No Riding this weekend

I really wanted to ride this morning, I wanted to celebrate my losing a whopping 10lbs over the past 8 weeks by hitting the road and powering my way to 25 miles and for the first time ride in excess of 60 miles for a month, alas this was not to be.

On Tuesday night I went to bed and started watching tv in an unusual position, resting on my left shoulder. My better half wasn't feeling well and she was taking up half the bed and I couldn''t bring myself to move her as she looked very comfortable. Long and short is I fell asleep in that position and woke up 6 hours later with a searing pain in my left shoulder (cuff? ) I couldn't raise my arm to even put an a shirt.

I tried relaxing all week, applied some stuff that I found in a drawer and just prayed that my arm would feel better by Saturday morning, but that was not to be. My arm would not extend properly to hold the handle bars without aching painfully, much less gripping while riding and putting part of my body weight on it..

Very very disappointed, but this evening I feel the pain easing somewhat. If it continues I will drag my ass out of bed on Tuesday and Thursday morning a do some quickie runs to Golden Spring and then plan for a real 25 to 30 miler for next Saturday.



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February 2010

Miles Ridden Today - 0
Miles Walked MTD - 5

Miles Ridden MTD - 55.5

Target for February - 60-75 miles



Target for March 2010 - 75 miles

Woo Hoo: I am down 10 lbs.

I work on the road and my job has me interacting with all the major supermarkets in Kingston and St. Andrew, the temptation of eating all the sugary and starchy crap and drinking all the soda I want is in front of me on a daily basis, yet over the past couple months I have lost 10 lbs.

In January I quit my job with WBS. I loved my job and I could see myself working there for the next 10 years and enjoying the heck out of it, but sometimes things happen and you move on and you are surprised at how much better you feel from not having the constant stress on you, the stress to over-perform, over-achieve, yadda yadda yadda.

I decided that I wanted less stress, to try and start by own business, spend more time spent trying to live a healthier lifestyle and trying my best to forge an even closer relationship with my wife, (I have a tendency of being a work-a-holic and sometimes spending way too much time on the job or on the internet) and the it has been trying as day to day challenges and bills come in, but working together as a team really helps, instead of me taking on everything, bottling it up and trying to solve everything myself, Antoinette shares the burden with me.

I have been riding on and off (more off than on actually) for the past few months and you can look back through all the entries here and follow my (mis ?) adventures, but at the end of January I decided that I really needed to commit to upping the intensity, so 2 Saturdays ago I rode 25 miles and this Saturday I did 23.5. I am also trying to do 2 in the week 5 miles ride, but I haven't consistently followed through on that yet. The result has been pleasing - I am down 10lbs.

I have not put myself on a strict diet or anything. I am eating better since moving further from Kingston, more bananas, yams and potatoes and less rice and bread, I have cut Pepsi consumption but not totally eliminated it, and I eat my dinner before 6pm and in slightly smaller servings (I don't eat until I feel full, I stop just before)

The address of this blog is target190lbs for a reason as a weight of 190lbs is my ultimate goal. Way back when I started this blog I was 250lbs, I am down to 240, the next step is 230 and knowing that I am well on my way is motivation enough to really crank out some miles on Saturday and beyond.

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Weight

October - 250 lbs
February - 240 lbs

End of 2010 Target - 200 lbs

The Heat is On !!

Did 23.5 miles today.

I really wanted to try for 30 miles, but my riding partners upped the pace on me this morning and I was exhausted after 23.5 miles.

I didnt drive this morning, I had my better half drop me off and the intention was to ride 23.5 miles and then the rest from the route back to my mother-in-law, but the guys were really feeling their oats this morning and set a serious pace. I remembered last weeks lesson and concentrated on breathing but it was still harder completing the route.

At 8:30am we called it quits, the sun was really pelting and it felt like July or August. Wayne had to go off to the hospital as his Uncle had been admitted suffering from a heart attack, and he thought I looked pretty bushed and was reluctant to leave me there, so I just barely nodded as he loaded up the bikes.

I fell asleep as soon as I sat down at my mother-in-laws and got up an hour later with a fierce neck ache (from sleeping in a chair in the living room).

I think 25 miles will be the limit for the next month, although I will be striving for 30. I probably need to start out another 20 or so minutes earlier in the mornings as the dawn is coming up earlier now than in November and December. By about May to June it should be light out by 5:30am, by then I will be hoping to outfit the bike with bright lights so I can ride before sunrise.

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February 2010

Miles Ridden Today - 23.5
Miles Walked MTD - 5

Miles Ridden MTD - 55.5

Target for February - 60-75 miles

Quick 5 Miles this Morning

Quick dash to Golden Spring and back.

Well it was quick because I was on the road for an hour, but it wasnt quick going to Golden Spring as I was riding it for the first time. The undulating road made for an interesting ride as I had spots of overexertion followed by relief and I didnt get too winded making it to Golden Spring, I did work up a great sweat though.

It flashed through my mind briefly to go another half mile or so up towards Stony Hill, but one look at that hill dissuaded me until I get fitter. So the routine now will be Palisadoes on a Saturday and Golden Spring/Stony Hill on a Wednesday.


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February 2010

Miles Ridden Today - 5
Miles Walked MTD - 5

Miles Ridden MTD - 32

Target for February - 60-75 miles

I Just Kept Going on and on and on and ...................

Today while riding I had a bit of a breakthrough.

I have been riding very infrequently for the past 6 months and have only been able to consistently ride about 12 miles on any given day. I usually get tired, my heart would race and I would be panting like a hound dog in heat. After riding only 2 miles on Wednesday and almost dying from exhaustion (see post below) I was determined to ride more than 12 miles today.

Started riding by myself at 6:15am and inhaled very deeply as I started out and hit upon the breakthrough idea, I will specifically concentrate on my breathing today, no extraneous thoughts on how tired my legs felt, no thinking to myself that its a long way back, nothing, just concentrate on my breathing and ride. And that is what I did and in the process completed 25 miles.

I usually go nearly 6 miles straight to Port Royal, take a break and then roll on back to the car, but this time I was really feeling good. I kept a steady pace, concentrating on form and breathing and just soldered on. On reaching Port Royal I just spun around and started back without stopping and went straight back to the car park.

I still felt great so I had a drink and went off for another circuit, back and forth and then on down to the airport and along the road towards The Gunboat Beach and back. I didnt feel exhausted, didnt feel like I was dying or anything, I felt great - well apart from a sore ass after siting on it for the past 2 1/2 hours.

Wednesday is a holiday and I am going to try Temple Hall to Golden Spring again. The last time I tried it I almost had a heart attack from riding up the incline, but if I apply the same principles - breathe deeply, pay attention to form - I should be able to make it.

Wish me luck


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February 2010

Miles Ridden Today - 25
Miles Walked MTD - 5

Miles Ridden MTD - 27

Target for February - 60-75 miles

The King is Alive - Long Live the King

If you have read any of my postings here, you will already know that I am a big comic book fan and I especially love good comic book art, although I really consider myself a bit of a "writer"(sort of), I just love seeing purty pictures.

Just today DC released an image with gorgeous David Finch art that tells us that "The King is Back, Long Live the King." Aquaman The King of the Seven Seas is back !!

I have always been a major DC fan and as a kid got in the usual kid arguments of "Who's better DC or Marvel" and although many fans often think of Aquaman as the superhero with the silliest power ever (dude, he speaks to his fishy friends) I always thought if handled properly he had the potential to be a star.

In the early 90s Peter David was tapped to chronicle the adventures of Aquaman and a star was born. David infused the character with a real personality and purpose and populated the series with interesting characters that complimented and also provided conflict for the main character. King Orin was a leader of his people and his bearing took on the arrogance of a King and the excess baggage and problems that went with such responsibilities. He also radically changed Orin's personality and had his hand eaten off by piranhas (ouch) and replaced with a hook (Arhhhh, me maties), got him involved with Dolphin ( a girl named dolphin, not a real one) and had him communicating with various aquatic lifeforms fishes, dolphins, etc. (the dolphin Pom - his adoptive mother, and sharks - damn, they are pretty dumb you know)

Fans either loved it or hated it, they accused David of making Orin a carbon copy of Marvel's Namor the Submariner, but David just seemed to gleefully go off on plots that stretched for issues on end and plot twists that had fans laughing menacingly like evil dictators trying to rule the world.

Eventually irreconcilable creative differences between himself and the editor (was it Dooley or Raspler) led to his departure and a wretched 12 issue run written by Eric Larsen, followed by a wonderful under-rated run by Dan Jurgens and Steve Epting could not prevent the series being cancelled against the doldrums of low industry sales in 2001.

Since then Aquaman fans have had to get their thrill from Orin's appearances in books like JLA and on Warner cartoons. There was a revival of the series in 2003 by writer Tom Veitch which ran for 39 issues before morphing into Aquaman:Sword of Atlantis which gave us a blond blade wielding Aquaman who was certainly not the original character (if you dont ask, I promise not to tell), but the series fizzled and really couldnt hold on to its readers.

Aquaman was eventually killed of in some silly "event series" that DC and Marvel seem forever wanting to heap on fans every couple months, and it has taken Geoff Johns' runaway hit Blackest Knight and the upcoming Brightest Day to restore a character that has so much potential, but which nobody seems to be able to get a proper handle on (except Peter David).

I have been on a break from buying comics as I try to get certain things in place for 2010, but rest assured I will be following the adventures of one of my favourite character to see how he's being handled and whether someone/anyone has finally gotten a proper handle on him. (PAD ! Where are youuuuuuuu ?)

The Aquaman covers shown were all accessed at the Grand Comic Database and are the copywrite of DC Comics Inc.

Video: Our Ride on Saturday

Video: Saturday Ride

Uploaded a video to Youtube of Wayne and a girl riding last Saturday morning, as I posted before i had a flat and did a fair amount of walking and ended up with a serious ankle ache that lasted until the next day, but everything's ok now.

I went for a quick ride this evening, I started off at 4pm and was back by 5, trying my best not to have a heart attack. The main road from Annotto Bay all the way to Stony Hill is really one long incline and it gets extreme at Golden Spring, but all through St. Mary and onwards through Temple Hall it is an incline, and after riding for months on the relatively flat road of Harbour View and clocking close to 12 miles per ride, I figured Temple Hall to Golden Spring and back would be a "cake walk" (5 miles) - but I didn't consider the friggin' incline.

Riding towards Golden Spring with the incline is like riding in heavy wind on the Palisadoes, it makes you feel like your heart is jumping out of your chest and you have to find somewhere to sit and take deep breaths until the feeling of puking your guts out while dying passes.
I did just that and drank some water and then reversed the course - NO !! I did not make it to Golden Spring. The best part of riding an incline going, is riding the decline coming, and that was fun and I am sure I was topping 30 mph at one point.


My adventures on Saturday told me that although I have been riding a little more and feeling better, I am still very very out of shape and I need to increase the frequency of my aerobic activity, I definitely will be riding this road more. The traffic wasn't that bad, a bit nerve wracking as buses and trucks raced past, but I had more than enough room to ride.

I called my good friend Andre this evening, we used to walk together and do the gym about 20 years ago, he was always heavy in high school and has dropped weight in the past, but with the approach of his 40th anniversary of his life on earth and the type of job he has (Accountant), he has really packed on some excess pounds, so I invited him to go walking on a Saturday morning while we are riding. He has expressed an interest in getting a bike and joining us, so I am going so see if I can get a suitable bike for him. Its not going to be easy dragging his ass out of bed at 5:30am as he is used to going to sleep late at nights, but I have to push him, or I might end up losing one of my best friends to a heart attack or something.

This weekend coming up I will try to record us while we are riding, so you all can look out for it

Peace

Billy Joel: We Didnt Start The Fire

WE DIDNT START THE FIRE BY BILLY JOEL

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"

Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

CHORUS:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser aand Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc

Roy hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez

CHORUS:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide

Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo

CHORUS:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say

CHORUS:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodsto/ck/, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

CHORUS:
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-A4QFHZBA

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I have always loved this song and find myself listening and singing a lot last week

Feeling Flat Flat Flat !!!

with apologies to Arrow and his great soca song song (Feeling hot hot hot !)

I didnt get to ride on yesterday as I had a flat.

I have been riding for a while and have gotten used to having to stop to put air in my tyres occasionally, so I know which gas stations have air hoses attached to their pumps at 5am in the mornings (very few). Unlike the Boys Scouts though I was not prepared on Saturday morning.

Usual routine on Saturday morning and I headed out probably 10 minutes later than usual, I knew I had the flat and knew it wasnt just normal, as my tyres normally wouldn't loose a lot of pressure, this time it was flat ! I left it until reaching Harbour View and that is when I realized that there might be a big hole in the tube as the pumping wasnt helping and Wayne had neither patches or extra tubes with him today.

I was determined to exercise and went off for a brisk walk towards Port Royal. I had quite a few people asking me "where's the bike?" accusingly, as I if I had murdered it and hid it in the bushes, but the walking was good and very different from riding. I found it much more difficult and will concede that it and running is a better aerobic workout than riding, but man its hard on the joints. I completed a little over 4 miles and ended up the a serious ache in my right ankle that has eased only somewhat nearly 24 hours later.
No doubt about it though, I got a very good workout, the hear rate was up for 80-90% of the walk and I worked up a great sweat, I could feel the muscles getting pump and was sufficiently exhausted when I returned to the parking lot.


On the way home I stopped by the bicycle shop and picked up a small patch kit and an extra tube to carry around in my car so I will always be prepared, I couldnt find the air pump here and need to check my by my mother-in-law's house today as I am sure it was left there. I havent patched the tube yet and need to learn how to do that quickly as flats are part of the day to day routine of cyclists, also getting a pump that can be attached to the bike is a given.


I am off to a class in another hour or so, my ankle is still aching but has eased a bit, and I can only hope that it will be fine for work tomorrow