference between on and off was so I thought it wouldn't hurt, and never payed it any mind.
I checked, and apparently there is a weekly biking get-together sponsored by a group called B.A.R.S. (Bicycling Awesome Riding Society, corny name I know) that takes place in a not-far-away place. That might be worth examining.
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Rode 20 miles again today after a one day rest due to weather. I'm not sure how much help the stiff suspension was over the loose suspension, but I did break my previous speed record, having improved to 23.7 mph, previously 22.8. I'm happy about that. Otherwise the ride was very difficult, having experienced the strongest winds so far, where even on a very low gear I had to tolerate significant pedaling resistance, though I guess I can thank it for the very good tailwind, allowing my record.
Odometer: 130 miles.
Starting to feel more confident about my ability to handle a bike, it's getting to be real natural.
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20 more miles today. Persevering through some irritating chilliness.
Odometer: 150 miles.
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Exercise is a good way to keep warm all right. Go you!
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I would up shelling out $240 right there for the class's textbook just so I can attend the class.
Oh btw, next quarter try to find out the book title and edition in advance, you can then try to order used ones online and save a HUGE percentage of that insane price. Even if you don't find out until start of class, you can usually go a few days without it, either reading a library copy or borrowing one or whatever while you wait for one to be delivered. See what your bookstore's return policy is, you MIGHT be able to do that even for this one...
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I would up shelling out $240 right there for the class's textbook just so I can attend the class.
Oh btw, next quarter try to find out the book title and edition in advance, you can then try to order used ones online and save a HUGE percentage of that insane price. Even if you don't find out until start of class, you can usually go a few days without it, either reading a library copy or borrowing one or whatever while you wait for one to be delivered. See what your bookstore's return policy is, you MIGHT be able to do that even for this one...
Yeah, I need to do something about that. That's like how people always talk about prison and joke "Don't drop the soap ha ha ha" and then you accidentally wind up in prison some how and you actually get butt raped and it's not funny at all, that's how buying that POS book feels like. Charging this much for such an asinine but necessary item should be a crime.
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Extortion?
Sounds like extortion.
And taking advantage of a captive market.
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Had I known beforehand about this:
http://www.chegg.com/textbooks/business-mathematics-13th-edition-9780321955050-0321955056?trackid=4b1a6d7d&strackid=576e715a&ii=1
maybe I could have saved, I don't know, TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? If I'm able to return it for half (what is this, an RPG? Is this the Gamestop of education?) in a couple months when they do buy-backs, I could potentially recoup a hundred-ish dollars by switching it with the rent-version, but until then I'm just gonna have to stew in the fact that I got conned into making a badly irrational and suboptimal choice. I'm gonna remember this wrongdoing Modern Education, I'll hold onto this grudge for the rest of my goddamn life you fuckers.
And I'm still an awkward impotent social wallflower that can't make a connection to save his life, and I'm frustrated about that too. I have a feeling it doesn't matter though, even if I become really fit and attractive, I have a hunch I'll still die alone, I'm just a spiny, difficult, boring, childish person, who would need or want me in their life? This is why I need music on my trips, my introspection will tear my asshole open if I let it.
Anyway, it's a nice day out, I rode around for 10 miles. I broke my top speed again, now I'm at 25.6 mph. I maintained it for just a few seconds, but I'm gaining a handle on the higher gears on my bike. I'm still only on the second front gear, I'm only ever switching the back gears around, of which there are 8, and I used the 7th to get that topspeed. Maybe one day when my legs are super strong, I'll graduate to the final third front gear and push my acceleration to the next level, and hit that goal of 30 mph.
Odometer: 160 miles.
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There's somebody for everybody, and I bet there's more people that would like you than you'd think.
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I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.
I'm feeling very exhausted today, maybe I should take it easy for a bit. I did a fiver today though.
Odometer: 165 miles.
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There's ups and there's downs. In all things*. So don't worry about the mere five miles. Or the rest.
* - Although whilst cycling, downs are easier and often more preferable than ups. ;)
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I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.
Eh, you needed to say it somewhere and honestly, mental fitness is still fitness. So...keep talking if you want, y'know? It's your thread after all.
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OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.
If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.
Odometer: 190 miles
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I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.
Eh, you needed to say it somewhere and honestly, mental fitness is still fitness. So...keep talking if you want, y'know? It's your thread after all.
Cycling is strenuous. Strenuous exercise releases endorphins (the so called "runner's high"). It's also fantastic for focusing on something simple when your mind is wandering places you don't want it to go. When I was feeling my worst, I'd just go out and cycle. One day, coupla years ago, I was feeling horrific, y'know the standard depression works, and I just hopped on my bike and cycled 63km (~40mi?) without stopping once (excluding traffic lights, of course.)
By the end of that day, those bad thoughts had been chased away, and while physically I felt exhausted, mentally I felt just a hell of a lot better.
Any kind of exercise is a very good method of keeping depressive thoughts away; even if you feel the day was a total mess, if you just get in a decent cycle, you can say "I accomplished something today", which is a step towards recovering from depression.
(I'll add here I'm not a cycling superman like say, Meph, but the km melt away when you have a good seat, adequate water and nutrition and a good path ahead.)
OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.
If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.
Odometer: 190 miles
25mi is a pretty damn large distance. Be it across flat land or hilly, that's a long way. Also, is this a "general cycling" thread or more of a blog? Just curious, because I'd quite like to have a cycling thread if there isn't one already.
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Meant to comment on the bike, but forgot. Looks Ok, and Ivve seen far less 'road capable' machines in use. Remember to lock off that suspension for normal road riding (so long as it isn't rutted dirt-road, anyway!) as it tends to soak up pure forward effort as much as minor irregularities in the road surface, so you have to balance the two demands. Or perhaps exploit this effect for your endurance-training?
I have a fairly similar model bicycle to Joshua's, a Giant Boulder 3, and it has the same variable suspension. Lock it off when you're doing anything that isn't gonna make your bones judder; especially while standing the suspension soaks up a fair proportion of your power, and makes it difficult to stay stable as you're constantly wobbling forward and downward due to suspension. I generally only use the suspension on my bicycle when I'm cycling on very rutted track, and even then I prefer to have it off nearly everywhere else.
Riding in a park... With a speed limit... Strange situation, to me. I also pretty much assume that you're not in the UK, where anyone who looks old enough to shave (or would do, if they were male) really ought not to be on footpaths (unless so designated for cyclists as well). If you were, I could probably point you to a cycling club (one that didn' t just do racing) and soon get your milages up to perhaps 50 to 60 miles by way of newbie-friendly clubrun, if you were so inclined.
But you're probably elsewhere, and I wouldn't even know what your Road Traffic Act says about cycles.
Also I forgot to mention this explicitly, but yeah I live in America. Michigan. Saginaw. The stinky finger crotch of Amercia, right next to Flint which was just recently found to have lead in the drinking water, just to let the world know that we're shitty and backwards in all ways possible. Also, I'm not sure if the United Kingdom has trailer parks, I always think of everywhere in Europe as being very highly cultivated and developed, so I don't know if the concept of trailer parks exists in the mind of your ordinary European. I wanted to point out though that I've been using the word "park" too loosely in my various posts, cause I'm using it both to mean the Trailer Park which are massed produced side-by-side rectangular houses that the stereotypically poor and uneducated live in, and the Children's Park which is just a field with a swingset, slide, gazebo, and Springy rocky-horses for the kids of what is basically this small neighborhood that IS that trailer park. As far as my biking route is concerned, I'm riding *through* the trailer park, but *around* the children's park. Just for utmost clarity, because I feel I miscommunicate very often, and it frustrates me to no end when I want to communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible.
The size of my trailer park is about roughly 1/2 square mile if I had to guesstimate, as it requires one back & forth lap to go 1 mile, so yeah, the place isn't very big, and I'm trapped in it for all intents and purposes barring enormous personal effort involving car trips to the next town over or whathaveyou.
Here in Straya, we have trailer parks too. Small, pre-fab houses, some are just caravans, usually arrayed around a central green. We call them "caravan parks" here, though.
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OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.
If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.
Odometer: 190 miles
25mi is a pretty damn large distance. Be it across flat land or hilly, that's a long way. Also, is this a "general cycling" thread or more of a blog? Just curious, because I'd quite like to have a cycling thread if there isn't one already.
I was intending it as a blog, but if you or anyone wants to join in with their own bicycling adventures I'd more than welcome it. It's heartening to have company after all.
Very warm and nice day today. Despite exhaustion, I pushed myself 20 more miles.
Odometer: 210 miles
Maybe I'll get to a thousand miles before summer's end.
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+10 today. I think I'll take a break tomorrow, my knees kinda hurt.
Odometer: 220 miles
I mentioned this before in (more than) one of my Sad Thread Posts, but I think my biggest hurdle isn't one of physical effort, but rather one of visualization. I can't visualize or imagine what it's like to be in a better position in life, I've never been really physically fit, or even mentally or emotional fit if that's a thing. I've never been in a relationship, so I have no clue what that's like, and I can't picture it being a 'real' thing that can happen, it feels entirely fictitious. I feel that if I want to make a drastic change in my life, I have to push myself very hard, much harder than what I'm sure many would consider healthy or necessary.
I'm not sure if I've shared this story before, but it was a couple years ago when I was feeling particularly motivated to 'go out' and meet someone. There was a concert in town nearby, so I thought it was perfect. I went to the concert, but I still felt so much like I didn't belong, I wound up not talking to anyone. I was so angry at myself, it seemed like such a perfect opportunity wasted. I felt I had to do something drastic, to push myself very hard, to shock myself out of my social anxiety. I started walking and walking and walking, through town, into the next town, and then into farm fields. The sun set, and it was completely dark out on those back roads, but I felt completely alright, I normally would have been scared, but I was too angry to be scared. It started raining shortly thereafter, and it was a colossal rain storm, and I was walking through mud and puddles, I was completely drenched. Still, I felt I *had* to keep going, no matter what. Eventually, I made a huge circle around, and wound up back in town, and slowly through the hard wind I made my way back to my car, still parked near where the concert was. Getting back into my car, I had to take off my shoes first, cause my feet were bleeding and blistered from the trek. I felt accomplished, however dumb the accomplishment was, but it still didn't change anything in my life, I was still a socially anxious loser, just now with bleeding and blistered feet.
Maybe it was simply too naive to think that a single large 'shock' was enough to get me out of my sad lifestyle, but that's what makes me so anxious about this blog. I'd like to give myself a tangible record of accomplishment, and one that holds me accountable for my actions with a clearly set goal, but I'm also worried that I may jinx myself again, by thinking about it too much. By 'again', I mean I had one of these weight loss threads before, but I quietly abandoned it years ago, though I can't remember the reason why, perhaps my raison d'etre was simply too weak at the time so I ran out of motivation, or something happened that discouraged me, it could have been either. I just feel I'm setting out into dark and unexplored territory in my life again, and I don't want to turn back, and I feel I'm going to need to resort to increasingly drastic measures in order to avoid turning back.
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*applies hugs*
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Just keep believing man. Have faith in yourself, as difficult as that can be sometimes.
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*applies hugs*
Just keep believing man. Have faith in yourself, as difficult as that can be sometimes.
I appreciate the sympathy. It's not necessary, I wasn't emotional at the time of that writing, it was just something that had been on my mind. I'll keep doing what I'm doing regardless of how I'm feeling, that's what I've planned and have determined I will do.
But I am feeling increasing... rapidly increasing... unease about college. The teacher is frustratingly irritating, the work is asinine, the expectations are low, and I've clearly spent a lot on what is clearly of very little benefit, not educational and not social. I'm thinking I should just cut my losses and run from it. I can educate my own damn self better than this.
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Ask the college about self-paced courses or testing out of that class.
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I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.
I'm thinking I'll go through with school til the end of my classes, at the very least. I'm still upset at my behavior, I'm not the ideal man I want to be so very badly.
Biking: +5 today, I still feel very tired.
Odometer: 225m
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*applies hugs*
To be human is to be imperfect.
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I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.
You realise that you are saying sorry about being sorry, but you're also sorry that you aren't sorry in a sorry-enough fashion..? ;)
Actually, winky-smiley aside, I don't think there's a :hugs: emoji on this forum, is there? Because I'm not good at emotional support in general (although I'm not unfamiliar with excessive self-deprecation myself.. not that I'm much good at that?!?...erm...) and I don't know whether this board is a better place to get it than Real Life™, but if you're not getting it there then I suppose here's as good a place as any, as a stop-gap. Just don't go without some more reliable support from some better place, as well, if you can find it.
And, talking of circumlocution(!)... all power to your pedals as you continue to regail us with your expeditionary exploits. You're doing more miles than me, at the current rate, due to a number of factors, although I've had a busy bike-filled weekend in other regards.
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I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.
You realise that you are saying sorry about being sorry, but you're also sorry that you aren't sorry in a sorry-enough fashion..? ;)
Yo dawg...
But I woke up today, and jumped up and felt amazingly light and limber, free of the fatigue from before. With an empty stomach and a liter of water, I felt fine just jumping on my bike and powering out 25 miles. The sun set about a third of the way in, but even with the pitch darkness and frequent mosquito clouds I felt just fine.
I got home and found that my dog had chewed up my favorite cup that I've been using for years, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied right now.
This is very embarrassing to admit, but I had taken a cue from R/Nofap, and I'm already a week in. It promises benefits to masculinity, it honestly sounds very pseudo-sciencey since there's no conclusive studies that prove or disprove it, but it's plausible enough that I'm willing to believe.
EDIT: Forgot the odometer update:
Odometer: 250 miles
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@Starver:I just use *hugs*.
Good luck with your trial run, Joshua.
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Today was a real struggle. Boiling sweaty heat, heavy winds, high humidity... I did 20 miles, then had to take a 30 minute break, then did 10 more, for 30 total miles today. I feel satisfied with that.
Odometer: 280 miles.
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This is really freaking impressive, keep it up!
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Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
I did 10 miles today, though this is only because of an odd scheduling restraint that I can't devote more time to bicycling today. Still stupid hot.
Odometer: 290m
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Waking up, knees are feeling alright. +10, breaking three-hundred.
Oh dumb eater: 300m
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OH! I almost completely forgot, today had an excellent tailwind along the longest road in my Park, and I was able to hit 27.5mph. I had to stop accelerating only because even though it's the longest road, it's not long enough and I had to brake before running straight into one of the surrounding highways I talked of earlier.
MaxSpeed: 27.5mph
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Go you!
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Doin' good!
(I still say maximum speeds aren't that important, unless you see yourself sprint-racing, and stamina will help you more, but it is exilerating to feel breeze on your face of which much, if not all, comes from your own effort.)
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Thirty-one miles. I woke up feeling disgruntled and frustrated, and I just ate my last pear (it had fermented to the point where I think it must have been partially alcoholic at that point), got my jug of water, and hopped on my bike. I was originally only going to do 20, but that didn't feel like enough. I did 25, and thought that I still had more to give. I put on "Last Boss Rush" on my MP3 player, and did six more in that span of that song (It's 26 minutes long).
In the reading thread, I mentioned that I started reading again. My brain feels a bit more enlivened with this mental exercise from that as well, though it's only because I have nothing else to do at work. It's a very boring, sedentary, and dull job that doesn't require much from me, so I have a lot of time.
Odometer: 331m
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Took a break. It would seem two 8-ish hour sleep cycles is enough to near completely restore my legs after my now almost-routine sessions where I push myself as hard as I can for as long as I can. Today I did 34 miles, again riding until the sun sets and burning those last few miles in the dead'o'night. My sleep quality is lightly damaged by the fact that my bedroom is an oven with intense insulation and no ventilation, and it gets unbearably hot while I sleep, waking me up prematurely, but I seem to be doing alright.
Odo Nobunagameter: 365 ambitions
A book I had purchased over Amazon to hopefully improve my love life had finally arrived: "Models: Attract women through honesty" by Mark Manson, and while I've always turned my nose up on dating books as drivel, the draw of this one sold me; it advocates that self-development (physical, mental, emotional) is the only legitimate method of improving your life. I had bought it on a whim, but finally turning through some pages, it's an intense read, I need to put it down every page or so to absorb it and let my emotions calm down cause I'm easily agitated when being forced to confront my hangups.
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You've got an entire year's worth of miles! Grats!
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You've got an entire year's worth of miles! Grats!
Nearly... It's a leap-year, 2016. :P
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You've got an entire year's worth of miles! Grats!
Nearly... It's a leap-year, 2016. :P
Hush now
Took a break. It would seem two 8-ish hour sleep cycles is enough to near completely restore my legs after my now almost-routine sessions where I push myself as hard as I can for as long as I can. Today I did 34 miles, again riding until the sun sets and burning those last few miles in the dead'o'night. My sleep quality is lightly damaged by the fact that my bedroom is an oven with intense insulation and no ventilation, and it gets unbearably hot while I sleep, waking me up prematurely, but I seem to be doing alright.
Odo Nobunagameter: 365 ambitions
A book I had purchased over Amazon to hopefully improve my love life had finally arrived: "Models: Attract women through honesty" by Mark Manson, and while I've always turned my nose up on dating books as drivel, the draw of this one sold me; it advocates that self-development (physical, mental, emotional) is the only legitimate method of improving your life. I had bought it on a whim, but finally turning through some pages, it's an intense read, I need to put it down every page or so to absorb it and let my emotions calm down cause I'm easily agitated when being forced to confront my hangups.
Well, self development is the only real method of changing how others see you. It is impressive how much physical changes can influence people's perception of you.
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I did 15 miles. Well, 10 miles, but I did five yesterday, but that didn't feel noteworthy enough to mark it down in my diary. I guess I'm just emotional for no reason today.
O:380
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PTW.
I used to be far heavier than you, but now I'm a bit lighter/around the same weight. I don't exactly have time/area/bike to ride with you, but I'm out in the yard almost every day working on this garden and my diet's excesses include beans and almond butter.
I will too weigh myself on the vernal equinox.
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That's great to hear Inteuniso :) Keep it up!
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I woke up thinking about an old friend of mine, he was always scruffy, scroungy, unkempt, and utterly vulgar and dirty minded... and he got laid all the time by a lot of girls. Honestly, even though we hung out, I hated his guts. Even though I haven't seen him in years, I still want to just beat his ass, just goddamn maim and mangle him, just to ruin his life, even though he's undeserving of anything like that and I'm just completely envious of men more successful than I. That and he kicked me in the nuts once, I still want to cave in his skull just for that, something like five years later. Yeah, I know I'm pointlessly and disproportionately angry.
I finished reading the book "Models" that I mentioned earlier. It's good stuff, all of it. I may need to reread it. I'm still not sure how much all the advice is going to help me in my love life, as I still live with my Mom and in a night shift job that doesn't pay enough to support myself, as well as being a 27 yr-old teetotaling friendless loser virgin.
The book though, mentions that if I'm ever going to be able to act natural (Non-neediness by showing vulnerability and low investment, to use the book's terminology) around women, then I have to be at peace with my hangups and my past, and not be ashamed of it. So yeah, there it is, I'll try to not whine about that shit anymore.
Though, there's some people people around here who insist that being a virgin is completely stigma-less, that any shame felt about it is manufactured in my mind apparently. Which I don't agree with. I mean, there's the undeniable social undercurrent (Atleast in 'Murica) that virgins are pathetic and worthless men, which is another thing I don't agree with. I just have the irrepressible feeling that I'll be trapped in a completely infantile emotional evolutionary stage of my life forever, and therefore be depressed and in a deeply unsatisfying life forever, by remaining loveless and sexless.
I mean, even though I'm slightly overweight, I don't think I'm a bad looking guy. I'd post a picture if I had a camera (note to self: get a camera or something) but you guys get the point. I also think I'm not a totally awful conversationalist, when I'm not crushed by anxiety, I can talk to women alright, though I sputter and blank out all the time, or I make dumb comments about everything and I look like an idiot. Honestly, if something in my brain snapped and I let my inhibitions go, I could just go out and get rid of this virginity problem right now...
I'd just feel disgusted with myself though, every single attempt and foray into romance on my part has ended in me feeling intensely regretful of my actions. Ever since my spectacular ball-crushing failure in romance in highschool, I'd associated all romantic action as holding a bomb and waiting for it to explode in my face, because that's what happens over and over to me... I get rejected and I take it really personal, and I get intensely angry, and spiral into depression and refuse to take action again for years. Seeing the rest of the world handle it all so nonchalantly (in comparison) has me feeling that the rest of the world is just populated by depraved sex-crazed animals that I can't relate with at all, and my sense of alienation is increased several fold.
It's not as though I feel the act of love making is intrinsically magical, I'm not waiting for 'the perfect true love', I'm far too disillusioned to believe that. In fact, despite my obvious inexperience, I can't help but feel that it's really disgusting and shameful, that there's more than one source trumpets it as a 'biological need' makes me feel contempt for society, which in no small way makes me feel more contempt for myself for desiring it all the more.
There's just so many things that are 'firsts' for me that turned out to be bitter and painful memories for me: My first kiss was given to a girl that very legitimately wound up hating my guts. My first time cuddling and spooning and falling asleep with a girl that was honestly still so awkward that she didn't speak to me again for years. My first time really 'winning' a girl's affections, and she sends me texts telling me how handsome I am and how much she likes me, I badly embarrassed and emasculated myself with her and obviously she went cold and rejected me. Then I met a girl that I'm still not sure was 'all there' in the head, but with her it was my first time really romantically making out and deeply kissing for more than an hour, which was so intensely erotic that it was the first time I'd felt my extremely strong inhibitions break down and I wanted to have sex with her, and for our next date she flakes and instantly breaks up with me for almost no reason, and I was just so devastated that I haven't done anything since then, and that was like three years ago now...
... so while I don't feel that sex is innately special, I just want a 'first' in my life that doesn't instantly become another one of my bitter and painful memories. I just want something special that persists in my mind as being a good thing that I can think back on and smile at, just one thing, just one.
So yeah, so while I feel that a lot of my motivation for my current exercise routine is honestly very insincere, I feel I must out of a sense of pragmatism. To build myself up, to build my confidence and self-worth up, that I don't need to worry about my rejection anxiety. So that I can finally feel like I'm advancing forward and making progress in my life. So that I can finally feel like I'm not still just a barely pubescent highschool brat in a grown man's body begging women for attention, I'll endure with my fitness and self-development, and grow into the desired manly man I want to so badly be.
Just putting all that out there, for my own health.
I did 20 miles today. It's the windiest it's ever been on any of my days.
O:400
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Okay, first off, if writing this sort of stuff down makes you feel better, there will always be sympathetic people willing to listen, especially in this forum. "Whining" is really just an unnecessarily negative way of viewing communicating one's feelings, especially if displayed as sincerely and eloquently as yours.
Two, throughout the whole thing I couldn't help but think of Jeremy Irons in Batman v Superman: "The fever...The rage....the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men cruel."
Really wish you luck in whatever you want to be lucky at. I can honestly say I've felt a fair bit like you have in regards to a lot of this, and I sympathise. Again, wish you luck in building yourself up, regardless of how you go about it.
And nice job with the 20 miles too, nice even 400 :P
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Yeah.
That...sounded like you needed to say it. And I'm glad you are saying it. Getting what you need to work through just put down somewhere is the first step to actually working through it. Or something like that. I'm not a psychologist. But still. It looks like it's helping.
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Okay, first off, if writing this sort of stuff down makes you feel better, there will always be sympathetic people willing to listen, especially in this forum. "Whining" is really just an unnecessarily negative way of viewing communicating one's feelings, especially if displayed as sincerely and eloquently as yours.
Thanks, I appreciate it. For one of those whines though, I've gotten off of my keister and investigated the possibility (again) of getting my own apartment and live on my own. An 'ideal' one sprung up, near work, in the thick of actual civilization and not stranded in the middle of nowhere, somewhat reasonably priced, single person apartment. I think I'd feel a lot more able in my life if I had my own independence and had to live on my own means.
I hope everything works out. This seems like a really good place to start my real adventure.
EDIT: Also did 10 miles, though I had some days to rest, it was very hard from tiredness from biking past my sleeping rhythm.
odour: 410
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I did 35 miles today. Very exhausted. I'm apparently getting a bit of a tan, and I've slimmed down slightly. Not alot, but it's noticeable progress.
Ode to meter: 445m
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Goodbye for now everyone, I'm moving into my new apartment today (hopefully) and naturally I'll be moving my computer into my currently internet-less new domicile, so I'll be disconnected until that is changed.
For the purpose of accuracy, I did five miles the other day, it wasn't remarkable outside the fact that, hory shet was there just gnats or flies or something everywhere outside. I was covered in'em. Scared my ass right back inside once I realized I couldn't wipe them off my body fast enough.
Odometer: 450m
Once I settle into my new living space, I'll plot out a !NEW ROUTE! to bike around. Now I'm won't be limited to my trailer park, I'll have a whole city with many scenic areas to explore. Well, I grew up in that town, so it's all familiar territory, but atleast it's not the same 1-mile circular track repeated hundreds of times over.
I also bought a beginners bike maintenance kit, and a water bottle to attach to the frame, but I haven't cracked those things open yet.
Sayonara for now guys.
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Congratulations on getting a new place, huge step.
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Goodbye for now everyone, I'm moving into my new apartment today (hopefully) and naturally I'll be moving my computer into my currently internet-less new domicile, so I'll be disconnected until that is changed.
For the purpose of accuracy, I did five miles the other day, it wasn't remarkable outside the fact that, hory shet was there just gnats or flies or something everywhere outside. I was covered in'em. Scared my ass right back inside once I realized I couldn't wipe them off my body fast enough.
Odometer: 450m
Once I settle into my new living space, I'll plot out a !NEW ROUTE! to bike around. Now I'm won't be limited to my trailer park, I'll have a whole city with many scenic areas to explore. Well, I grew up in that town, so it's all familiar territory, but atleast it's not the same 1-mile circular track repeated hundreds of times over.
I also bought a beginners bike maintenance kit, and a water bottle to attach to the frame, but I haven't cracked those things open yet.
Sayonara for now guys.
Congrats, man! Those two little things will be life-savers when you're cycling. Nothing brings down a cycle faster than a popped tire. I always go cycling with my maintenance kit and a first aid kit, as well as a drink bottle on my bike. Rarely, if I'm going a long distance/in very hot weather/up and down steep hills i wear a "camelbak" sorta thing, that is, essentially a small backpack with a water bladder in it to drink from. It's vaguely useful.
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Yay! Grats on new houseitude!
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I think I'll make a small update from this here library computer. I'm doing pretty well still, going riding when I can, and when I do I'm on the town for a couple hours at a time. I'm still trying to figure out how road etiquette on a bike works since the sidewalks here are so inconsistent in quality and maintenance. My best bet seems to be to pretend that I'm a small car that can only go about 15-20mph at a time, and take up a whole lane of traffic. I don't get run over, but I feel like I'm pissing everyone off. I'm definitely pissing people off.
There's a huge rail trail though, it cuts a huge line through town, and it's very scenic and smooth. Not exactly efficient for getting around though, and involves frequent road crossing.
I don't have an odometer reading, I forgot to check it, but I'm definitely over 500 miles now.
I'm enjoying life without the internet. Now that I'm not continuously distracted by everyone's favorite series of tubes, I have free time to enjoy my feral descent into barbarism. Though by barbarism, I just mean catching up on videos I've downloaded previously, and reading library books. I feel I'm actually mentally cultivating myself here. I feel like I'm going to have to get the internet some time however, it's only a matter of time before I feel it becomes a necessity.
Life is pretty great right now, I feel I have my footing. It might take a while, but I feel my life can actually evolve to a point where I can actually say "You know, life was actually worth living afterall".
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Glad to see you're still continuing with this fitness quest. Always good to hear that things are going well.
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Thanks man. I finished my college course on business math. Did pretty alright, though I'm still pissed about only getting a hundred dollars back for returning the two-hundred and forty dollar book. Like, really angry.
I'm going to try participating in a weekly get-together of bicyclists. This will be my first time meeting these guys. We'll be doing 15-ish miles around the city I believe. To hearken back to "Models", there was an action list of things to do in order to apply the lessons of the book, and one of the first things is "Participate in a social hobby", and I hope this fits the bill.
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Thanks man. I finished my college course on business math. Did pretty alright, though I'm still pissed about only getting a hundred dollars back for returning the two-hundred and forty dollar book. Like, really angry.
I'm going to try participating in a weekly get-together of bicyclists. This will be my first time meeting these guys. We'll be doing 15-ish miles around the city I believe. To hearken back to "Models", there was an action list of things to do in order to apply the lessons of the book, and one of the first things is "Participate in a social hobby", and I hope this fits the bill.
Obviously the people selling you/buying back the book already did Business Math, and passed with flying colours... ;)
Other than that, nice to see you're getting on well. Having others (and a more diverse choice of routes) helping you on your way is going to help you, I'm sure.
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Yeah! Go you!
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Well, I went to the bike meetup, and was honestly very underwhelmed. It was very laid back, very slow, no pressure chatroom on wheels, though honestly with very little chatting as people mostly kept to themselves except for the people that came as pairs and groups. I introduced myself to some people, and was nice *enough* I guess, but I feel like I didn't fit it. The metaphor sprang to my head again, that I had told my therapist a long time ago, of getting a feeling of being "a drop of oil in the ocean" where all the water mixes and mingles freely, but the drop of oil is simply inert and unable to mix into all the water.
Once again I went home feeling defeated. Even though I'm now comfortably situated in my new place, and I have my own independence, and I'm technically the closest to my life goals than I've ever been, at the same time I feel I'm further away than ever before as well. Like an infinitesimally decreasing slope on a graph, approaching zero but never quite reaching it.
I did go to FNM, which was very fun as I scored 2nd place in a draft, that was really fun as it was reduced to just me, my opponent, and a judge in the whole store at like 2AM, duking it out for first place. I got a bit unlucky in the first game, and he got very lucky getting an utterly BS card passed to him, but that's just how Magic goes. It was very fun, and I felt I made a good impression on the people I played with there. I boneheadedly left my dice there though, I'm still beating myself up about that, I wonder if they realized and are keeping them for me, but I feel it's too insignificant to call them about it or drop by to see.
My next class at the community college starts TODAY, I'm honestly kinda irritated about it, and I don't know if I'll just drop it or not if it turns out I'll need to throw another 100+ dollars down the drain. Especially since I don't think even getting any kind of degree would help me in pessimistic job market that is oversaturated with degrees, I'm mostly just sticking around for the experience and possible socialization potential.
I'm thinking I'll check out a gym, and see if there's any fitness classes there. There's one very close to my apartment, and it seems very opportune to investigate it.
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Thumbs up to any further fitness endeavours. What are you studying again?
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The class is Introduction to Business. I wound up going to class very sleep deprived, as the class was very awkwardly placed into my schedule and denied me of sleep, another reason I was irritated about it. The teacher is another disorganized blabbermouth that can't seem to get to the point. I won't even entertain purchasing another textbook, I'd rather get a bad grade than be complicit with such obvious, brazen, and shameless con artists; and for some reason I think I'll do alright just listening to the lectures.
But my classmates seem alright, we got paired into groups of four, so I was part of a group that consisted of one younger man who wasn't very talkative at all, an older but very professional woman who was a coordinator at a local hospital, and an Islamic woman in a hijab who's very soft spoken and timid but claims to have a college degree in physics that she earned in her home country Saudi Arabia, which probably makes her the most accomplished person in the classroom. I honestly really like the group, it promises to be interesting, I hope I made a good first impression on them with my half-asleep rambling about Peter Drucker and bicycles.
I also finished a book last night, MIND HACKS, promising to hack your mind into being the person you want to be in 21 days or less! What a bunch of bologna! I was expecting neurological or psychological tricks to brainwashing yourself... the reality is: you've never seen a more half-heartedly naive collection of nice sentiments that aspires to be good advice at the very best, and misguided at the very worst. Includes 'advice' such as: Try positive thinking! Stop thinking your negative thoughts and just think the positive ones instead! If you're trying to break an addiction, try a support group! Divide your big goals into smaller, easily achievable goals! Try exercising! ... I got the book for free, and I feel cheated.
Though there is ONE tidbit in the whole book that I thought could call itself a 'hack': writing down your goals on a piece of paper 15 times a day, in order to subconsciously convince yourself of its validity, which sounds just stupid enough to be plausible.
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Yeah I bought an entire ebook based around subconscious self-manipulation, and honestly, I like it. As cliche and malarky sounding as all the positive thinking-esque advice is, it honestly does make me feel better about certain things. The book I have is called the Power of the Subconscious Mind by Dr. Murphy. Admittedly, it does contain a lot of "The Secret" type thoughts=attraction=universe giving you something which I've always been wary of, but the bits about affecting your own internal mind and even body seem worth a shot.
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I'm going to check that one out NRDL. It seems to me that books that remain relevant for several decades *probably* have the most useful, most universal, and longest-lasting information.
I've been probing my mind some more, and I'm wondering if I should get another therapist. I'd devoted something like a year and a half of time to my last one, which resulted with me being abandoned for undoubtedly being such a difficult patient that refused to take our weekly/biweekly/then finally tri-weekly meetings to heart. I want to rationalize it saying that I was in a bad circumstance, saying that I had years of gnarled up, tangled rationalizations for all my insecurities to work through, but the truth was that I was just a noncommittal shit. Very noncommittal. In fact, I'd say that a great deal of my life I've been avoiding committing to a set course of action, of clearly defining *who* I am, and how I want to live my life.
The feeling of not wanting to dedicate myself, I think, stems back to a very early memory of mine, which was just innocently enough just me, at 8-9 years old, talking to my Mom as we drove around. She was telling me about Baptism in Christianity. At this point in time, I was already very leery of religion. I had already internalized that my Mom was a horrid bitch, despite supposedly being a Christian, and myself going to Sunday school to teach me about Jesus, which I had already intuitively felt was a farce, just another dishonest adult lying to my face for utterly nebulous and imperceptible reasons.
But she was telling me about Baptism, and I was curious about it because even though I felt that adults were lying to me, being so young I still had a feeling that there was something mystical or magical about the world that I wasn't grasping. I don't remember the exact conversation, but I remember that she was telling me that it marks a huge milestone in someone's life, and I remember the one important question I asked about it: "So when you get baptized, does it change you forever?" to which she replied that yes, it makes you closer to god and a better person forever; to which I felt deeply offended, a sense of offense that I remember to this day. Why did this hokey water ritual have anything to do with my state of being *me*? Why was I not good enough just being who I was? Am I just not good enough period? I wanted to prove my Mom wrong, but there was a lingering sense of doubt. It's a sense of doubt that I feel I've never shaken off since.
It reminds me of myself, being my shitkid self in Highschool, cause I haven't mentioned it until now, but I actually refused to cut my hair all throughout highschool, so I had this really stupid fucking mullet through what is the most socially intensive portion of my life, so it's pretty obvious why I was so unpopular. I still remember my reasoning though, was that if my haircut was alright *yesterday*, why is it not ok *now*, and why is it not ok in the *future*, and there was an extreme sense of stubbornness about not wanting to change, not wanting to grow up.
I had talked about my virginity earlier. and I feel that that same sense of stubbornness is in there too. My Mom's boyfriend of 15 years recounted to me that he changed completely on losing his virginity. My Therapist that I mentioned earlier mentioned something similar, that once I'd lost my virginity I'd be a completely different person, my whole perspective on life would change. And from other sources too, but those two I remember the most vividly... and that same sense of stubbornness and self-doubt kicks in again.
That's just something I thought I needed to share, because the truth is that I feel those feelings, and that I'm going to have to decide to commit to a choice, definitively, one day. and not just resent the world for supposedly manipulating me with social moors and expectations. I just wanted to say all that for my own good.
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Good luck.
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Thanks BiggerFish, you're a pal.
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Just doing my job.
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Best wishes to you, glad that you're able to find satisfaction in your self-expression. It's quite uplifting.
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I'm a little embarrassed of myself, I've been a bit lazy and neglecting my biking for a while. Michigan has been very hot and muggy, but that's no excuse. I took a short ride today, but it's clear I'm lightly tired from suddenly waking up from an odd dream, and that I'm clearly not in top form from the laziness.
The dream, from what I can recall, was that I was stuck in an odd place with two serial killers, but it had an odd game show element to it, where I had to choose which one to kill and which one would be my roommate and live with me.
Odometer: 605 miles (that is +155 miles from the last odometer reading, a couple weeks ago)
I'll really need to pick up the pace if I want to hit 1k before Sept 22.
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The dream, from what I can recall, was that I was stuck in an odd place with two serial killers, but it had an odd game show element to it, where I had to choose which one to kill and which one would be my roommate and live with me.
Strangely, my dreams were dominated by being at cycle events (doubtless inspired by this one (https://twitter.com/MerseyRoads24), but it has been a busy couple of weeks in that regard), but you'll be reassured to learn that I have no (known!) involvements with serial killers in my was ng [<- "waking", darn Android keyboard...] life, so it's not a total transposition of experiences... ;)
I haven't really had much encouragement to give, in your recent posts, so consider this as me checking in and cheering you on towards your goal.
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I appreciate it all the same, Starver. At the very least, you'll be happy to know that I've completely stopped using my MP3 player. There's actually people and things to be cognizant of in my new environs.
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Oh, one milestone... "milestone" if you want to call it that... is working up the nerve to up and over a hill that separates my apartment complex from the Rail Trail. It's a significant shortcut, otherwise I need to take a hefty detour. For some reason it paralyzed me with anxiety, probably because it would be the first time tackling the Y axis on my bike. The first time I tried going up it, I mentally gave up and stopped pedaling, allowing myself to roll backwards back down the hill. I banged up my shins from my pedals spinning backwards. I just walked my bike up after that.
The next time, I got to the top, but almost fell over my handlebars from going up too fast and then slamming on my brakes at the top before committing over the side. I stood atop the hill (it's a very small hill, no taller than a man) for a while, feeling quite nervous at rolling down. I did, and it was pretty fun.
Now I go up and down it pretty easily. Though I still have to be careful, there's a bench along the opening to the trail that means I have to make a sharp turn right after going down the side of the hill. It's fun though.
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Really hoping there's not a lot of unexpected traffic going through that, running up a hill and suddenly meeting a truck is scary enough, biking with that sort of blind spot would give me chills.
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Well, it goes from a parking lot to a big foot trail, so not a lot of threat of traffic, but a little.
Today, I went to the Y and impromptu joined a Kickboxing (read: cardio and core) class. I was the only male in the class, out of something like 10+ other females. Mostly older, but still. I thought I'd do alright, but I got my ass kicked. I was sweating and panting furiously, and couldn't really do the last couple exercises from being so out of breath and out of shape. I didn't want the instructor to pity me, but it was pretty obvious I needed to be pitied.
Still though, I'm not that upset. I'd be disappointed if it were easy, the difficulty was why I was there, I just felt embarrassed a little is all. I'll probably sign up for a membership and start going regularly, cause it's clear I need it if that's all it took to whoop my ass.
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Hey, you're doing stuff, though, which is good!
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That's fantastic, cardio based around martial arts is the best.
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There was no actual kickboxing, just some exercises that kicked my ass. I said I was only a little embarrassed, but that was a lie I'm actually very very embarrassed, I looked really clueless and awkward, and three quarters of the way through it was all I could do to not die on the floor from the overexertion.
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It gets better, the longer you keep at it. Definitely worth it as long as it isn't all that expensive.
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I tried to go to a Yoga class today, but it turns out nobody showed up for the class so the instructor cancelled it. I thought that was a bummer, so I just went out for a bike ride instead.
One thing I want to do is try to ride with my hands off the handlebars. I've been extremely cautious, feeling like I need to keep a steely grip on the handlebars at all times, but little by little I've been trying to figure out how to remain balanced and going when I let go. Today's been the most successful attempt so far, being able to keep my hands off, remain pedaling, and relax with my hands at my side while staying a straight course, for several seconds at least. I'm still not 100% confident, but I'm getting there.
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I wouldn't actually suggest you do that too much (safety, in case something surprising happens; you also lose a bit of leg leverage without any contact with bars, but that mostly applies only when you're on a difficult stretch) and can't imagine too many circumstances that it'd be a beneficial thing to do, rather than showboating, but...
At any reasonable speed, the bike keeps itself up, and torso movement alone is enough to correct a slight lean. Or, when you're tired of going straight, applying a slight lean, which gives the front wheel a slight turn and you can curve round slaloms (sweeping ones, at least) without any handlebar use at all.
Steelily gripping the handlebar is pretty much never necessary (perhaps whilst traversing uneven ground, with large rocks and small boulders jinking the front wheel off course unpredictably) and may be uncomfortable and cramping. Is this why you want your hands off?
Try progeessively resting your hands, atop the bars. Uncurl the hands, keep the palm of the hand atop, relax the fingers and thumb1. You should have full control, or (more importantly) instant control should you feel the bars twist beneath your hands, yet with as light a touch as you wish, and I've ridden deliberately hovering above the bars at times (does wonders, for the solar plexus, as you maintain a forward lean without support, and then there's whatever bit of the thighs one uses to grip the saddle whilst peddling) and pulling up straight thus frees both arms to clean one's glasses, peel the banana, unfold enough of the map to read without so much that it catches the wind, conduct a sign-language conversation with someone or perhaps just pump your arms contratime to their respective legs as if jogging...
You've managed the no-hands thing, so you know its possible, but it sounds like you're doing it as if a mere journeyman unicyclist relying on he arms to balance rather than balancing whilst the arms are doing something else, rather than the proficient performer who can even juggle (assuming you can first do that whilst merely standing, that is) and has learnt the nack of full-body control whilst at it.
I repeat, however, that the moment you spot a particularly vicious pothole, a squirrel dashes across your path too close for comfort, a car passes you closer than you'dvlike or you get a blowout you will appreciate having your hands on the bars (although good luck, still, in all cases, especially the blowout) and even though I could ride all day (if non-stop) hands-free, I wouldn't consider it a useful skill to so employ on a continuous basis. The few moments to extract the waterproof jacket from the saddlebag and then don it is probably the most I'd risk, whilst road/traffic/wind conditions aren't likely to threaten my stability for the duration.
1 I find that when riding on cobbles, rough but regular and thus not likely to be surprising, touching finger(s) and thumb into a loop larger than the diameter of the bar. I then unconsciously brace myself so that I am surrounding the bars, not pulling or pushing them, and the rattling and oscillating front of the bike jolts the bars up and down but all within the confines of my 'finger rings', saving me much of the pummeling. If I don't need to peddle, I'll even stand up on the pedals a bit (at 3 o'clock/9 o'clock, more or less), slightly off the saddle but not too much, and gripping it between the thighs, letting my bent legs take the rest of the vertical jolting (generally less than the front alone, as it's an average betwen the two wheels). And yet, I have the bars captured, such that they can't slip from my loose and open-handed grip and either they twist upon hitting a badly-located cobble-edge or my hands jump off the bars to front or back and I first risk face-planting down onto the headset and then body-planting down onto the ground, the bike off to one side. Also useful for cattle-grids and unsurfaced but not totally rubbly roads.
But you've got your lockable/unlockable suspension, which does much the same job.
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I'll say that I misspoke, as I didn't actually mean I was gripping the handlebars very hand, just that I never let them go. I actually usually have a fairly light grip.
But I'll agree that that it's pointlessly dangerous. It just feels like it's something that's so simple anyone should be able to do it, but I struggle to keep my balance the instant the bars are let go. Plus I'm always chiding myself that I have such a cautious and wimpy personality, I guess this was just my way of taking small risks to break out of it, just like going over that hill I was talking about.
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I'd been reading a lot of books recently, and they all had a common theme throughout them: There was the first one I mentioned, 'Models'. Then there was 'No More Mr. Nice Guy'. Then 'Healing the Shame That Binds You'. Then 'Man, Interrupted'. That theme is that they all specifically address and are aimed at helping men that had an abusive, unavailable, or otherwise completely absent father.
I've been doing a mental inventory of all the traumas and pains in my life, and attempting to assign weight to them in order to gauge their significance in which ones need healing the most. The list is somewhat long, and while I'm (currently) unwilling to go over the entire list both for reasons of shame and brevity, the gist of it is that the one issue with my childhood that dwarfed all the others by orders of magnitude is the complete absence of my father. My father cheated on his wife with my Mom, who then gave birth to me and raised me by herself several states away, completely nowhere near my biological Dad. Part of me, a large part, is convinced that if I had a father in my life growing up, I'd wouldn't be the ineffectual and frustrated man I am today.
Growing up, I never knew my Dad at all. If not for the existence of pictures of him my Mom owned, I wouldn't even know what he looked like. Still, I have to say I think I was a very optimistic child, for I remember vividly, throughout elementary school, holding onto the firm belief that my Dad was only temporarily separated from me, and that he'd one day reenter my life and guide me as his son. I suppose it wasn't a completely outlandish belief at the time, for I was also often frequently away from my Mom, who worked days and so I'd often be spending the entire day by myself, and if Mom was away for long stretches of time, what was to say Dad wasn't just away for an even longer stretch of time? It goes without saying that my fantasy never became reality.
There were men in my life, my Mom's boyfriends, though 3 existed, one existed in my pre-memory childhood, but the two I do remember are the definition of worthless men. The first was an drug addict, very violent and angry for reasons I wasn't able to comprehend at the time, and fought viciously with my Mom. He got sent to jail eventually for possession of cocaine I believe, but I'm not willing to fact check that with my Mom at this moment. This man was no father figure, obviously.
The second boyfriend, the lazy and desperate moocher that stayed in my life for 15+ years now. He was the ornament in the house, I'd frequently forget his existence. He was known for being an idiot with a high tolerance for pain, a fact he was glad to demonstrate over and over and over again as my Mom's emotional instability would cause her to pick fights with him and then beat his ass, then call the police, who'd then come over and drag the bloodied and beaten boyfriend away who hadn't put up a fight, who would then be released without charges, and then come crawling back to my mom, to repeat this pattern, nearly every week, for more than a decade. The sounds of fighting became a very reliable background noise, ready to keep me awake nearly every night, and nothing I said or did could stop it once started. It'd be like jumping onto a primed grenade.
This man eventually fathered my half-blood sister. And while I love my sister dearly, I have to say she's gotten the shit end of two awful gene pools.
I have to say that even though I'd personally known this boyfriend for 15+ years now, I never once cared for him, at all, not as a replacement father figure, step family member, friend, or acquaintance. He eventually did leave my mom, to hook up with a woman who was impossibly even more idiotic than he was, but how their life together is progressing right now, I couldn't care less.
The only man I considered a replacement father figure was my "Uncle" who had married into my family through my Aunt. He was a proud and strong handyman. Good with machines, hardworking, an honest person with a complex that made him want to be of use to others and help them. He innately sympathized with my plight of having to live with my bitch of a mother, willing to call her out on her shit when she acted up in his presence. He frequently promised to take me out fishing, or bowling, or any other kinds of trips, but to my memory he only ever followed through on these promises once or twice, much to my enormous disappointment. When we did have the chance to hang out, I would meekly follow him around, for no particular reason, perhaps trying to absorb his manly experience through proximity. I always felt like a hanger-on and a wannabe son, but I guess I couldn't help myself, I wanted to master what it was that made me respect him so much, and by extension become respectable myself. All in all, he wasn't in my life enough to alter the course of my imminently failurebound maturance, but the little bit of time he did spend with me, I cherished it.
He died this year, on March 28, seven days after my 27th birthday, of lung cancer. I had the immense displeasure of, over the course of several months, watching the strong and proud man I knew waste away to a confused and frail skeleton, a shadow of himself, and then die in pain and indignity. Even at his bed, watching him being unable to do even the simplest of tasks as he lost his grip on life, I was unable to cry. When he died, I got the first phone call notifying me of what had happened, I was still unable to cry. Even now, I can't find it in me to cry, and I don't think I will again for anything else, for I feel if I wasn't able to cry for this one man I so genuinely cared about, it'd be disrespectful towards him. Unforgivably disrespectful.
This is just another thing I'd like to place down into words here. I have a great deal of emotional baggage, but it was only recently that I grasped the literalness of the phrase. "Baggage", you're carrying it, it's heavy and it's eating my mental and emotional energies just to hold it, so much so that it paralyzes my ability to think or feel or do things. Obviously just holding onto it isn't going to make it less heavy, I have to place it down and leave it behind me, and only then will my energies be freed up again to be used how I want them to be used. So this post is me putting it down, just one bag out of many, to hopefully be free of all of it, someday.
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Good. Keep doing that. It helps.
*hugs*
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There's actually been something on my mind for a long time now, though I've hesitated to voice it for fear of exposing even more of my naivety, but I guess it's gotta come out eventually, as it's catch-22 twisted logic that I can't help but believe is true. It's obviously fallacious, but it causes me intense anxiety.
Basically, it's based on a truism I heard a long time ago, though I can't remember from where, that 'Everyone's first relationship fails' or something to that effect. While I've obviously dated some women, I don't think any of my experiences with them counted as being in a relationship. They were all too short-lived, too insubstantial, too superficial to have counted. The stakes weren't high enough, which is anxiety provoking enough when my few, shallow failures have already instigated so much anxiety only to realize that each step in a relationship ostensibly raises the emotional stakes by a magnitude of order. I haven't had a 'real' relationship yet, and therefore from the premise's logic, the first one I DO have is guaranteed to fail. The first one is a 'sacrificial' relationship, it needs to be born, cared for, and then killed in reverence to a god of emotional maturity, so that the next one has a chance to live.
What would define a 'real' relationship I then ask myself. I can only imagine it, but it's not just a factor of time, it would need to be emotionally intense but also emotionally quieting, unpredictable but stable enough to be able to rely on the other person, hot-blooded but relaxing, (As I imagine, I never had a role model that depicted relationships as anything other than shouting matches followed by fistfights) but most of all sincere. I suppose this is where the Catch-22 comes in, wherein if I believe that the first real one is certain to fail, and I do believe that with my level of maturity plus utterly poor interpersonal skills and natural pessimistic defensiveness that that it is a safe assumption to assume that the odds of imminent failure are extremely high, why should I emotionally invest in it, why should I be sincere? But if I don't do that, if I don't allow the emotional stakes to rise to what would (to me) be a disastrous emotional fallout, then that relationship won't meet the criteria for being 'real' and so the next one will become the sacrificial relationship. It'll be a nonstop loop of fallout after fallout.
It's obviously absurd logic, but it feels really real, it makes trying to advance my situation seem pointless. Moreover, philosophizing on how to 'game' life is so pointless for someone as inexperienced as I am, when the obvious solution just seems to be to barge into and through problems without a care as to the consequences, go ahead and advance, get messed up and bloodied, and stop, just please stop, living in my head and live out in the world already...
But that's whats been on my mind recently. And by 'recently' I mean probably for the last two or so years now.
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Sounds like you already know the answer to whatever questions are plaguing you, you're just venting, which is good if it actually makes you feel better. As for that particular point of view on relationships, whether or not you actually place stock in it as an idea or are just bothered by its possibility, the standards we impose on ourselves and our relationships based on our observation of others is ridiculous.
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Yeah, just venting. I'd like to get the thoughts out of my head. To use another metaphor, that way they're not resting in the background of my mind, eating up processing power, I've gotten them verbalized and materialized in a way that is outside my mind. I believe I hold onto a lot of twisted, painful, and/or conflicting beliefs that I just keep running indefinitely, and so when I need that processing power they're using, I'm suddenly frozen and can't decide.
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You definitely ain't the only one, man. Some days when there's not much going on for me, ideas just start popping up and seeming far more important than they actually are in the grand scheme of meaningless existence. As fun as thinking is, it does tend to get out of hand when one stops being physically active and external for even a day or so.
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I want to talk about one very specific memory that's clung to me for a long time now, more than 10 years, and the incident that the memory is about was actually very innocuous and innocent, you wouldn't think that this would bother me as much as it does, but every single time I make any mistake, large or small, meaningful or inconsequential, it comes up to haunt me, and it completely fucks me up. It happened in Highschool, as seemingly all my bad memories originate, I was in counseling, because of course I was, and I was telling the counselor about how I had accidentally knocked over a thing in my house that had created a domino effect and knocked over two or three other things, and then she said the line I can't forget: "I thought you were smarter than that, Josh."
Even 10 years after the fact, that's a deeply cutting insult I can't quite shake off. For someone who at that point had based almost their entire identity on being the naturally intelligent boy that got straight A's easily and never needed to study or take notes, but otherwise had no social life, nothing else to base their identity on, that line was a personal attack aimed at my existence. It's not just after the fact I was upset, I was upset then too, I went fucking ballistic, locking myself into her office by myself, had the police called on me, I went to a mental hospital, and further cemented my identity among all my peers as the crazy fucker. Obviously things were going downhill for me before that point, but that event highlights how fast my mental and emotional state was spiraling downward inexorably.
I believe I've spoken of how hard I crashed in HS, in the Sad Thread though that was a long time ago now. I don't remember my senior year at all, it was one giant fog of depression I was crawling through blindly. My grades plummeted. My mental and emotional state had completely collapsed. By that point I had alienated myself to my peers, teachers, authority figures, just everyone, and was just drifting through every day by myself trying to not upset anyone any further, just not even interact with anyone for fear of fucking myself socially even further. I don't think I need to mention that obviously my Mom, her boyfriend, and whatever other family had no interest in my wellbeing at all either. It was the darkest time of my life without comparison. How I graduated is literally beyond me.
All these memories, brought up cause I made a stupid mistake in MTG that cost me a game, and that line got dredged up again "I thought you were smarter than that, Josh".
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*hugpats*
It really does suck how prevalent it is for everyone to place all their self-worth on one thing that could fluctuate and go down the crapper on any bad day. So much needless suffering. A person's self worth should never be dependent on external circumstance.
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Jeeze Josh, that sucks.
Reminds me of the time my teacher in year 8 (~I was 13, most other students were 14) (also i don't know the american equivalent) flat out told me "you'll amount to nothing, because you're lazy". Much the same sorta thing happened to me, my grades crashed pretty damn badly after about year 8 or so, "crawled through a fog of depression" and meanwhile I'm just barely back on my feet at age 24.
On the plus side, I did get a high distinction on my last test!
Oh right, cycling stuff.
So the trains fucked up because first world country, third world infrastructure, and that resulted in me having to cycle 17km in a race against time up hill and down dale, last Tuesday. It was infuriating: I had a test at 9am, got to the train station at 6:30am (because allocate extra time to travel, it's usually ~100min to my uni), announcement states "Major power outages at <Shitsville> Station, <Most heavily used> line and <second most heavily used> line will not run trains today. Alternative transport has been arranged, but we don't know when they will arrive."
So my options were thus:
- Take my bicycle back home, hope i time it correctly to catch the local bus back up to the station and hope the rail replacement buses arrive in time to get to uni before the test starts, because bicycles aren't allowed on buses (especially not full sized mountain bikes)
- Lock my bicycle up at <Reudhtown> station for 12+ hours; probably not a great idea given i only have two locks and the bicycle has three quick release levers (front wheel, rear wheel, seat). While not a bad neighbourhood, I'd rather not overly risk the thing that keeps me sane in my downtimes.
- Cut my losses and cycle up the highway from <Reudhtown> to <Shitsville>, where the trains to the city were still running. Of course, the highway from Reudhtown to Shitsville is rather dangerous and heavily used, as it's a major arterial that connects to another major arterial. Additionally, in some places there is no footpath, and in other places where there is a footpath, it is strewn with glass and rubbish. Thick as my tires are, I didn't want to tangle with a beer bottle and end up stranded in <Shittierville>.
So option 3 is what I took, and I cycled up the highway, cursing and swearing most of the way. Of all the days it could occur, it had to occur when I had a test that ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT BE RE-SIT DUE TO LATENESS/ILLNESS/ETC.
I thrashed myself to stay at 20km/h as hard as I could, but with the highway being quite steep in some parts, it was a real trial. Add to that the characteristic high winds that Melbourne faces, and it was even tougher. Red faced and wheezing, 17km (10mi) and an hour and twenty minutes later, I arrived at Shitsville. Drenched in sweat from the cycle, angry beyond belief, and the next train was not for another ten minutes!
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This is a late reply, but good job man.
I went to a Power Yoga class today, and for a class all about stretching and breathing and doing poses, it severely whooped my ass. Cute girls are watching as I ignore the deep coordinated breathing as I try to catch my breath and sweat buckets all over the mat. Turns out I'm as stiff as a board, even when trying to do simple things like sitting and bending over I struggle harshly. The more difficult stuff was right out... Please instructor I can't support my entire body weight on my hands.
But I took the plunge and signed up for that membership at the Y. I plan on going to those classes more frequently, which will be free now that I'm a member. I haven't really talked or socialized with anyone yet, besides maybe the people at the front desk that were happy to accept my 80 dollars, but one step at a time, first things first is that I should focus on reaching a level of fitness where the group exercises aren't killing me and I'm not embarrassing myself struggling to complete them.
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Go Joshua!
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I did another kickboxing class today, and by kickboxing I mean a lot of cardio and stretches, and it thoroughly whooped my ass again. I know I'm out of shape Body, but do you have to sweat so much? But anyways, the instructors are nice at least, even though near the end I could barely move enough to make even a passing effort at the exercises, I was panting heavily, and I was at one point thinking I was going to throw up, but I completed the class... 'Completed' if you want to call it that.
Tomorrow is Hatha Yoga. I'm not completely sure that that is, but if it's anything like the Power Yoga, I anticipate another difficult gauntlet of stretches and poses.
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Did you ever get some lighter weights, J? Remember I said to go for the plastic adjustable dumb-bells. They're much cheaper than metal weights, and you can put standard weight plates on them if you ever get to the point of "upgrading:
http://www.kmart.com/sunny-health-fitness-40lb-vinyl-dumbbell-set/p-00648192000P?plpSellerId=Kmart&prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3
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I had actually not touched my lonely weight in a while. I guess I just wasn't sure where I was going with the weight lifting exercise, and so lost motivation in that.
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The Hatha Yoga was pretty alright by the way. I was wrong in my initial idea that there'd only be women and no men, which filled me with some anxiety as I'm always conscious of being seen as a feminine man, but there were a few other men in the last few classes I attended, which is relieving. Older men, but men, so I don't feel as if I'm participating in something that was meant exclusively for women.
These exercises have shown me just how desperately inflexible and off-balance I am. Anything that requires stretching I can only roughly half-do, and anything that requires balancing has me awkwardly tipping over every few seconds. Hopefully I can become limber and agile as I continue.
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Are there dance classes where you are at? Alongside combat based exercise, dancing's fantastic for fitness, and especially building balance and rhythm.
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I looked online, there's a few 'dance academies' in my area. There's a couple actually, which I found surprising, but I think the most likely prospect is a ballroom dancing-centric one. All others seem to be for ballet or children or gymnastic 'motion dance' whatever that is.
Even in the classes I've described so far, even though they've all been held as a group, I've been very much pretending that I'm by myself. I was getting into the yoga one a bit, but one of the walls of that classroom is a big mirror, and I can't help but see myself in it and notice how out of place I look, which is still exactly how I feel, like a foreign and unwanted element in an already perfect ecosystem, and I pollute it just by trying to exist in it as well. I'd mentioned before that I'd read the book Models, by Mark Manson, and he has a pretty good website too that I've been reading every now and again as well. While writing simply for laypeople, everything he writes is so emotionally powerful and moving, I'd mentioned before that I'd have to put his book down every page or so to recoup myself, and if only for that reason I've been holding Mark in very high regard in my mind. For all these social adventures into the outside world, I've been very motivated just by thinking "Would Mark approve of this?", and he would approve of my classes at the Y, so I've been steeling myself and going even if I feel anxious being about these people. I know he definitely would not approve of my persistently passive, avoidant, and anti-social demeanor, so I just have to hope that he'd understand and cut me some slack.
But about dance, I know for certain he'd approve of that, it's written explicitly in the book about finding social activities. If only for that reason, I'll have to give it serious thought.
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Looked at this guy Mark Manson's website, I can definitely imagine falling for his words. There's something fascinating about life coaches and self-help gurus who aren't all that aggressive and self-promoting. I follow a guy on youtube, page is called Charisma on Command, I think you'd like him. Lots of tips on how to deal with social anxiety, interaction all that jazz.
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I haven't forgotten this thread. In fact I think about it nearly every day, and so it passes that today was the day I set out for myself on May 7. I'm still 202 pounds with clothing on, did not break 30 mph on my bicycle, did not crack 1000 miles traversed. I've failed my set goals pretty badly, objectively speaking. Were there events that frequently upset my schedule and prohibited frequent or gainful exercise? Sure, but that's no excuse. It's true that the quality of my life overall has improved considerably, but honestly I could have done better, and I can't help but feel disappointed in myself.
The only thing left to do now is to redouble my efforts, I'm going to come up with a new goal with a new expectation of myself, though exactly what I'm not yet sure.
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If you'd have achieved your achievements, you'e have kicked yourself for not choosing loftier goals, I'm sure.. ;)
I suggest you continue towards the 1000, at least, if not impossible to achieve for other reasons. Your weight goal is something you can head for, draw back from, even overshoot and (in the more severe cases) even be medically advised to head towards from the other direction. Your speed goal isn't something I would personally value (as noted), and may be asymptotically unreachable (it isn't, only 670,616,629 mph is truly that, but still the increased effort might be best spent elsewhere), so perhaps leave that aside as an 'oh look! I just did it!" future incidentally happy occasion.
But you can't do less miles than you currently have, and apart for doing nothing at all (my particular area of expertise!) even spinning the odometer wheel will send you to your goal..!
See how long it gets to get to the 1000, if you want my advice, then factor in the various changes (location, lifestyle, time commitments) in making a 'target' for the next 1000, or even 500, 100, if you can't see too far ahead. I would not exclude too many of your other activities just to make this work. Unless you want to. But you don't have to and other forms of self-improvement exist that you can add to the mix, including those dancing/yoga/etc things you mentioned before, if they still appeal.
Or so is my advice. Take with a pinch of (lo-salt) salt, if you wish, but its there if you want it.
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The only thing left to do now is to redouble my efforts, I'm going to come up with a new goal with a new expectation of myself, though exactly what I'm not yet sure.
Try adding exercise when watching anime or other shows. Combining exercise with something you do for other reasons that's otherwise dead time is a great idea.
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Glad to see you're taking this as a challenge to do better. As for goals, just try doing what you've already set, if not lowering it somewhat, aiming too high is unreasonable and unhelpful in actually getting you to achieve it. At the very least, break down your main goal into smaller subgoals that can be achieved on a regular basis, so you can have the high of success pushing you to your next step, then the next, then the next, so on and so forth.
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My internet will be disconnecting shortly. This isn't a goodbye post, but at the very least it's a post to commemorate this deliberate change in my life, towards altering my life.
I'll still be visiting Bay12 every now and again, though only when I make visits to the library, which is considerably more restrained internet access than having completely unlimited private home access.
It's time to do combat with my first winter in my new apartment.
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I wish you good luck.
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Good luck to you as well BiggerFish. You've been a constant aide mine and everyone's troubles, if only through your simple but sincere support. So, too you as well, because I feel that while you provide people with your optimism, that you yourself also need it from time to time.
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Be well!
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I saw the thread title and never opened it because I do regular exercise so assumed that I dont need to read this.
So I just opened it and I feel like a total arse..
But I am very happy you are improving your health.
I used to be so slow and unhealthy, that led to my mental health declining.
I decided to do weights, get fit and eat less processed foods.
Now every day I feel better and lighter and I am loving it.
I dont have a routine, I just dont drive my car as much, I lift weights until my arms are dead and bike and walk for hours and hours.
I do physical errands for my crew, I do anytype of exercise during video game loading screens or deaths.
I do stretches while brushing my teeth.
I try to fit anything into anytime.
I feel really sexy and I want everybody to feel like this!
Dont stop man. You are on a great path that only has positive results.
Much support and love to you.
KEEP IT UP
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My internet will be disconnecting shortly. This isn't a goodbye post, but at the very least it's a post to commemorate this deliberate change in my life, towards altering my life.
I'll still be visiting Bay12 every now and again, though only when I make visits to the library, which is considerably more restrained internet access than having completely unlimited private home access.
It's time to do combat with my first winter in my new apartment.
Woo, priority setting! :D
Dont stop man. You are on a great path that only has positive results.
Much support and love to you.
KEEP IT UP
What she said \o/ Cheers Joshua! Happy public internet at the library! (Internet + Books = :D)
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Good luck to you as well BiggerFish. You've been a constant aide mine and everyone's troubles, if only through your simple but sincere support. So, too you as well, because I feel that while you provide people with your optimism, that you yourself also need it from time to time.
Thanks, dude.
*hugs*