First Ride of the Year!

January 1, 2009: 9.09 miles on the bike at an average of 13.9 mph. No hills, of course; it was the river path. Oh, sure, it's nothing to sing and dance about, but not too shabby. In fact, it made me - again - wonder why I don't do it more often. (Or, really, considering the last year, at all.)

I made the mistake of telling my father that I rode today instead of yesterday because I wanted to make today the first ride of the year. His response: "If you rode yesterday, that would have been the last of the year." True. But the sad fact stood out: it also would have been the first and only ride of 2008.

Anything else to report? Well, I reluctantly weight trained today. Why am I so reluctant about it? It's an absolute killer. I kid you not. I'm using bodyweight exercises, and trust me: when you're using 234 pounds of bodyweight, those exercises are just too, too much. Except for the one-leg bridges and modified push-ups, my heart/lungs cry out and I get dizzy long before my muscles give up. Well... maybe "long before" is a slight hyperbole, but it is somewhat ironic that my heartrate shoots up more by my weight training than my pre-WT cardio warmup. I suppose it doesn't help that they're "supersets", either. What keeps me going: knowing how awesomely strong I will be in the long run. I mean, think about it. As I build strength and stamina at this weight, think about what that will translate into at a lower weight if I keep up the effort... and manage to avoid passing out and falling into a coma, of course. Small detail.

The picture on the right? That's from the "end of the road" from my river ride today. There were also shopping carts. Shopping carts? The nearest grocery store is waaaayyyy far away. It is a mystery. This hand-scrawled cardboard sign, however, is not. The bike path just stops. Done. Turn around and return to whence you came. "Lands End." This makes me smile.