Biking – Good and Bad

So I’ve been putting time in on the bike.  Doing the Shiner GASP in May has got me a bit motivated which is good.  I’ve been using my mountain bike lately because I need repairs on the road bike which I can’t really afford right now.  And unfortunately turns out the mountain bike needs some repairs too, and I just got it back from the shop, so I will be taking it back in tomorrow to see what’s up.  Just some loose spokes so it shouldn’t be a big deal, but still.  So that’s the bad.

Anyways, today I was suppose to ride an easy 15 miles with a friend.  But he got a migraine and so canceled out.  No worries, I headed to MP myself and was thinking about my workouts this week and how they just won’t fit into the schedule too well because of other things going on.  I started thinking about doing more than the 15 miles so my Thursday ride can be shorter since I’m busy that day.  But after the first 5 miles, I realized how fast I was going and decided to keep the tempo going and see just how fast I could do the 15 in on the mountain bike.  Then as I got closer to the 15, I decided to up it to one hour to see how far I can go in one hour at a good tempo. And as it turns out I managed 17.32 miles.  Which is not a bad speed for the mountain bike and for me being out of shape!  I can totally see me getting quite a bit faster with the consistent training.  After that, I spun easy for another 9 miles, so got a total of 26ish in tonight.  Meaning Thursday will technically only need to be 15 miles, but I might just do 5 since it’s St Patrick’s day and I’m going to be hanging out at Howl (You should come out! Tell them Steve sent you to get in free and a couple cheapo drinks!)

This past Saturday I put in 30 miles and that felt pretty good until I got off the bike. My legs and butt just didn’t want to move around too much, but after a nice hot shower things became flexible again and I was good.

I’ve also started doing weights again last week.  And I’m noticing improvements already on that.  So that’s also motivating.  I’m suppose to do it tomorrow but Wednesdays are optional, if I get up and feel good or feel good after work then I will do it, if not, I will do it on Friday, which is not an optional day.

So things on this front are seeming to be pretty good.

Now if I can get the rest of my life cleaned up like this, it would great.  Latest truck news, someone tried to break into it. They failed but they screwed up the passenger door lock.  So that will have to be replaced once I can save up the money for that.  My poor truck… Always getting beat up on.

I’m still here…

Don’t know if anyone really reads this, but I am still here. 

I was kind of down and out with a sickness the last two weeks.  But I’m getting back into the swing of things now. 

Yesterday I realized I have less than ten weeks left before Shiner GASP (a 100 mile bike ride from Austin to Shiner.) This prompted me to get a biking schedule figured out.  So for the next 9+ weeks I have biking three times a week, trying to get my mileage up to where I need it to be so I can enjoy the ride.  I could probably survive it now, but yeah, enjoying it would be much better.

With that, I will be adding some strength training as well, trying to get my lean muscle back.  This sitting around doing nothing has definitely put a toll on my body that it’s not use to, and it’s time to get things back to where they need to be.

I still need to get my sugar addiction under control.  I had a good couple of days this week, but then fell backwards yesterday. … Interestingly (just now thought of this) yesterday was the only day this week I didn’t have my smoothie for breakfast.  If it’s helping me stay away from those other things, I need to redouble my effort to making sure I have a morning smoothie every day. 

Will start posting my frequently again now that I’m getting back into things…

Still Struggling

There hasn’t been much to post about lately.  I’ve been on the bike a couple of times, but that’s about it.  Still struggling with my bad eating habits as they go down hill as well still. 

Trying to dig myself out of this whole I seem to be burying myself in.  Probably won’t be posting much over the next couple of weeks still as I work my way through this.

Rough Week – Hard Times to Come

Here it is Friday around noon.  I’ve not run at all this week.  So the goal for this week is not going to be met.  I’m OK with that.  I’ve stepped back and noticed some other things that need to be paid attention to right now.

Running isn’t one of my favorite things. I need to work to get myself out there.  This week has been rough because of dealing with truck problems, bike problems, and as of last night phone problems. So with all this other stuff going on, I can’t get the energy to get myself out to run. 

I’m an emotional eater.  When things start getting bad, I will eat.  I will eat things that don’t taste great, and are bad for me.  When things get really rough, I gain weight.  Which, in turn, makes me depressed more, and the cycle becomes a spiral and heads downward quickly.  It then becomes hard to break out of. 

This is where I’m at now.  In the spiral.  I know this. I know what needs to be done to stop all of this from continuing on.  But, it’s hard to break that spiral.  Emotions is stronger than logic (try arguing with someone who is very emotionally upset about something, using logic.) 

I don’t want to be here, in this spiral.  It makes me tired, lazy, fatter and just all around unhappy.  There is a lot I want to do this year and next, but this spiral is pointed the wrong direction to make this happen…

I am declaring war.  War on my health. Mental. Emotional. Physical.  It’s all getting a make over and attitude adjustment.  This weekend the war plan will be formulated and the execution of said plan will commence immediately forth with!

Some people have said my previous posts were kind of rough on myself.  I reread them and didn’t think they were rough at all.  And I don’t think this one is rough on me either.  It’s the simple truth of where I’m at, and what needs to be done to fix things.  I’m not upset at myself, I just know now is the time to make the changes needed to find the happy Steve that dwells inside.

Rough Time Lately

Last week I didn’t make my goal exactly.  I missed out on running five days.  But I had five runs in.  I doubled up on Thursday because I knew I wasn’t going to get a run in on Saturday because of having to take my truck in for supposedly an oil change.

I got to the dealership to get the 115k service (just basic oil change and some other things) and waited around.  I did tell them that there was some funky squeaking happening as well so they were going to look into that.  After waiting for three hours they came back to me and let me know what was going on.  Needed water pump replaced and some bushings on the tie-rods and struts and stuff (not a car guy so no real clue here.)  This immediately brought me into a bit of a depression.  Broken trucks and bad finances will always do this.   

Sunday, went out biking, and got in 20 miles in about an hour forty.  I was feeling pretty down still and this ride was actually pretty hard.  A 20 mile ride shouldn’t be that hard at this point.  So, that contributes to the downward spiral. 

Monday morning, I wake up at the alarm, and hear it raining and decide I didn’t really want to go through the hassle of getting dress to run in the rain.  Plus I was really feeling the bike in my legs still.  So I went back to sleep with the plan of going running in the evening.   Everyone talks about getting your work out done in the morning because something may come up later in the day which makes you miss out on it.  And this was definitely true yesterday.  I had a scheduled meeting after work, and because of the weather it got delayed about 30 minutes.  Then it also went on a bit longer than I had anticipated at this time as well.  But that’s ok, still plenty of time to go run.  Get into my truck, and the battery is dead.  Crap.  So my mood sinks again, and running is completely out now. 

I call up Triple-A and they come out in about an hour, and I get going.  Running is out, because it’s too late, I would be too wired from it to be able to sleep.  Plus I just don’t feel like it at all.  I stop at Whataburger for dinner.  It didn’t really taste great, but it was comforting.  Yup, I eat crap when I need comforting even when it doesn’t taste good. 

I get home, and get everything ready so I can run in the morning.  It will be a new day and things are going to be good tomorrow!

Alarm goes off at 4am, and it awakes me from a dream where some lady crashed into my truck because she was driving down the wrong side of the road.  While waiting for the cops to show, I find out she has no insurance I start going into a bit of a rage fit, but before anything really happens, that’s when the alarm went off.  So I wake up pissed off.  And my knee is locked.  I slept funny and it won’t move or anything.  And I also have a bunch of blood in my mouth from biting through my tongue again.  Great start to the day. I’m going back to sleep.

My goal for this week is in a flux, I’m not sure I will make it.  But, goals are things to reach for.  And the real goal is 3 miles a day, 5 days a week for 2011.  There will be weeks when I don’t make that happen.  There will be weeks when I do make it happen.  And I expect down the road, I will have much more mileage than just 3 miles a day.  So, I will continue to reach for this goal. 

I will also take lessons learned here, to always make sure to get that run in, in the morning, because YES, you don’t know what will happen through out the day, which may cause you to miss out on the run or whatever.  

Another lesson is some times you do need to just step back and take a break, breathe a little and don’t worry about hitting all your goals bang on.  In the end it doesn’t really matter, as long as you can keep yourself happy and continue to be happy doing what you are doing.  Don’t beat yourself up because you missed out on a work out, or a financial goal in a certain time or something.  Life happens, and it passes you by while you are berating yourself.  Something happens deal with it, move past it and get on with the good stuff again.

Supposedly I will be going running after work tonight if my knee behaves it self.  If not, then definitely in the morning.  We shall see if it happens or not either way.  It is OK.