Exercising Journey

Took a few weeks off of blogging.  I needed a little bit to just not think about writing anything. I am not the best writer in the world to begin with but I was noticing that I was not putting any thought into what I was writing. I started this blog a few years ago and had slightly different idea on what I was going to do with it. I intended to have it be all out the journey of getting myself back into exercising and losing some weight. I was going to focus more and more on the workouts and talk about the things that happen along the way. For a while I was writing about all of the stuff that I have been doing and the things I wanted to do but I feel into bit of a rut. I have not stopped exercising and my goals have not really changed but 2 years in and I started to just focus on cycling and lost track of losing weight. This has caused me to write almost the same thing over and over again just slightly differently. I was losing my ambition to keep writing about my jou...

 New cycling season. New cycling stuff. I have been a home body with more running inside on my treadmill and not so much going out of the house. I don't know what it is with this recent winter but I do not want to be cold for even a second in the morning anymore. I do not mind the cold normally and I have a fat bike to go riding in the snow but something has changed inside of me that just can not get with it to ride in the cold.  Today was not much of an exception except I got a new toy I really wanted to play with and I can not go cycling mid day becuase I have a full time job so I got dressed and put my new toy on the bike.  Its the bike computer in the picture. I will say I did not spend a lot of money on this bike computer and really just wanted to have it for the speed to be displayed as I ride. It offers a lot more than that such as syncing to Strava with a phone app. Lucky for me I have a very old phone that is not tied to any or my real accounts so I did test...

 Snow stopped me from exercising outside. It has been a few weeks after a few snow storms that had totals of around 2 feet. The roads were plowed and I was able to get out and ride in the road if I wanted to but there was not really enough space on the side of the road for a bike to fit and I am not about to get hit by a driver who is half paying attention and in a rush so I have been exercising inside. It has been a lot of treadmill runs and lifting again. I do enjoy doing those things but I was starting to miss my morning bike ride. A few days ago I decided that I was going to see if the path was plowed... This was just before another storm so there was an attempt at part of it but it just stopped so I rode in the street that day.  Three days ago I got annoyed that I was just working out inside so I went for a bike ride and picked a longer way to get to the main path that I know they plowed. Once I was there I noticed that the path I normally take to get to the mai...

 Happy New Year! I know this is a bit late for a happy new year post but things happen sometimes and I just did not have time to get around to posting. The start of the year was not awesome for me I ended up getting the flu or covid or something else I do not know what it was but I was sick for a week. That being said I never bothered going to the DR because it was not that bad and I don't have to leave the house for any reason so I just stayed at home and rested. I wish that I put more time into exercising but I was really just not well enough for it. Sickness was not the only problem there was a lot of work issues and extended family issues that came up that needed tending to so I was just not in it at all for the past few weeks. I have not gone over my calories for eating but I was not even walking on my treadmill. I want to say resting was good but I have not felt worse in a while overall. Its not like I feel sick but my sleep is not as good and it hard to wake up in the m...

 I broke my fat bike! I took a ton of time a few weeks ago to tune up the fat bike and it was running very smoothly. A few days later it started shifting poorly and I thought it was just because of bad cheap components. Well its not that its not because of cheap parts but it was not the parts I thought it would have been. After a ride where my chain kept falling off I flipped the fat bike over to check over the gears and shift cables. I noticed the freewheel was loose so I took the tire off... That is when I noticed there was a real bad problem, the whole freewheel just fell to the ground. I have had freewheel loosen up and get sloppy but I have not seen the whole thing just fall apart like this one did. I attempted to put it back on but thats when I noticed that it was far worse than I first thought. If you notice in the first picture there is something missing that needs to be there for things to work.  I zoomed into the problem part from the mess of cogs on the ground. That...

Progress is going but updates paused. I have still be doing the journey and taking keeping in a diet of tracking my caloires. I slowed down a bit on the exercise but I have not stopped and I do not plan on stopping anytime soon. I had the knee pain a few weeks ago that has mostly gone away for now unless I stand for too long then it starts to feel off again.  I also do not plan on stopping the blog either I just had to focus on other things in life and I did not want to put much thought into making anythig for the blog. Not that my process here is difficult persay but I do head out with my camera and think about what I am going to write while on my rides. Instead of making really awful updates with half thought out updates I just did not bother updating.  With all this being said I noticed after logging back in to make this update that blogger has a new beta feature for "creating more engaging content". I am not ever going to use AI to write anything on this blog or use i...

 Starting with the fun! The other week I was doing so well with excersizing and had a blast riding in the rain one morning.  Riding in the pouring rain is fun there is no one around and you get to just take in the ride. Sure I got wet but it was not cold out so being wet was fine. I was very happy ater this ride even thinking nothing is going to stop my morning rides not even pouring rain.  Then I started lifting again....  I do not know what happened but I put the weights on the rack and got ready to do squats. I went down for my first one and my right knee felt a little off nothing too bad but just off. When I finished my 5th squat it hurt. I thought to myself it must have been just the position I was in I will lay off of it for the day and try again. The next day I went for my morning ride and the knee pain was back but this time it was on my bike. It was not bad enough to keep me from riding that day so I kept going. This was a bad idea because later that da...

I took out my kayak! I had a few hours free the other day and decided it was time to take out my kayak. I have had this kayak for over 10 years now and I used to use it every weekend but I moved and had kids and just stopped using it. It is an inflatable kayak that I am a bit suppirsed it has not had issues in the years I have owned it. I tested it out before heading to the lake and it pumpped up fine so I went out to the lake near me and just set off for a quick lap around the lake.  The lake is about 2 miles from one shore line to the other and 1/3 of a mile wide or so. I did not get out any tools to measure it but there is enough space to kayak around and have some fun but its not a huge lake that would take all day to paddle around. I ened up going from the boat launch area to the other end and back in about an hour and that was a lot of just sitting there taking photos and taking in the moment.   It was a good time paddling around the lake and I got some fun photos from i...

 School for my kids means early rides for me. I have been waking up fairly early in the morning during the summer months. My kids are out of school and I do not need to wake up at 6AM for any reason other than making sure to get them ready for school so I don't set an alarm to wake up that early. Still I have been waking up with out an alarm clock at 6:30 and get on my bike by 7AM. I will say I have not been an early riser for years but after the CPAP and getting into a rutine of cycling and getting kids ready for school I wake up early ready to go. Anyway I am excited for the summer to be over as it means I will be out of my house and on my bike at 6:30 instead of 7AM giving me more time to ride. I was able to get out there early today and it was very foggy out making my normal ride prettier. I only stopped for one photo today because I had to get back home quickly but I can not wait for a few more early morning rides where it is foggy and cool enough out that I am not drippi...

Walmart is offering new Ozark Trail bikes.  I like to keep my eye on the bike offerings from Walmart because I like their Ozark Trail brand of bikes. They are cheap but very useable bikes. I currently own three of them and like all of them for what they are and what I use them for. The three I own are the Explorer G.1, Ridge M.2, and the Fat Tire bike I think its called the Ranger. I ride all of them for different reasons and find that at what they cost they are very good bikes to own. The Explorer is my favorite bike they offer and it is the one I ride every day and on all of my long rides. It has yet to let me down even though there have been some problems none of them are bad enough for me to dislike the bike. At a cost of 250 USD I do not mind riding where I would not want to ride a more costly bike. Riding in the rain sure what ever, to the store absolutely, or maybe in the woods where it was very much not made to go? YUP that is not a problem. I feel the similar about the oth...

 Heat Waves make cycling awful and awesome! I took a few days off from work to get things done around the house and just not think about work for a while. It just happens to be the week that my area is having a heat wave again. I do not mind the heat or the cold all that much but I do mind when sweating so much that my eyes sting after about 5 minutes of cycling. I decided today was going to be a longer cycling day. Nothing too crazy no 100 miles on a whim or anything but just not think about it and go out there and ride for as long as I felt like it. Well right at the start I was sweating. It was already 90 degrees when I left the house and it was not noon yet. I had a bottle of water and figured I could stop at a store if I really needed more than that.  I started the normal route I take and added a little extra on to it. Before the end of the path there is a another path I can take that crosses a major road and takes you onto another path section and into a state park....

Cooking is fun but diets are not. I enjoy cooking and I have cooked most of my meals for years now. I have fallen into some lazy ways instead of making breakfast I would just end up toasting some bread and throwing peanut butter and jelly on it for breakfast. I logged and weighed all of this and just the morning sandwiches were in the 1000 calloire range. I decided to swap that out a while ago and try something different for breakfast but still wanted at least a go to lazy meal. I ended up on greek yogurt with honey and some M & Ms for crunch. After weighing this out, a bowl of it comes out to about 450 calories. I wanted to try to add some photos of thing I have been eating here but they have all come out so bad looking.  I promise that greek yogurt and candy tastes good but looking at it in a bowl like that just looks so very off putting. I thought it was a bit funny how bad the photo came out of this one so why not share it and show the diet a little anyway. The other t...

I do not like cycling with glasses on.  My eye has gotten a little better since rubbing ointment in it all week but it is still puffy and not ready for me to put my contacts on. I tried to cycle with my glasses on but it was just awful. I have old glasses that are worn in well and by that I mean they fall off my face if look down. I bought some very dorky looking bands for them to keep them on my face last time I had eye issues and they worked out well for half a ride.  The problem with them aside from looking silly is once I get riding I become a sweety mess and the sweat made the rubber slippery causing them to just fall off. This means I end up focusing on not losing my glasses instead of my ride. Also aside from the whole glasses falling off issue sweat also drips on the glasses and I have to keep wiping them off. All of this just takes me out enjoying cycling. It also could be that I am trying to not touch my eye and wiping off glasses and worrying about it. Either way it...

 Sometimes Life decides for you... I was debating for so long about doing the triathlon and today is the day it is happening. I have money set aside for it and was getting myself psyched up for it all week. Well instead of going to the triathlon I am headed to the DR. I woke up and my eye is puffed out and hurts again. It is not as bad as last time but I am not going to risk getting a worse infection in it. Even if I wanted to go after doing the triathlon I would have to wear my glasses and not be able to see when swimming in a lake and that sounds like a bad idea. I am bummed out about it as it was on my mind for so long and even though I debated on the cost I have the money to do it but I can not go because life decided it was not going to happen.  This is not the end of this though I will be looking for another triathlon to do and if I do not find one then I will sign up for next years early.  Eye issues wont stop the journey I had a fun week aside from today with...