barbara curtiss

Well two weeks ago I rode 77 miles and walked 21 miles
Last week I rode 100 miles and walked nine holes of golf and probably that would be about three miles.

Then this week I got too busy to ride and it is Thursday already.
I walked nine holes of golf and I have ridden 12 miles.

I have lost seven pounds in three weeks. I attribute it to a new healthy diet following the new Food Pryamid.

However, I am also quite tired.

Why I don't know.....

Don Gwinn

Noracer, great job! I don't know if I'm going to have the discipline to take it that far . . . your "before" photo is at about my goal weight.

Ritz

Don, don't let Noracer fool you... that's really me! Somehow he was able to get into my psyche and extract a photo of my expected end result. Technology is a dangerous thing! LOL! Great work Noracer! Peace, Ritz.

WWW.TOURDEPANTS.COM

NoRacer

Thanks all.

Don Gwinn

289.2 this morning--hey, I'm under 290! (for the moment.) I also did full pushups for the first time in YEARS yesterday. It hadn't even occurred to me to try them; I've had to do girl pushups for quite awhile now.

I haven't had my bike all week, but I'm picking it up this morning and riding 40 miles of the Capital City Century tomorrow. If someone had told me LAST September what I'd be doing this September, I just couldn't have believed it. No way.

Life is good.

Mahoolihan

congrats Don! Have a great ride tomorrow!

Ritz

Woo Hoo! Go Don! I know how you feel, I wouldn't have believed it either. 274.5 and falling. Peace, Ritz.

WWW.TOURDEPANTS.COM

Sakae Custom

Yeah, i now can do near infinate real pushups now, i think that has do with my muscles more then weight loss, after 6 months of serious lifting i can bench quite a bit. Good Luck!

bransom

Way to go, Don!!! Excellent! Have a great ride tomorrow, and report back (including pictures).

Puppypaws

Don you are inspiring. I cant wait to see your sig change.
I have been recording my food and exercise...and trying to do the right thing because of it. I've managed to say No to many desserts that have called my name. I am biking, walking, kayaking, dancing, or doing heavy house cleaning every day.
I was 185 on Aug 28. Today, Sept 11 I am 181. I'm just relieved to be moving in the right direction for the first time in many years.

I will be starting a new job Friday, so I hope the stress doesnt throw me off.

This thread is a great source of motivation.

(as an aside, i tried to log onto fitnessjournal.org twice today and got a server not responding message. Anyone else have that problem?...not sure what can be done. My hubby was adjusting my antivirus stuff yesterday but he says that is not the problem)

Don Gwinn

What a day! I got there late, I took forever to get my bike together and packed, but off I went--about 10:15. The 40/62 riders were supposed to leave from 9:00 to 10:00, so I left among people riding the 12/25 loop. This went from the Beach House on Lake Springfield down through the winding, shady lakeside roads, South through the country to a famous covered bridge over Sugar Creek. The 40 went on South through the country to a small town called Auburn and then wound back North through Auburn, up to a suburb called Chatham and along their beautiful paved trail North to Springfield, then back across to those pretty roads, through the campus of U of I Springfield and across the bridge. . . thus back to the Beach House and the glory of a cold shower.

So I'm passing the folks taking the short course left and right, and the stronger riders are all gone already and probably getting farther away by the moment (they can't see me, they don't know I'm back there, but they're dropping me anyway.)
This means I'm spending a lot of time alone, but even so, even when I just wave and smile as I go by, somebody invariably wishes me a good morning or tosses off a comment about the hill. It's fantastic. I've never ridden with so many other people, and everybody is so happy to be there. It's a great day, getting hotter by the moment but the wind is not too bad most of the time and the course is well-marked and mostly pretty smooth. For this area, it's impressively smooth. They obviously put a lot of thought into it and marked it very carefully. Could've followed it without a map, no problem.

When I get to Auburn and the food stop, everybody's so damn cheerful and I feel really strong. I ask the lady serving sandwiches and she says the registration fee is indeed the same for the 40 and the 62. So why not?

Well, because it's twice as far as you've ever gone in your life, and you only did that once. A week ago, as a matter of fact, after which you took your bike to the shop and didn't ride it until this morning, you great stupid ape.

Anyway, I took off on the "East Loop" and things were different, sort of. This was open Illinois farm country; no shade, just sun and wind. It was HOT. But the faster I went, the cooler it was. I surprised myself at this point by cruising along in the lowest part of the drops at 21-22 mph on several of the long flats. (The course was advertised as "fairly flat," but it felt hilly enough to me! I saw at least one "Assault on Mt. Mitchell" jersey, so some may have been measuring by a different yardstick.)
I again tried to fall in with a nice couple who were cruising along a little slower and "save some" at this point, but it didn't seem to be that much easier, really, and honestly, I just decided it was more *fun* to go fast than to go slow. I found out later the lady had a knee injury she was working on, which explained the slow pace. They actually ended up passing me later, but that's later.

Anyway, I got back to Auburn and took off toward Springfield. By this time, when I got a few miles in, my quads were burning. My feet were starting to bother me too; I understand why people talk about needing biking shoes now. My sneakers are just too soft, and my toes were going numb all the time. But it still felt great to be doing it, and I knew I could keep going and going, so I did. I remember saying aloud to myself more than once "I almost can't believe I'm really doing it!" It sounds stupid, but it's true.

When I was a few miles from the end of the course (but didn't know it) I was just about out of water, so I stopped in at a Road Ranger for a big cup of ice and a couple of bottles. At the time I didn't really understand how far I had to go and I'd been going through water like it was . . . . water. I hopped back out on the road and had the novel experience of crossing a couple of busy Springfield intersections on the bike, which is nothing I'll miss. But soon I was on the campus of U of I, crusing along, watching soccer games, enjoying the smooth pavement and passing people. Of course, most of the people I was passing were on their 96th mile or so by that time.

Then my rear tire started hissing. I pulled over, pulled it off, and I have to say, only one person passed without asking if I needed help. I waved them all off. I had a spare tube, a bunch of patches, and two CO2 cartridges for my inflater, and I could see the hole in the tire. What kind of boob could sit down with all that in broad daylight and not get himself back on the road? I'm not an idiot, after all. I refused help from, no lie, hand to God, 20-30 people. Seriously.
Then I patched the tire, installed the tire and tube, hooked up the inflater and blasted myself with CO2. That was actually pretty refreshing; it was ice cold. Then I put the second cartridge in; same thing.
Now I'm sitting on the side of the road with an expertly patched tire and no way to inflate it. I briefly considered blowing it up like a beach ball, then decided to see if more riders came along. None did. I took out the phone to call the SAG emergency number, so of course four riders came around the bend, closely followed by a SAG truck. I bummed a pump and took off. I know people came in after me, some of them fifteen minutes to half an hour later, but I would imagine they were all doing the 100.

Anyway, that's the story of my first metric century. I averaged 15.1 mph, which I found respectable given that I was happy with the same speed over half the distance at the beginning of the week. I have some pictures, but they don't amount to much. I'll see if I can get them posted. No pics of me.

BTW, I weighed 289.2 yesterday and 290 even today. I'm changing the signature, by gum. . . . .

NoRacer

Nice ride, Don. Sounds like lots of fun, except for the flatting part.

Ritz

Congrats on the ride Don, but you're going to have to find a cheaper way to cool off, those little cartridges aren't free. LOL!

WWW.TOURDEPANTS.COM

KingTermite 

GREAT story Don!! Very inspiring.

Let me know if you need a host for the pics...I can put them up at my website if they are too big to attach.

BTW Don...what kind of bike do you ride? Just curious.

Mahoolihan

Outstanding ride, Don, and delightful narrative. How long have you been working up to this?

Zin

Congrats Don! Very nice story telling as well. Thanks for sharing it with us!

EDIT: Hey Don. Hope you don't mind if I use your GREAT IDEA for your signature. In addition to my weight, I've added in my Fitday.com Public journal link. I find that if I know other folks are looking in on my food intake I think my choices through better than I would otherwise.

Don Gwinn

I ride a Giant OCR2, but mine has cheap pedals with toe clips and straps. The LBS also switched out the expensive but delicate boy-racer wheels for some fairly generic but strong 32-spoke wheels built in the shop. I ended up slamming into deep ruts and potholes on the last bridge yesterday and still haven't bent the things, so I'm very happy with them. I don't think I'll ever be a gram-saver no matter how light I personally get; I'm hard on equipment at the best of times and expect it to be rugged.
I have LOVED this bike since I bought it, and I still feel like I'm learning to ride it. I was really surprised how good I felt down in the drops yesterday, and as the day went on, I rode in the drops more and more. I'm still really too fat for that sort of thing, but I can do it now and I really do notice the aero difference. I don't become aerodynamic by a long shot, but I do plow less air.

Mahoolihan, I should have worked up to this, but I really didn't. I thought the CCC was in July while I was out for my surgery, and I didn't really plan to ride an organized event this fall. My plan was to ride hard solo, try to find time to ride with the bike club a few nights, and work on learning to ride the bike. Then, next spring, I would do the Tour de Stooges in Lebanon for a metric and then build up to the true century at the Capital City event in the summer.

When I found out they were holding it in September, how could I not ride? I keep complaining about having to ride solo and not knowing the cyclists around here. So I jumped in, but there wasn't much training. I just keep trying to do my commute faster and faster, more or less. I was worried that the commuting wasn't enough miles to get ready to go 40 at a clip, so I went out to do 25 on Labor Day to see where I was. I ended up doing 31 that day and feeling pretty good about it, although I was of course brutally sore in the quads, and was even light-headed when I was standing around afterwards. So I figured I could surely do 40, even if I had to slow down a bit. When it came to it, I turned out to have more in the tank, so I went with it and ended up doing 62 more or less without a plan. I don't know if it was the immediate shower or what, but I felt MUCH better after doing 62 than I did after 30. I had no light-headedness or dizziness yesterday, and my legs never managed to start hurting like they did Monday. Monday was serious, throbbing, teeth-gritting pain for several hours after the ride. I'm a little sore today, but no big deal, really. Like a really, really good squatting day more than anything else.
I did notice that my appetite just wasn't there, even though I'd been starving the last 15 miles or so and promising myself all kinds of food. I went in to the party with the intention of cleaning 'em out and eating as many cookies as I wanted. I figured I'd earned it. Once I'd showered and relaxed a bit, though, the appetite just wasn't there. I made myself eat, but I didn't even really enjoy it much. Later I was constantly hungry, and I don't mean cravings but stomach-growling hunger. I stir-fried chicken and vegetables and ate huge amounts, which fixed that problem. Even had a brownie, and that I DID enjoy.

I didn't get to hang out for the party very long because I had to be back in my home town to be on call to drive the ambulance from 6:00-midnight. That was probably just as well. My appetite would have returned sooner or later, and I imagine I could easily make myself sick gorging on cookies and cake nowadays. I'm not the man I used to be.

Don Gwinn

Oh, yeah, the plan now? Well, I don't know if I'll do another organized one this fall or not. I am going to make sure I get in at least one "long" ride per weekend from now on; it's a hell of a way to spend a morning if nothing else. I want to scale those up until I'm taking 40-60 mile rides routinely. When I can do that and it's no big event, I'll start scaling up again until I feel ready for a century. I am going to try to be smarter about it this time and avoid the uncertainty of wondering if I can make it. I think I'm going to join in the BC and C rides on the weekend with the bike club in Springfield. It'll be worth the drive to do it, and I think they have a ride on Saturday mornings anyway. I want to learn to ride a paceline and see if I can hang with a group. (I know I won't hang with real roadies who are trying to drop each other, but can I ride with a group that's on the fast side and not be a liability if they don't try to drop me? We'll see.)
If there's a 100-mile century close enough in late October or early November, I might go for it and try to finish one. Honestly, I think I could gut one out right now, but it would be dull, rusty hurting to do it.

I'm still doing the Tour de Stooges in the spring no matter what. It's a metric in southern Illinois, followed by an all-afternoon buffet served in front of a large movie screen constantly playing Three Stooges movies.
Who could resist that?

bransom

Great posts, Don! And great accomplishment, too. Exceptional, really, considering how long you've had a road bike. What is it, a month that you've had the bike? And you've been riding for a total of how long?



I'd been hoping to begin pushing my mileage up to get ready for some sort of longer ride in the fall but work is beginning to consume me again. And that sucks because, with the days getting shorter, it's harder to get rides in — any ride at all. I usually cheer the end of summer as I'm sick of hot weather but this year, since I've rediscovered riding, I'm cursing it. I wish I'd wised up on biking much earlier in the year. As it is, I wasted half of the season.

Ritz

Take it easy on yourself Bransom! Just think of how you're going to attack next season, as soon as weather permits. You'll likely double, or tripple your mileage from this year! Plan ahead, and look for the earliest possible organized ride, then make it your goal. It seems to help keep your focus when stuck with long times off the bike. Hang the ride flyer on the wall at your office, on the refrigerator, (This helps with proper nutrition) and in the garage near your bike. (Or wherever you keep that sweet ride!) Keep that one ride on the forefront of your mind, and go ahead and pre-register, and this coming season will turn out to be your best yet! Peace, Ritz.

WWW.TOURDEPANTS.COM

bransom

Ritz, Thanks for the encouragement. You're absolutely right: I'll be much more prepared for next season. The main thing will be to keep active in some way, shape or form during the off season. And I have to keep reminding myself that winter isn't all snow, ice and misery — not here, not in the last few years, anyway. We do get breaks when it's sunny and 50 which is plenty warm enough to ride. I can also go back to something I used to do about 10 years ago: mountain bike in the snow. Snow makes for an interesting ride.

I've also been preparing for next year by spending money (which I think is the favorite side-hobby of all bikers). I picked up a used 2004 Cannondale R500 a couple weeks ago, and have been enjoying that. The bike is basically a stock frame and fork that the previous owner built up custom with 105 and Ultegra components. I've been having a great time with it but, of course, had to spend money to add accessories ... pump (I don't trust myself with those little C02 cartridges), bag, pedals, etc. And I just ordered a new saddle last night which will hopefully help with the problem of the boys getting numb.

Now, if I only had more time to ride. Darned work! I shoulda been born wealthy!

cheebahmunkey

oh wow I just realized you're in St. Louis. Where about? I'm at Wash U going to school. I'd love to know a good route to take. Lately I've just been taking Olive for about 10 miles, then coming back and going around Forest Park once. It isn't bad but sometimes I really hate St. Louis drivers.

crawfman

St. Louis drivers are the worst for cyclists. I go to school at Webster U. and some days it's fine but other days it just seems like they're out to get ya.

Wes

cheebahmunkey

well today wasn't bad at all. Didn't get honked at once and really didn't get a close call. Today was good as far as the drivers go. The wind however........

hi565

Update!

I broke 160!!!!!!!!!!!

158 YEEEHHAAAAWWWW!