Loop Ride

Went out with PD again. 60km total ride for me. Long loop around the area. Quite nice.

458 / 450

July 27

Workout:

12 minutes on elliptical, as the treadmill was in use.

Shoulder Press - 10x45, 3x10x55, 3x65#

Hammer Strength Iso-Lateral Pulldown - 10x35, 3x10x45, 5x55#

Hammer Strength Iso Low Row - 10x25, 3x10x35, 5x45#

Bike shop, then loop

Rode up to the bike shop to look into panniers and computers, then rode a big loop home.

36.88km

398.12 / 400

I may have to adjust my mileage for the month again... 450?

July 26

11.5 km ride over to Athalos' place and back.

Went to see Inception with him and the lovely Miss M.

361.25 / 350 km

I'm not sure if I'm going to set a new goal for the month at this point. I suppose I could set 400 as a new goal?

I meant to get to the gym too, but that didn't happen.

July 25

I'm really not doing well with getting to the gym on a regular basis.

Squat - 5x45, 5x65, 3x5x95#

Bench Press - 10x65, 3x10x95, 3x105#

Incline Press - 3x10x75#

Shrug - 3x10x95#

Paris and back

Rode to Paris and back.

54.25km

Apparently, I've added up my mileage wrong. Mapmyrun.com says I have 349.75km as my current ride total this month.

Scott Pilgrim #6

I rode up to Chapters to pick up the new Scott Pilgrim book. Then took the long way home.

25.75km

286.25 / 350 km

Montreal?

I have been doing some planning and thinking about making a bike tour out to Montreal this year. I've been thinking September for the tour, to give me enough time to build up the riding muscles.

I'm assuming the tour will take 12 days to complete. If I want to stay in the month of September, that means I need to ride out by no later than the 18th. That gives me about 58 days of prep time to get ready.

But, I think I'd rather leave a little earlier in the month, to give me a bit better chance of warmer weather. I'm thinking the 10th is going to be a better departure date. That leaves me with only 50 days of remaining time to train, and also to pick up all of the gear that I may need for the tour.

50 days to get up to the expected daily mileage, take a couple of shakedown tours, and at the same time, get used to riding with the pack weight on the bike. That's not a lot of time, but I think it may be enough time - if I start now and take this thing just a bit seriously.

I want to do this thing. I know I can.

July 21

No biking today. Gotta give the legs some recovery time.

Workout tonight:

12 mins on treadmill, 5.2 pace 1% incline as warm up.

Bench - 10x65, 3x10x85, 3x95#

Incline Bench - 10x45, 3x10x55, 10x65, 3x75#

Lateral Raise - 3x10x10#

Hammer Strength Iso Low Row - 10x25, 3x10x35#

Body Weight: 201.6#

There and back again

Dropped in on Athalos and the lovely Miss M. We hit the movies. Biked there and back for a total of 11.75km.

260.5 / 250km

Once again, I've hit my goal. There's about 10 days left in the month. Maybe I can make 350?

Workout thinking

I want to be more fit. I really do. I know that I have the potential to be a pretty good (note: not "great" not "awesome" but "pretty good") athlete. If I put my mind to it and get doing things.

Biking has been very good for me. I don't mind the distance much, and I work hard enough to feel it, but not so hard that I'm debilitating myself along the way.

Lifting has also been good for me, in the past. I like lifting. The feeling of hefting a previously unhefted amount of steel overhead is pretty damn awesome. But here, I push too hard and get hurt. Still, it's good for me, if I can just find a way to keep it in check a little bit so that I don't injure myself.

I have a desire for fitness, but I find I haven't got a real motivating force. I can motivate myself by simply pushing myself to do stuff, but that wears thin after a couple of weeks. I need some external motivator to push me, or I need something internal. A reason to keep at it.

So far, finding that reason has been impossible. And, while external motivation is good, it relies on whatever external factor is motivating to stay there constantly. That's tiring for any person to do, and most external situations are temporary.

Goals help, but I find that I'm either too lofty, or not lofty enough when selecting them. Almost always, I end up on the too lofty side.

For biking, I have my external goal. Montreal. 65+ km per day. That's a real, driving force for me. I want to do it. I can do it. I just need to be out there on the bike and ride. And it's worked so far. When I get really serious about it, it'll work even better.

But for all the rest, diet, lifting, running, I don't have a goal. There's no external force that'll remind me that if I don't do the training, I'll never get to enjoy the rewards.

I've thought about signing up for a race. A small one. 5K, maybe. And train for that. But, I don't really want to run a race. I don't want to have to push myself to do 5K, just so that I can come in not-exactly-last. It's not a good motivator for me.

For lifting, I've thought about entering a competition, or pretending to enter one. But, it hasn't helped. I don't think I've got the time or ability to really get into any sort of competition shape.

There's always the idea of a fitness/fatness bet with the guys... but there's no nice way to bring that up, and we're all in such different points in our fitness that there's no way to make the competition even and comparable. I doubt that anyone other than Athalos would even take up the challenge. A two person challenge isn't bad, but I already feel like I'm way behind Athalos in terms of fitness. I'm not sure that it would be a good challenge overall - I'd be very likely to push a bit too hard.

I suppose I could set goals for myself again. But I'm not sure where to start with those right now. My current mindset has been to ignore the weight, and worry about the fitness. If I eat better, and do more physical stuff, the weight will sort itself out.

That's probably a good thing for me, so that I'm not obsessing over calorie counts. Besides, right now, I really don't want to have to restrict myself too much. I know, it goes against the idea of becoming fitter - but as I said, I'm just not sure which way I'm headed with things right now. For a goal to work, it has to be useful. And I can't think of any useful goals with lifting at the moment - other than setting up a target weight and working towards that. Which I probably should be doing anyway.

I suppose that for the moment, I should be looking to make hitting the gym a habit. Past that, everything else will come in its own time.

Circle Cambridge Ride

Rode around the outside edge of Hespeler region. 21.75km

Starts with a long, slow uphill, then becomes mostly flat until Franklin. Franklin is a big downhill for the first half, but I was pushed to the sidewalk by the unhappy drivers. Dundas is all downhill until the bridge, then it's easy goings again.

Took me about 1.5 hours, including time for some grocery shopping just before I got home. I'd say 80 minutes total.

248.75 / 250km

Thoughts on workouts

I've always been pretty good about writing or telling people about my successes. I think most people are. We want recognition for the things we've done. Besides, a little praise is a great motivator.

I've been less good about telling people about the problems I have. I don't mean about injuries or physical limitations - I'm pretty good about telling people about those. Rather, I mean telling people about the things I didn't do, like when I skip a workout, or when I make a workout easier than it should be for myself. I'm also bad about telling people about the poor choices I make when it comes to food. Like, buying a dozen large cookies and eating them all myself. Or buying a carton of ice cream and simply sitting down with it and a spoon and eating until I don't feel like I want ice cream any more.

Well, this post is hopefully the start of a change for the better. I'd like to be a bit more open about my failings, and not just my successes.

As a starter, today was a pretty good day. I got a bike ride in this morning. I got to the gym this evening, even though I rode. I had intended to do some squats, but chickened out of them, and made up an all arm day workout instead. On the food side of things, I picked fries over rice or salad, and I bought myself a carton of ice cream - though I didn't eat that much of it.

I'd like to make some changes in the way I eat. I know I'm not very good at making the healthy choices. I also know that the best way to make healthier choices is to have healthy food around. Nothing that could be considered unhealthy. I'll have to go through the kitchen and clear things out. I'm already eliminating the trash from the rest of the house, I might as well carry on through there too.

July 18

Workout:

Treadmill - 14 minutes @5.2, 1% incline

Bench Press - 10x45, 10x65, 3x10x75, 3x85#

Incline Bench - 10x45, 3x10x5, 3x65#

Preacher Curl - 10x25, 10x35, 3x10x45#

Lateral Raise - 3x10x10#

Hammer Strength Iso Low Row - 10x25, 3x10x45#

Sunday Ride

14.25km

227 / 250km

Long ride

46.25km today, all over the place.

Total km so far:

212.75 / 250km

Game night

Rode over to Lindorm's place for games. 10.5km overall.

163.5 /250

Movie night!

Rode up to the theatre to watch Despicable Me. Wasn't a bad film. Stopped at the bookstore to pick up Scott Pilgrim #4 and #5. Then rode to shop for a burger, and then home.

23km

156 / 150km

I have reached my goal, and it's only the 13th. That's pretty awesome in my opinion. I'm just gonna keep tracking how far I go. And, I'll reset the goal to 250km this month. I should be able to make the extra 100km.

Workout

My last workout in my logbook was May 30. That's a month and a half of time lost. Stupid me. Real stupid.

Gah! I pay my money, and then I don't use the gym. Why!

So, I went today. Time to get something for my money:

15 minutes on treadmill to warm up.

Bench: 12x45#, 12x65#, 3x12x75#

Hammer Strength Tricep Pressdown: 3x12x70#

Decline Bench: 12x45#, 2x12x55#

Bicep Curl: 3x12x10#

Not much of a workout, but a start. I'm always starting!

Errands

Another errand run. Rode to mall to get new socks, then took long way around to get some crickets, then long way to grocery store, then home. 10km total.

133 / 150km

Long (for me) ride

Rode to New Dundee and back. 44km total.

Nice ride, about 3 hours total time out. That's 14.67kph. Slow, but average for me.

But, about 30 minutes of that was shopping, and resting after shopping. So, that's 17.6kph, which is a good bit faster than my usual speed.

On the ride I bought 2 bananas, a popsicle (cherry) and 2L of ice cream (cookies and cream). Going to rest up for a bit today I think.

123 / 150km

Errands

Quick ride to get some shopping done. 7.75km

79/150 km

Long ride around

21.5km riding about with Athalos. Mostly street riding. Hit the game store, food, then off to visit Miss M and then off to just ride for a bit. Some hills, nothing too major overall.

70.25 / 150km

Biking

Rode 10.25km to hang out with friends and play in a really long M:TG game.

58.75 / 150

Grocery run

8.75km on bike.

Picked up some groceries from the store. Went a bit of a senic route. I need to do more loaded riding to get used to the difference in feel over unloaded riding.

Grabbed me 6 sesame bagels, a block of 5 year-old cheddar, 1.75L Lemonade, 2 pounds of Empire apples, 5 bananas and 2 avocados. A good ride.

48.5 / 150km

Mileage

13.75km today.

Rode over to Athalos' place - he got called away to work. Rode on to grocery store, picked up a few things, fries at the fry place, rode home. Ice cream bars. Yummy!

Total: 39.75 /150km

Biking

Today I got 26Km done. Variable street, back highway and trail. Got a lot of sun. Need to remember to pack sunscreen. Also got the Brakes fixed. Total riding time was just over an hour.

Hills were relatively low, with what I would call mid-length medium grades. Pushed through and kept off the smallest chainring the whole ride.

I need to do more of this.

July: 26 / 150