One Hundred Pushups

Anyone who knows me well knows that I haven't lost significant weight in the past year. Initially, I started bike commuting out of necessity, then I kept doing it because I was losing weight (and lost about 60 pounds at my best), and somewhere I just quit caring about the health benefits. I bike and bus all over the place. I get more exercise than many people in America's Fat Belt, but I've succumbed to complacency.

This has left me with muscular legs, a heart that's stronger than it's ever been before, above-average lung function, and yet I still don't have a lot of core strength. My weak, useless arms and flabby belly remain from my decade of lethargy. I haven't GAINED any weight in the last year, but I haven't actually improved my fitness, either. To that end, hammering more miles won't get me where I want. Sure, a refined diet and more calories burned would eventually start melting away my excess weight but it wouldn't do much for my upper body.

So, the goal is simple. Last night, I started the 100 Pushups program. It was my initial assessment, and I was able to execute 10 well-formed consecutive pushups. Weak, but you have to start somewhere. The goal is this: in 6 weeks, be able to do 100 in a row.

After doing just ten measly pushups for the initial test last night, I'm already feeling it this morning: abs, pecs, arms -- all of them are letting me know they're accounted for.

Has anyone tried this program before? Any luck?

Everyone else is doing it.

I've broken "Prime Directive 2009".

Not because I'm lazy (I am, kind of) or because it's cold (it is), or because we've already put a thousand miles on our vehicles since new years (we have done no such thing!), but I've just lost track of my miles, completely.

I haven't even bothered trying to figure out how many I've ridden this week. It hasn't been a ton, but I've run a bunch of errands both downtown and near home. I've taken some strange routes, too. I don't have a computer on The Goat. Back in the summer time when The Goat was a purely trail-use machine, I removed it and gave it to a co-worker who was getting into cycling. And you know what? I don't miss it.

Playing the numbers game was one way to keep myself motivated. Maybe I'll give it a shot next year, or maybe when I'm back to the Road Bike full time and actually have an odometer with me, I'll see if I can hold my own against the automobile miles.

For the time being, though, I really like not feeling pressured to fire up the spreadsheet and enter my miles, while on top of it trying to remember where I rode and guess how many miles each trip was.

I'll probably just stick to enjoying the ride.

Prime Directive 2009

This is our Focus' Odometer. Everyone wave. It's friendly.


This is our Explorer's Odometer. It's easier to photograph. Kinda.


I'm going to try to top whatever miles that my wife and I accumulate on these two vehicles combined. I'll post periodic updates. And I suppose I need to update my spreadsheet to track month-to-month how much driving we've managed to do.

Most popular photos of 2008

Also, I did it. 5,001.7 miles. I thought this moment would come with a lot more fanfare from me. Quite frankly, I feel like poo, and I probably shouldn't even be at work. I've got too much going on, though.

With that aside, here were the most popular photos of 2008 according to my Flickr Stats. I modified it to show only the ones I've posted here. Some are popular that I never posted here (and don't really belong here).

I need to go through and come up with my 10 personal favorites, because I have some favorites I took that weren't terribly popular on Flickr.

Not An Agent


Raglan Road in Kansas City


I Hit a GOOSE!


Epic Fail


Lego Bicycle


Homebrew Velomobile


Cassette Bottle Opener


Vegas Bike Cops (Taken at DefCon 16)


Zoom (Taken at DefCon 16)

Weekend Errands

Saturday morning, we were woken up to this: Crazy winds, thunderstorms and madness.


Temperatures fell rapidly. Wind gusts around here were about 50 MPH. There were some places where it was closer to 80!


It was snowing lightly last night, and I decided to take my new coat out for a whirl and picked up some groceries. My parents got me some new cold weather gear for Christmas. This is just the outer layer, but it's significantly thicker than the ski coat shell I was using.


I left early to ride to church, which was being held at our fellowship facility since a lot of people are out of town. It's about a 12 mile ride. This stretch of road near Old Town Lenexa hadn't been plowed or salted yet.


After church, Pastor Kev invited us to Minsky's, one of my favorite pizza shops. I rode there, too. It was a bit out of the way, but worth it. We ordered one ginormous pizza for everyone (and a medium cheese pizza for the kids)


The Goat was getting awfully grimy after the past few days in the snow and slush. I hosed it down before bringing it in.


All told, I put on almost 30 miles this weekend. That means I've got 52 left to go.

November Recap

It's been a heck of a month. I had November penciled in for 250 miles when I went arbitrarily throwing miles into months to come up with my 5,000 mile goal. I sqeaked by with just a few more than that, entering November at a deficit of 276 miles and exiting with 267.

That means I have to log 384 miles this month. Assuming I'm man enough to really do the 200k permanent with c'Dude on December 6th, I will be home free, barring any major unforseen incidents. If I don't make that ride or find a lot of evening recreation rides to go on, I could be doomed.

I love my windbreaker

I always get a little more room on the road when I wear it.


I definitely needed it this morning, too.

Went on the Monday Night Ride yesterday, and my wife actually came and hung out with us afterwards. Her medical issues have kept her off the bike this year, but getting out and socializing is something she doesn't do nearly enough. Social Anxiety Disorder isn't just "all in your head" or excessive shyness, so this is a pretty big deal, and I'm proud of her.

It sounds like next week's Monday Night Ride will be a halloween-themed ride. No, we won't all dress up, but we'll do the traditional ride to Sauer Castle like we did last year.

On my way to work this morning, I surpassed last year's mileage total (4,236) so I've got about 760 miles to go to make my goal of 5,000 miles for the 2008. Things are starting to get blustery, and the threat of precipitation is looming. Will I make it?

Random Tunage:
Plumb - In My Arms
Orbital - Know Where To Run

Busy Busy Busy

Where to begin?

Recreation
Last night, I did the Monday night ride and picked up a few miles more than I would have. I revised my goals for February (I'll discuss this more at the end of this post) and I really have to step up the miles this month.

Commuting
This morning was seriously blah. It was misty on the way to work, raining by the time I got downtown, and just cold enough to be in that temperature range that I absolutely loathe when it's raining.

I might as well cover my evening commute too. It's even cooler, still raining but it's toned down a bit. It's hard to call a bike commute "fun" when the weather is like this, but I'd take it over being in a car.

Advocacy
I spent my lunch hour at KCMO city hall making a somewhat futile attempt to stand up for better bicycle parking. By 11:45, the city hadn't even finished with the stuff on 10:00-11:00 docket. Then they took a break for lunch and to go into closed session for a while. I left my contact info with Deb Ridgway, KCMO's Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator. Several others were there that couldn't stick around until 1:00 or later, but according to Eric from KCBike.info, our appearance made a difference. There's still a long way to go, but this is a big step in the right direction for cyclists in the metro. A big thanks to all the others that showed up, including the President of the Johnson County Bike Club. Even though we don't live in Kansas City, we certainly ride there and this has an impact on us as well.

2008 Goals
I revamped my 2008 goals, and they may be further amended. The reason I'm doing this is because there's no way I could have logged 420 outdoor "real" riding miles in January. there's not much hope for me getting that many this month, either. To further complicate things, November and December of 2008 will also likely suffer. Meanwhile, I've proven that closing in on 700 miles in the warmer months is not a problem. I'm shooting for 300 miles for February. That's an average of 11+ miles per day until the 29th, or 15 miles per day if only riding 5x a week which is the norm for me. I'm banking on a few nice days and full round-trips this month.

Random Tunage:
Bangles - Manic Monday (Only Monday?! It's been a manic WEEK so far!)
Goo Goo Dolls - Listen

Plans for '08

You may have noticed (but probably didn't) that I never bothered to talk about my expectations for 2008. Part of this is because my only new year resolutions were to take life as it comes and try to enjoy as much of it as I can. I didn't want to come off like I had some cycling-specific resolutions. These are simply goals and expectations from myself.

Goal #1:
Pack on at least 5,000 miles total for 2008. That's about 420 miles per month or about 100 miles per week. I won't make 420 for January, but given my riding pattern over last summer, I can pretty much guarantee I'll have several months with 500-700 miles. It won't be easy, but it's less than 800 miles more than I rode in 2007. I'm already ahead of where I was by this time last year, but not by enough of a margin to catch 5,000. I'll definitely need to work hard to meet this goal.

Goal #2:
I will ride a genuine century ride. Last year, I did a metric century in one run of things during the last official C'Dude full moon ride. The ride itself was less than 40 miles, but I rode to and from the start point to put me at 70ish miles in one sitting. Combined with my 30-mile round trip commute, I did ride 101 miles in one day, but I still consider that day as just a metric. I want to ride a real century in '08. Maybe two. I don't care if it's a massive event like the Lone Star Century, just cruising the countryside with Chris, 'Dude, Badger or Dave, or even on my own.

Goal #3: 2007 brought with it 25 car commutes. I want it to be 0 this year, but I'll settle for anything under 10.

Expectations:
I expect that my lungs and heart will continue to get more efficient and that I'll end up more endurance because of this.

I expect to finally start losing weight again. I lost about 50 pounds from when I started riding, but gained 15 of those back this winter. I never, ever dropped below 190, but I bounced against 190.0 several times. Once I clear 190, I expect to never see 200 pounds again. Period. We'll see how that works out. I feel better now at 205 than I felt at 180 when I was bulking up on my lethargy phase, so I'd rather not worry about weight and worry more about how I feel. Weight loss is not a goal, so I'm not tracking it too much. I weigh myself once, maybe twice monthly.