Still on the journey and exercising every day.

I have still be exercising every day and feeling okay about myself, as far as health and body goes anyway. There have been lots of things that have got in the way of my journey that I have not let stop things but do make me feel down and that is the reason things have not been updated here in a bit. When I sit down to type out a post I end up thinking about other things I could do with the short amount of time I had and I end up doing nothing with that time and not updating the blog either. Anway enough of that for now, it is time to write about the journey since my last post. 

I have been going on bike rides and expanding the range of the bike rides as well as the speeds of the rides. I mentioned joining Strava and I have been trying to get as fast as I can on some of the segments I like. I have not got close to beating anyone on a segement but trying is fun for me and gives me a goal to strive for. I also ended up buying another bike for some extra fun. I have been riding mostly on my mountain bike before buying this new bike and it was slower to ride but it is MUCH more capable for places I like to ride. The bike I bought recently is a gravel bike from a place I never thought I would buy a bike I like, Walmart. They have a 250 dollar Ozark Trail G1 Explorer Gravel bike and I heard it was fairly good so I picked one up to see what all the fuss was about and figured I could return it if it was no good. I got mine in the box and set it up myself so I did not have to deal with the common walmart set up problems that others might have. If the fork was on wrong that was my fault. I did not put anything on wrong and it shifted fair right out of the box. I did have to adjust the front derailleur a little as it was a touch out of sync with some chain rub if I was in the last gear in the rear but other than that small adjustment it was good to go. I ended up riding it for my next few rides. The first ride I was on the bike I beat all my Strava personal records for the segments with out trying it was a much faster ride. The ride I am going to talk about was not my first ride as my first ride was awesome with beating personal records but not much else happened to mention in it. 

The most recent ride just under 20 miles through the mostly paved and packed dirt trails went very well. I had a fair average speed nothing crazy but I was a lot faster than I had been prior on my other bike so I was happy and feeling very good about this ride. On one of the segments I thought I might try to get the crown and its a small segment so I could go as fast as I could and see where I land. There is a turn that leads to a small path bridge its old and VERY bumpy. I set up and get ready and push as hard as I can. When I hit the bridge I got about 6 inches of air because there is a lip in the front of the bridge then its all the bumps of the rotten wood and off the bridge. I still push as fast as I can around the corner and to the end of the segment and things seem perfect. I was not the fasted on the segement but I was out of breath for a bit and kept on riding to my next stopping point for some water. About 3 miles into the ride to the next stop I noticed I was hearing my chain doing its rubbing again. Cheap bike cheap parts I would have to adjust it not a big problem. I get to the stop and take out my tools to adjust things. 

Well this is about what I expected from cheap components but the front derailleur has snapped. It might be hard to see in the photo as I took it on the ride at the stopping point but that should not be split at all and it is. I think this happened when I hit the bridge and got the air becuase this bike is not really set up to do that kind of thing. I do so much worse on my Specialized mountain bike so I thought this bike should be able to handle at least a little air but it seems like that is not something these parts a equiped for. That is not a shock to me I expected much worse and I am still supprised that nothing else broke on it. All of it being said I adjusted things a little and it no longer rubs and still shifts so its fine for the moment but I will have to replace it. I am not going to return the bike because of it I am going to replace the cheaper parts over time and keep riding it. 

Other than the rides on mostly paved trails I have been taking my mountain bike into the woods for some trail riding. I don't have any of the details on the distances on those right now but I did take a picture at a waterbreak point. 

Riding my bike in the woods is what I enjoy a lot more than on the roads because there are very few people and no cars. Cars are the worst part about riding a bike and I hate road riding because of them. I don't blame the drivers personally but they just do not care about bikes on the road and it could be just one person who is not paying attention and in a rush to make my day bad so I avoid road riding as much as I can. Also trail riding is so much more fun I get to ride over tricky things like all of those roots and rocks instead of just riding on a road where the pot holes are the most exciting thing to ride near.

Aside from bike rides and getting out of the house I have been keeping up with my running on the treadmill. I can keep a fair pace for longer now, 25 minutes at 6.0 is easy to do and with a 5 minute 4.0 walk I can do 6.0 again for another 25 minutes or so. The run above I was a little slower than that because I was having some issues with my knee where it was not in pain but it kept locking up. It feels fine today so I am not sure what that was about but I will keep an eye on it and continue to run on the treadmill. I am excited to finally be able to keep a good pace and get a 10K done in an hour and 30 minutes. I will continue to bring that time down by keeping at the running. 

Now for the sort of bad and weird to me. I have been keeping track of my calorie intake and I don't add my burned calories to the total that I can eat I just eat the 1600 that Samsung has listed as what I should eat to lose weight. I have hit a wall on that and I am not sure how or why. I am around 167-169 each time I weight myself and I would think I am just over eating or not exercising enough but every single day I am exercising with at least 3 miles on the treadmill and use a food scale so I can log the exact amount of grams I am eating to Samsung Health so I am at a bit of a loss at why this number is not going down at all. I mean its not all about the weight but I have not lost size either and that was the point of this was I did not fit in the pants I should be fitting into. I am not letting it get me down too much I see progress in the amount of exercise I can do and my body feels overall better but I can see why people give up on their weight loss journey. If I did not have all this other tracking and progress and it was just about the weight loss I would be very upset with my progress and might think what is the point. It is not only about the weight loss for me so that is not dragging me down too bad. I am going to keep at it and find the root cause of why I am not losing weight and fix it. 

I am off to continue the journey! Have a wonderful day and thank you for reading!