Last night I had to go to bed early. As I mentioned in my summary yesterday, I just felt depleted all day long. I didn’t feel 100% when I got up this morning, and even hit the snooze once, before rolling myself out of bed.

Once outside everything seemed ok. I gave the weather a check by walking out of the garage and I started to have second thoughts. The temp was great but there were some dark clouds being blown from West to East by a STIFF wind. On the surface, though, I couldn’t detect any wind at all. I said, “So what” and proceeded to grab my bike. After only getting two days of riding in last week I wasn’t about to forfeit another ride unless the weather was abysmal.

Once I started everything seemed to go pretty good. The air had a slight chill to it but it wasn’t bad. Traffic seemed a little light, which was nice, and I saw several runners this morning. It’s always good to see other folks out. I didn’t see any cyclists though. I must have been the only with the guts to get up on a Monday morning at 5:00 am to ride.

After feeling not-so-good yesterday I made a conscious decision to not push it too hard this morning. I cruised most of the circuit right around 13 mph. I encountered a little wind on the second half that was coming out of the South but it wasn’t bad. Certainly not bad enough to affect my riding.

Once I turned onto the last straightaway towards home I shifted to the big gear and pushed it the rest of the way in. I didn’t hammer it but I did work up a sweat.

I’m waiting on my youngest daughter to finish up ballet practice so I’m sitting at Panera Bread (sipping a wonderful Hazelnut coffee) typing this post so I don’t have my numbers with me. I’ll post them later when I get home.

The numbers for today’s ride are: 11.52 miles, 52:26, 16.1 mph max, and 13.1 mph avg

After having three straight days off the bike I was ready to ride again. I wasn’t sure what to expect because of my short layoff but I was optimistic.

5:00 AM came bright and early and I was ready. I had a new set of bibs and a shirt come in the mail yesterday so I was eager to try them out. I’d also installed a new front light to increase my visibility to oncoming traffic. The air was a little chilly this morning but not bad. Once I got to spinning I warmed up quickly.

My first long straightaway I was cooking. I was averaging around 14 mph which is about what I saw on my last couple of bicycle rides. Traffic seemed rather light this morning and I wasn’t complaining. As I neared my first turn I couldn’t believe how good I felt. The bibs felt good, the legs felt good, and I was movin’. The rest must have done me some good. During this stretch I’m pushing along anywhere from 14 to 16 mph. As I neared my turnaround point I slowed down a bit due to a little uphill work and because I wanted to conserve my energy for the second half.

This evening I went for a short drive and found my route for the morning ride.  It’s an eleven mile loop that starts and ends at my garage.  There are bike lanes for 95% of the route which will be nice but one section of the route is on a very busy road.  With the time I’ll be riding, though, I don’t plan on running into much traffic.  Another good thing is that there are sidewalks and streetlights for most of the route as well.  Another handy feature is that there are a couple of opportunities to extend the route for longer rides on the weekend.  It’s like this was made just for me.  Thank you city engineer for taking my future riding into consideration when you constructed this pristine loop.

Today is 16-Apr.  I plan on embarking on my journey to the new me on the morning of 21-Apr.

I’m sure you’re asking by now why I’ve decided to ride a bike to help me lose these 100 pounds. For me the reason was simple. Riding a bicycle is the only endurance sport that I’ve ever been any good at.

Running is out of the question. Ever since I can remember I’ve always had a difficult time running long distances. It always hurt my calves to run much further than a mile and it still does to this day. In high school the max distance I ran was the 200 meter sprint. My bread-and-butter was the opening leg of the 4×100 meter relay. I was fast out of the blocks and a very good sprinter over short distances. In the off-season we would run long distance just to build endurance and I hated it. Even after joining the military I never became accustomed to it. I attended Officer’s Candidate School (OCS) in the mid-90s and was forced to run long distance. I had to in order to graduate. Not to mention that those Marine Corps drill instructors were very motivating! Man I’ve got some stories! Anyway, I left OCS in the best shape of my life but that quickly deteriorated because of my lack of desire to run. About five years later I had to have surgery on my ankle to remove bone spurs and some floating bone fragments. Needless to say my dreams of becoming a long-distance ultra-marathoner were over. Seriously, that was never a dream of mine!

By now I’m sure you’ve had a chance to think about the title of the blog.  Biking To Live.  It means what it says.  Biking To Live.  I’ve undertaken a personal challenge to ride my bike in order to live again.  Why?  Because I need to.  Here’s why.

If you read my About Me page you’ll think that I’m your average guy with a job and family.  We have a good life and have been very fortunate.  What you can’t tell from my profile is that I have 100 things wrong with me.  Most people have traits others may not like but they are generally hidden and can only be experienced when you spend a great deal of time with them.  Call them idiosyncrasies.  I, on the other hand, wear my problem in public for everyone to see.  Many people have the same problem I do.  Too many.  What’s my problem?  I’m overweight to the tune of 100 pounds.