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[JoshuaFH]

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.

[NRDL]

Awesome man!  This is great, Bay12 needs more fitness threads.  Although, why exactly are you limited to just the road around your trailer park?

[Orange Wizard]

Neat. PTW.

[JoshuaFH]

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.

[Tiruin]

Oh fishie o_o PTW! Nice to see you doing this Joshua!

[Meph]

If anyone needs any bicycling-related tips, regardless what, you can write me a PM.

[wobbly]

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.

[JoshuaFH]

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.

[JoshuaFH]

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.

[NRDL]

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.

[JoshuaFH]

Thanks man, I was doing static ones. I didn't know there was a difference.

[Starver]

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.

[Arx]

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.

[JoshuaFH]

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.

[TheBiggerFish]

I'm going to PTW and cheer you on from the sidelines.