Ok folks, time for a weekly wrapup. I’ve been doing good in my riding this week and only took one day (Thursday) off and that’s because I was super tired. Work has been crazy (it gets that way at the end of the month) and I had stayed up too late on Wednesday. Something had to give. I can still easily make my 5.5 hour riding goal as I’ve ridden every other day this week and plan on a 1.5 hour ride tomorrow.

Last night my youngest daughter had an audition at one of the local magnet schools that specializes in the arts. She was more than ready to get it over with as she had been practing a lot. We had to be there no later than 6 PM so we arrived early (“If you can’t be on time, be early” is my motto) and I’m glad we did. There must have been 500 kids there auditioning for spots in programs like visual arts, band, voice, creative writing, and dance. The theater was jammed with kids and parents. Little did I know that I would be pushed to my physical limits.

The school officials promptly called the kids back to the testing rooms at 6 PM. Parents weren’t allowed to leave the theater. It was filled to capacity with parents, siblings of kids auditioning, and it was hot. I told my wife I would stay and bring our daughter home so she could head home to do stuff she needed to do. That may have been an error in judgement.

Saturday marked the completion of the first week of Cycling for Optimal Weight – a Mission. As you know, I’ve been off the bike for what might as well have been about two months after only riding for 41 miles in Nov and Dec 2010. Following my goals post a couple of weeks ago I started on the Cycling for Optimal Weight plan authored by Darryl at Loving the Bike and Kelli of Apex Nutriton.

Last week saw me do more riding in one week than I have since Sep 6-12, 2010 and it felt great.

I’m well into my mision of Cycling for Optimal Weight. The last few days I’ve been reading the information Kelli sent back to me including my health assessment, recommended supplementation and eating plans. As she said in an email to me, it’s a lot to ‘digest’ all at once. Once I have a handle on the supplements and meals I’ll do more detailed posts on those areas of the plan. I’m really excited about this if you can’t tell.

It never fails that when you start a new diet, training plan, or resolution that you’re bound to have something try and derail your progress and motivation right away. It happened to me yesterday. I’m supposed to get 5.5 hours in on the bike this week and was on track to do that after my ride on Tuesday morning. All I needed to do was ride for my hour each morning from Tuesday-Friday and then 1.5 hours on Saturday morning. Not so fast my friend.

Before I get into today’s blog post, I wanted to tell you about my ride this morning. I knew it was going to be cold (in the twenties) but I knew I wanted to ride. I needed to ride. My body needed to be forced to work. The alarm went off at 5 AM and a quick look at my phone confirmed that the temp was 28F with windchill down to 19F. I hopped out of bed and went about the task of getting kitted up. Tights. Long sleeve thermal baselayer. Bibs. Long sleeve jersey. Socks. Shoes with shoe covers. Balaclava. Full-fingered gloves. Helmet. Jacket. I was ready to roll.

I can’t describe to you how crisp the air is on these cold, clear winter mornings. Venus looked like somebody from the heavens was shining a flashlight at me. The stars looked like they were held in suspended animation between the earth and the sky. Just awesome.

This morning I was able to climb back onto the bike after a lay off of about three weeks or so. Why the lay off? Several reasons actually. First, I’ve been sick on and off again. I got really sick about three weeks ago but a couple of times since then I’ve had some relapses where I’ve experienced significant sinus issues, migraine headaches, and generally feeling like dog poop. Yes, dog poop. It wasn’t until about five days or so ago that I’ve actually started to feel good. Second, my morning routine of riding was thrown into a death spiral when my wife was asked to take a long-term substitute teaching job at one of the local high schools. Her being asked to do that was an answer to prayer but it meant I had to take one of our daughters to school three days a week. I could have still ridden but it would have meant getting up at 5 AM to do so. There’s a couple of other reasons but I’m not going to bother you with them.