RTAWW #8 The Touch… The Feel… Of saANd, The Story Of Our Lives

      I woke up at 5 this morning as I’ve been doing for the past few weeks and went for my morning walk.  I walk/jog 3-4 miles depending on what I feel like doing, or really it depends on how good the book that I’m listening to is or how bad I want to get through it. I’m not too excited about the book that I’m listening to so the walk was shorter, besides it was windy. It was windy all night and was still windy when I went walking. I’d say the winds were something like 10mph probably stronger, but I’ll keep my guess safe as the actual speed in my area – the weather at the airport recorded wind speeds of 20-40 miles an hour at the time of my walk and it’s not more than 10 miles away (point being it was windy). Took a trip to the Asian market, which is always fun, and got a few things for several soups that we like. Have I mentioned I like soups? When we got home, my mother in law had prepared some…guess what…soup! Some pea soup. It was delicious!

      The highlight of this day again was riding with my kids. We went out again and they were much more confident today than yesterday – maybe a bit too confident.  My oldest son face-planted into some sand. He came roaring down a hill and I imagine he thought that he would be able to go through the sand or slow down easily in it because yesterday the sand was a bit more wet from rain and he had gone through some short patches of it, but he went about 10 ft started took a swerve left, corrected right in the shifty sand and KuhFWAhP! It took a few seconds for the pain to set in of having his handlebar jabbing him in the abdomen but it did. Luckily my wife and mother in law were strolling around in the park when it happened and came to calm him down. After spitting out all of the sand in his mouth and getting it out of his hair and off his face he calmed down and in a few minutes he was riding around again – but now making sure to steer clear of the sand. Big time kudos to him for get back on and riding. Earlier he had told me that he fell off somewhere that I hadn’t seen but said it was not big deal because stuff like that happens in life, but you just have to get up and keep going. I do believe that is pretty sound advice from a child.

      Mostly we’ve been riding around on grass, which I know is difficult to ride on, but I’m thinking about the long term here – they’re building up some great strength pushing those pedals to trudge through the grass so once we do hit up some bike paths and easy dirt roads, it’s going to be super easy for them.  They actually know that it’s harder (they first learned on blacktop), but I think they feel more comfortable on the grass for now. Plus it’s more fun to go fun to go up and down hills. As long as they’re having fun, I’m having fun!  And having fun on a bike usually means that I’m not going to be stressed or depressed or gaining weight. Bada-bing Bada-boom.

      Time for a recovery sleep – got to do some drivin’ tomorrow that I wasn’t expecting.  Ride on!

RTAWW #7 - Riding is Miraculous and more!

Bikes are just amazing.  It's thrilling to ride, fun to challenge yourself or try something new, and a great workout.  It's even better when you get to do ride with your family. Today I ventured to get my kids riding bikes again.  They had learned over the summer and had gained a bit of confidence, but after school started, colder weather set in, and their bikes got roasted, they fell out of the rhythm and it was difficult to get them going. They were both super excited to get new bikes for Christmas (which was a miracle in and of itself because their bikes were a gift from a family that we don't even know that decided to 'adopt' our family for Christmas - we're so thankful for their kindness, words can't really express it but seeing my kids smile as they rolled down a 80-90 ft hill with 25% grade and then ride around a lesser incline to get back to the top at which point one of them, my older son, let out a "YAHOOO!").  It took a few balancing games and some push starts but they got the hang of it and I know that they'll get better and better. They already want to go out and ride tomorrow, but they want to leave earlier so we can ride longer! Our ride was described as "epic" and I had to let them know that there's lots more where that came from and riding just keeps on being epic. It was fun to have my wife out riding too. I guess the point of all this is to say that bikes are miraculous, amazing, epic, and make you go "YAHOO!" Ride on, Eat less, Move more, and Keep breathing...and drink more water. 

RTAWW #6

The header came back to the page, but now the color is gone - at least that is what I'm seeing on my laptop's view of the page and I didn't even mess with it. So...Sunday is my weekly weigh in day.  I only weigh in once a week and try to stay off the scale because I think it messes with me mentally when I see my weight fluctuating throughout the week, and because I only weigh in once, I try to make sure that that one weigh-in is a good one so I have to pay attention to my activities and eating throughout the week to make sure it (my weight) goes in the right direction - down. Thankfully my weight went down this week. My last official weigh in was 181.6 and this one was 178.6.  That's great - a bit under a kilo and half. It's the first week since we were displaced by the fire that my weight has gone down so I feel really good about it. I hope I can keep up the progress and be consistent - like I am with these daily journal blog post thingys.
       I have some ideas for topics to write about but I don't really feel like writing right now because I need to plan some stuff for tomorrow.  I hereby claim today as Short Sunday. And tomorrow will be Mini Monday, then Tiny Tuesday, then Where Was Wednesday, then Thoughtless Thursday, then Fabulously Fickle Friday, and Shorter Saturday.  I sure they won't all be short and I'll have pictures and such. Besides I need to talk about my new bike!!!! Ride on! Eat less, move more, and keep breathing.

RTAWW #5 - eat less, move more...drink more water

No picture or anything today. "Andrew, you're so boring." Me: Shrug my shoulders and say, "eh," which is to imply, "oh well, what do you do?" So, I did good today at the eat less. I can't say that it's anything new, but I did my normal 8 hr window of eating which often turns into a 6 or less hours like today.  But while I ate less today, I didn't move so much - unless you consider traveling 400 miles moving ;). Yes, I was trapped in a car most of the day which isn't the best situation for eating healthy food since I like thinks like popcorn to munch on to keep me awake or like that last time I made this same trip, my mom gave me a box of Dewar's peanut butter chews - so I had to eat them. All of them. Of course I ate them to keep myself awake. If you don't know what Dewar's peanut butter chews are, I'm sorry you haven't lived yet. They are good, and if you're ever in Bakersfield and you do the ice cream thing, then I would check out Dewar's (and Rosemary's - probably my favorite ice cream). I bet you can order a box of chews on their website. Anyway, moving on away from sweets. I wanted to say that I love water. Water is my weight loss "secret."  I truly believe that water is what allows me to eat less easily. I've noticed that if I'm not drinking enough water, then I'm eating more and that means that I'm likely gaining weight.  When I am drinking enough water, I've noticed that my appetite is curbed. I try to drink most of my water in the morning and then throughout the day and only a bit at night so I'm not getting up all night. The point is, that water made my long trip relatively easy because I had my camelbak bottle hanging out with me in the cup holder next to my seat. Water's good for other stuff to like staying alive - or lesser things like not getting headaches or keeping your body functioning properly so you don't get sick as easily. OK that's all, I didn't do too much today, but water is good and kept me feeling fine on our trip back to Bakersfield. So eat less, move more, and keep breathing, and drink water.  Tomorrow I weigh-in. 

RTAWW # 4 - Maybe a few thoughts on Zwift and Strava

     So, the header to my blog disappeared. I'll have to figure that out sometime, but I don't think it's on my super important things to do list.  I was wondering what I should write about today - maybe my love for soup (I had some miso soup today), or about writing to several bike companies and their responses, or about the new (used) bike that I got a screamin' wicked good deal on, but I think I want to talk a little about some thoughts on Zwift and Strava. I got to thinking about this while I went on a walk today at Upper Bidwell Park - here:

      For those who don't know, Zwift is a like a computer game that you are able to attach to your bike trainer so you can spin on your bike at home and race/ride in various places (in the world?) on your tv screen.  It's a nice way to make spinning a bit more fun and interesting.  Strava is an app that tracks your riding/running which is shared with people who "follow" you. It also has many other little features which help you track progress and such. 

       I was thinking about Zwift because someone I know was asking if/how/why people like using Zwift.  The overall consensus that I'm taking from reading the replies is that people who use it like it.  I've never used it and don't have the money to buy a nice "smart" trainer to make the gaming experience accurate and worth your time.  I'm not sold on the idea.  I think it is cool that you can kind of interact with other people and the best feature is that it is great for getting in a ride (spinning) with little time because it's done in the convenience of your home and can be done in any weather.  The down side is, in my opinion, that it may detract from people taking the time to get out and getting that fresh air and actually interacting with people and nature. The other thing is that in my experience with spinning is that most people don't publicly share their spinning sessions.  I don't think that they need to - I pretty much never have (maybe a few times by manually entering the activity into Strava). This aspect of sharing activities is what made me think of Strava. I've had mixed emotions about using Strava for a while now.  I don't really use it much anymore. But I think that's about to change. The reason that I will start using Strava again is because, I think it is important to share your rides. I like seeing that my friends were out for a ride. I get ideas on places where I can ride. I get to see the sites that they saw (if they share a picture or two from the ride). And maybe most importantly, I get inspired to get out and enjoy a bike ride myself. 

     The connection of the two - Zwift and Strava - is that I see Zwift as a potential to detract from inspiring others to get out and ride your bikes where people can see cyclists. Not only does getting out and riding in public healthy for you, but it can inspire others to ride, and help the public image of cycling (for commuting or health or fun) - especially if you obey the law by not running stop signs or using hand signals and so on. 

     The short story is that I think both programs have their place, but I think it is important for people to get out into the fresh air where they can see others and others can see them so maybe more people will want to ride and enjoy life on two wheels. Ride on!

RTAWW #3

Who doesn't love an acronym? Third day into this and I'm already tired of writing out my own title to the "series."  The good news is that I'm pretty darn happy with my day today.  I was able to do a good amount of reading for my thesis paper and in between I did various stretches and exercises. I'm sure I'll talk about them in more depth as I figure out a better routine or schedule for doing them.  I also watched some GCN videos on Youtube today.  I particularly liked this one about time efficient training.

As usual they have some good advice, but I think the biggest take away is that consistency is key. Today felt like a day that was more consistent with my goals as far as eating and staying more active.  This evening my wife and I went on a walk to get the heart rate up and the legs stretched out and even though it was a bit cold, it felt great (even my wife, who needed quite a bit of persuasion to go for this walk, said that it felt good and that she was glad that I talked her into going for the walk.
      Another thing that came up in the video is that having some kind of goal might be a good idea, so I'm tentatively setting one for myself for the distant future - a year and a half-ish into the future.  I'd like to do the Sherman Pass RR (climb) again if it's still going on, or at least go at it at race pace and see if I can smash my only attempt from several years ago.
       The last bit, which is my favorite part of the video, is the emphasis on the importance of getting adequate rest - exactly what I'm going to do right now. Ah, yes, sleep. 

Road to a Weight Weenie #2

So because someone was questioning my title from yesterday, I will inform the plebs ;) as to the meaning of the title. Our good friends at urbandictionary.com have this as a definition:

weight weenie

Road Bicycle enthusiast who becomes obsessed with subtracting weight from his bicycle at all costs, including overriding safety concerns and practicality. A Weight Weenie will always replace a 100 gram component with a 99 gram component regardless of all other factors, including cost, durability, and overall design and functionality. Materials that are commonly used in the pursuit of lightness include: aluminum, carbon fiber, composites, and titanium.

Your bike weighs only 8 pounds, you must be a total Weight Weenie !

The point is that I'm trying to be concerned with weight. The easiest way to have less weight while riding a bike is to lose weight of your body (it happens to be the cheapest way too!) so that's what I'm going for.  Maybe after I get a bit lighter myself, I'll concern myself with my future bikes. 

I spent most of my day in our car driving through California, so I can't say that my eating practices today were the best, but I stuck to my time frame of eating so I don't feel too bad. I'll probably only feel bad about it if I weigh in on Sunday more than I did this morning. I usually don't weigh myself but once a week, but I figured I should put an official weigh up, and this morning I was 181.6.  The plan is to weigh less than that on Sunday. Have a good night.  "Move More, Eat Less, and Keep Breathing!"