Another Week Of Exercising Done and Feeling Better Than Ever.

 I have been going out everyday this week for bike rides. I did have one rest day yesterday that was very much needed. I did 7 hours of biking over the week and though I did not get in as many miles as the other week I still got in a lot of biking and pushed myself harder and harder each ride and it has paid off and also I am paying for it. 

Thursday was my longest riding day so far. I am getting ready to ride the 100 miles I am setting out do to by the end of September or early October. Total miles on Thursday was close to 35. I made a mistake where I left the house and did not set my watch to log the bike ride so it auto logged it for a little bit before I noticed what was wrong and fixed it. I lost some of the miles in that 5 minutes as it does not report them as cleanly when you let it auto record. Either way I did a morning ride and an afternoon ride which is not how I am going to do the 100 mile ride but I had somethings I had to do at 11 which caused me to have to split it like this. Over all this was a good idea anyway as I think I am going to have to split a few more and build up to the 100 mile ride. The last few miles of the second ride on thrusday were tough on me and my legs were ready to be done after I got home. The worst part of this was not the soar legs though... I ended up with a bit of a rash on inner thigh rigth near the buttocks. This is the part of butt that sits on the seat and rubs when you move. I had not had any chafing or isues in a long while and I did put some A and D on it before I rode off as I knew it could be a problem. It was not too bad this time but I did have to take off Friday to let it heal a bit before getting back on the bike. I set out this morning with a bandaid over the area and when I got back I did not have a bandaid on anymore so it ended up rubbing and falling off at somepoint on my ride but it did not seem to cause more issues so I am happy about that. 

Todays ride was 20 miles and I tried to push myself to go faster on some of the parts I go slower at. One of the parts is over  bridge so its a good up hill bit to the bridge that I am normally very slow at. Today I was pushing it in a gear higher than the lowest and not going as slow as I normally do. I also did the same on the larger hill near the end of my ride that I normally hate riding up. I will not say it was the easiest still but I got up them with much less trubble and more speed than I have before with out being out of breath or with out my legs feeling like they were going to give out. I am getting more and more excited to ride my bike than I have been in a long time. I might have only been riding road and gravel trails like this for a few months but years ago I used to be on my bike all day and I forgot how much I enjoyed being on a bike until I started to really get into it again and get biking. 

I also started to buy some things for the bike that I am thinking I will be able to use to cut out some of my car use even more than I already have. I want to be able to get to the grocery store down the road from me and get a few things put them on my bike and ride home instead of what I do now which is drive to the grocery store that is 1 minute drive from me to get the things I need. I think doing this will let me get out more on my bike and increase the amount of things I do for the exercising journey. I don't know if I will keep the things on my bike for the grocery store such as the rack or the packs as they add a weight and stuff that I wont normally want on a regular ride. I will have to see how they feel once I get them on the bike and go from there. I am not going to take them off if they feel fine but if I feel like it adds too much to the bike or what not I might only put them on for when I am commuting places. I will also need some packs for when I do the 100 mile ride anyway as I will need to put some food somewhere and I will need more water than my back pack can hold when it is stuffed with other bike things like tools and spare tires. The other thing I am trying to purchase is a trailer for the kids to sit in so I can bike them to the park or where ever we might go in the city that a bike would work for. This one would not stay on the bike all the time and they are fairly costly so I might not be getting one of these any time soon but it would help me get some more leg muscle to pull kids around on my bike.

Now onto the other side of the jorney how has all of this biking progressed the weight loss and size loss? Well I have lost a lot of weight since the start of the journey I think the first scale weigh in was 180 on here. Though that is not the highest I have weighed that is what I started the blog at so I am giong by that number. My current weight is 152 LB and I don't fit into any of my cloths anymore. All of them are far too big now I have to wear a belt for jeans I have that were bought 1 size too small 3 years ago. To be clear on the sizes I have to wear a belt on size 32 jeans now they are too lose and all of the size 34 jeans I have that I wear all the time look awful on me. I have one pair of 30s that fit me but are a little tight in the legs and I am not sure what that is about becuase I would have expected if they fit the waist then they should fit the legs but for some reason they just do not. Anyway still feeling good about this and I am not going to update my wardrobe until I am maintaining a weight as I will just have to buy more things later so for now my clothing will look a little big on me but that is okay. 

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