Thanks for the welcomes! I got in a 9 mile ride this morning! I've found a new route that's longer, less traffic, seems safer and just more enjoyable for me!

Also read about a Bike Tour for AIDS here in CT this morning. When I read the headline to my hubby he said 'so when are you gonna start training for it?' without me saying anything! LOL. I'm glad someone has that much confidence in me! I'll definately be thinking this one over. It's in September...so that's 4 months to work up to it.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Kim

Sounds like a good idea. I can't imagine those charity things would be too hard, or people wouldn't do them. Just a plug-away and you'll get it done thing.

This week we're having some sort of "bike-week" where you try to ride your bike (to commute) to work as much as you can. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the weather will cooperate, but I'm going to try to get in a few times via bike.

--Janis

Janis-Here I've been compaining about all the rain we've had, and I just say clips of New England on the news! I hope you're surviving without getting flooded out. My goodness that's a lot of water.

I haven't ridden because of weather. Had some good spin classes, but nothing outside. I've been doing some walking in the drizzle, but get nervous riding in the rain because it gets slick out and combining that with bad drivers doesn't seem like a smart move.

Kim-Welcome! The ride sounds really cool. What is the distance for it? Those offer so much support on event with pit stops and water/gatorade, that you'll be able to do the event comfortably. Good luck.

Sherry-how were your weekend rides? My eating has been less than stellar this past week so I'm trying a no binge pact for the week. I'll be doing my best to stay to healthy foods in proper portion sizes.

Well, have a great one, and hope the rain goes away so we can all get moving again.

Hey y'all! Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! Mine was great!

Yeah, the rain here in New England is driving me crazy too! I watched the sky all day and finally just said 'a few drizzles won't hurt' and took off for a ride! Got in 5.7 miles on a road that seems to be a steady but very slight incline...lol...it kicked my butt!

I'm not sure of the distance total in that race...what caught my eye is that one of the days it's going to be here in my town...25 miles here. I could do that with some training! I just gotta find out how much you have to raise to participate...I don't know ANYONE around here so I'd have a hard time raising money.

Janis, your bike week is probably part of bike safety month! On May, 17th there's going to be a 'Silent Ride' and from what I gather it's at least USA wide. It's a ride that's silent, and preferably ridden no faster than 12mph to honor cyclists who have been injured or killed on the roads. I thought it was a great idea! I wish there was a ride closer to me. I'm seriously thinking about going for a ride at 7 (start of it) that night anyway, just to take part in my own way.

Well, hope everyone is doing well!

Kim

I saw a posting about the silent ride here, too. I'd be afraid I'd get killed doing it, though (all the rain, etc.) Besides... I don't think I usually average much more than 10.5 mph on real roads. Maybe I do - I don't know. On the stationary bike, I did 14.5 miles in 40 minutes, but that was plugging away at it and sweating like a beast. Normally when I'm out on my bike, I just kinda putz around for fun, and I'll get there when I get there. And like my friend told me when I was starting out - "There's no shame in getting off and walking it up a hill if you need to." Those words echo through my head whenever I get to a hill I can't handle, but they're getting fewer and farther between, so I'm getting better!

As for flooding and such, I live on the 4th floor, so hopefully it won't affect me too much. If it does, the rest of you need an ark! But yeah - a lot of people's basements are flooding and stuff. That's the problem with housing/soil around here - the soil doesn't leech very well. It's all sandy/swampy clay, so every homeowner seems to have water issues. When I'm rich and famous and can afford a house around here, I'll have one built on pontoons.

--Janis

Janis,

either I don't pay enough attention or I'm crazy, but we're not getting as much rain as y'all are! We have gotten alot, but we're not flooding, even though we had flood warnings. And we're right on the coast, seein as we're in a Navy town...lol. I hope you aren't having a hard time of things with all the rain! The most annoying thing for me is I can't ride my bike!!!

The silent ride thing is slow paced, you'd be fine! I understand though not wanting to ride with all the rain! I went during a break in the clouds the other day and hit some puddles...was fun, but everyone might not think so!

No shame at all in walking! It is fun to look back and realize you're not walking hills that you used to have to walk though!

Hope everyone is well!

Kim

*wringing coat out*

And it continues... Yeah, mostly the rain is an inconvenience for me. While the roads have big puddles, it's not that bad around me (for driving in a car). My bike path is probably mushy right now (the one closest to me is dirt and ash, after all), and it's just dark and dreary. When I was at the gym the other day, I noticed a crackling sound in the air. Apparently the air is so saturated with water, that the high-voltage power lines that go over the gym's parking lot were crackling and sputtering!

I mostly don't want to ride my bike out in it because a) it's still "new" to me and I don't want to get it wet & dirty, and b) I have white carpets, and need to bring it indoors after I'm done.

I want to go to the gym tonight, but it's practice night for fife & drum, and we didn't have practice on Sunday (and my parents came to visit last Tuesday, so I missed it then, too). But with all the gloom, I want to go to the gym for my personal sanity. I find it relaxing. Also, I've been slacking off way too much lately. I haven't gone to the sauna, steam room, pool, or jacuzzi in ages. Lately when I go, it's to do the weight machines (and that's it, since I've been biking), but last time I used a stationary bike too, and by the time I was done, the place was closing, so I couldn't even take a shower when I was done, much less lounge around in the jacuzzi. I need to get going on a regular basis again so I CAN putz around not worrying about getting everything in, instead of working hard for the one time I'm there and not having enough time to make it fun.

*sigh* I feel like I'm stuck - not enough time for anything, and this is something I definitely need to make time for. I've lost 20 lbs in 5.5 months... while it's still a loss, I was hoping to have lost twice that by now.

--Janis

Hey everyone!

Hope y'all aren't getting flooded out. All the rain we had earlier this spring stopped just like that (snaps fingers). But I've yet to see the sun here along the coast and am looking forward to that.

Didn't make the long bike ride Saturday. In fact, haven't done any exercise since last Thursday. It's a long story, but my sister and I decided to drive to Tucson to see our mom for Mother's Day. Was a heck of a lot of driving for a short visit, but I'm glad we went. My "mother's day gift" from hubby and pets was new bike tires! Hubby rode without me this past weekend and went faster with his new tires. Said he got me new tires because he was afraid I'd slow him down. My response: I was going slow so he could keep up.

I too read about the Silent Ride and right now 12 mph is a fairly brisk pace for us because we have mountain bikes with fat tires. I'm sure 12 mph is slow on a road bike with thin tires, but right now we only average ~13 mph.

I've had far too many rest days lately but some were on purpose because I was exhibiting signs of overtraining. My real problem was that I've been eating like crap (can I say that here?) and probably not getting enough nutrients to support my activity level. So I took a break and plan to get back into it tomorrow.

Part of my eating problem is my frustration with my extremely slow weight loss. I started out at about 185 and wanted to lose about 40 pounds. Well, since September I've lost somewhere between 15 and 20 pounds (scale keeps bouncing between 166 and 169). The loss was slow but steady from October to March, but I've now been stuck since March. Well, I guess I should be happy that I didn't gain despite my eating. I think I really need to work on my eating and may cut the exercise for a while until I get that under control.

Not sure if I'll be "spinning" this week, but we are planning our long bike ride for Sunday morning. I'm so looking forward to it.

Stay dry!

"I've had far too many rest days lately but some were on purpose because I was exhibiting signs of overtraining. My real problem was that I've been eating like crap (can I say that here?) and probably not getting enough nutrients to support my activity level. So I took a break and plan to get back into it tomorrow."

Sure. I eat like crap too. I feel your pain... I feel like nothing's been cooperating with me, and I keep kicking myself for "letting" the weight creep back after I lost 75 lbs and kept it off for nearly 5 years. The fact is, though, I just haven't been able to keep up the activity level. Unlike those 5 years where I was unemployed half the time and had a treadmill in my basement (and nobody to object if I'd use it at 2am), I feel like I'm always on the go.

I recently had a sleep-study done to find out why I feel so friggin' tired all the time. They're making me keep a "sleep diary" and the biggest thing I'm noticing is I'm not even getting home (much less to sleep) until nearly midnight every night. Between work, school, fife & drum, trying to squeeze in the gym...

And of course there are the implications that has on food. Eating out a lot, grabbing quick stuff "to go" (although I don't do fast-food, and I try to pack stuff) and I don't like cooking anyway. But even the salads I get from places are loaded up with salt and extra calories, I'm sure. God knows they're about 4x the size of a single serving...

And here it's been a reasonably good day, but I'm still stuck at work, going on 7pm. I need to go to the gym, but I need to do school work too. *sigh* decisions, decisions.

(I never did go to the gym yesterday, even though I wanted to. I ended up going to practice. Kinda frustrating when only 1/4 of the people were there, and me, and we're not the ones who need the practice the most, as we're there every week!) *sigh*

--Janis

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is having good, dry weather like we are!!! I'm loving it! Been able to get bike rides in for the last 2 days without getting wet! I rode 9.7 miles yesterday and 10.2 today! Yes! My longest ride yet!!!! today's ride was only 2 minutes longer than yesterday's...so I seem to be getting faster at least! Not too bad for a mountain bike with fat tires! LOL. I'm hopefully starting a full time job next week, so nice, fast, shiny new road bike here I come!!!! That is, if I can make myself keep riding after I'm working nights....I really hope I can! I'd hate to have to quit a job just so I can get my bike riding in! LOL. I haven't worked in about 6yrs, so I'm anxious to get outta the house some!

Hope everyone is doing well! Just wanted to check in!

Kim

Will the rain never stop? So far, whenever we've had dry days, I've either been out of town, too busy at work, or sick. It can't last forever, and I have many, many miles to go before I catch up...

Hey everyone!

Today I finally went for a bike ride after 10 days of no exercise! Whatever I did to myself, I think a combo of overtraining and poor food choices, wore me out and I got a nasty little head cold. This has happened before and I think I'm just an exercise wimp and need to schedule week-long breaks into my routine in an attempt to avoid the icky effects of overtraining. Hope it works.

So we rode almost 22 miles, our longest ride yet in quite some time. I wanted to keep going, but hubby was tired. Today he commented that he should have kept the old tires on my bike. Honestly, my old tires were okay, but the new ones seem to provide a smoother ride and things weren't bouncing quite as much, if you know what I mean. Part of the reason hubby was pooped is that a rain storm is coming in and we were riding against a very strong wind for half the ride. Saw the most amazing thing on the trail today. A group of women on roller blades flew by us! They were going so fast, much faster than anyone on a bike has ever passed us. A man was riding a bike right on their heels, we believe it was their coach, shouting at them to go faster, etc. I just cannot believe their speed and endurance to go that far, that fast.

Hey Janice, I know what you mean about keeping up on things. I'm currently unemployed but interviewing. Lately I've had time to exercise and prepare healthy foods and I am terrified of what will happen when I start working. Right now I am trying to figure out how I'll work it all in -- the cardio, the weights, eating healthy food. As you correctly note, it's hard sometimes to make good food choices when you're grabbing food on the run. I'm just so afraid that I'll slip back into my pre-unemployment bad habits and get huge again. Hope the sleep study sheds some light on your fatigue, but it sounds to me like you're just doing a lot. I know what it's like to be constantly tired and it sucks.

Kim, congrats on the longer rides and getting faster! That's what hubby and I have been doing -- gradually adding more distance to our rides without adding significant time. For a while, we were going further in the same amount of time (9, 10, 11 miles) but now that we're over 20 miles, it's taking longer. But that's okay! Bike riding is fun! We are also on mountain bikes with fat tires and anxiously looking forward to getting road bikes; getting tired of being passed by "bike gangs." Like you, we plan to get them once I start working. Can't wait!

Carla, hope the weather cooperates with your schedule and you can get riding soon!

Hi gals-been to rainy and windy to ride here. I'm keeping up on my spin classes, and playing softball on top of the daily run/walk and turbokick I've been doing. I need to get a bike ride in. I'm really missing it. Hubby bought his road bike and now I'm coveting it. I guess I should clean up my old one and see if I like it as much as my mountain bike (for around here I travel so comfortable on dirt roads due to the lack of traffic that I'm not sure I'd like being forced to stay on the paved roads)

Well, just wanted to let you know I haven't fallen of the earth. Glad you're all getting some riding in.

sf40, 22 miles! Wow! I can't wait till I'm riding that far. Allll that time out of the house, all alone...lol. I think that's part of why I love riding so much...I'm free for a little while! I haven't been able to go lately. I have some health stuff to straighten out! I have eczema, and my hands are soooooo broken out right now, it hurts to grip the handlebars and I have some cracked/bleeding spots everytime I do go! Gloves don't help So I've had to take a break too...ugh! I'm feeling it too...just feel like I'm slipping back into the feeling like crap, lazy feeling I've had all my life!

ARtsygirl, you're lucky to have those dirt roads! We don't have any around here. There's trails a few miles away, but I have yet to check them out, I'm halfway scared it'll be full of rro's...lol. We're in a military town and it seems like a good many guys are cyclists around here!

I enjoy the stability that the mountain bike gives. I'm not scared to run over a rock or stick in front of me...with a road bike that would be different! I had a road bike when I was younger, and rode all over on it, and I don't remember having any major crashes...but I'm still nervous! 2 of the 3 times I've had broken bones came from riding something (motorcycle and horse) so I'm sorta nervous about taking a big fall. Funny how I'm like that with bikes now, but it doesn't scare me to ride a horse!

Kim

I know I am SUPER late but can I join too? For the last two weeks I have been riding my exercise bike every morning and would like to give myself a little more motivation! I was doing the walking challenge but when I hurt my knees I stopped walking so much. I will get back into that too but I like the exercise bike way more!

The only thing is my bike keeps track in KM - so 500 miles is 805 KM. So if I do join I would be keeping track of it that way.

Sure hope I am not too late!