1,000 Miles

Well, it's been a month since the last post, so I figure I should write again. But I'm not going to write about Valentine's Day or all the crazy snow we've been getting. I'm going to write about a goal I made last week. Suzanna and I bought an exercise bike at the end of last year (I think it was in November), and I was determined to ride it often to "stay in shape" during the winter months. Unfortunately, I wasn't in shape to begin with, and I had a hard time trying to figure out how to fit a daily workout into my schedule. I rode it a few times in November and December and got used to the hard seat. In January I was sick for a couple weeks but vowed to ride again once I was feeling better. Finally, at the end of January I started to ride again, but instead of riding only 15 or 20 minutes, I tried to ride for 30 minutes. What a workout! I kept track of the time I spent on the bike, how "far" I had traveled, and how many calories I burned. After about a week I decided that if I was going to keep up and consistently ride, then I'd better make a goal.

Here's a picture of Suzanna riding our bike.

The mountain biking season usually begins in May, so I quickly calculated how many miles I would have to ride each day (minus Sunday) to reach 1,000 miles by May 1st. At first it almost seemed too big, but when I did the math, it worked out to be about 12.7 miles per day six days a week, or a little less than 15 miles five days a week. I've now gone 142.82 miles since January 26th, and I'm feeling great! If I can keep this up, I'll be ready for the mountain biking season and hopefully I'll get to go a few times this summer when I'm not in school or at work. I know that if I don't make a goal, then I'm not going to use the bike, and that would just be a sad waste of the $108 we spent on walmart.com.