End of the year, Strava Year in Sport summary.

Nearing the End of the year!

I have been a this journey for 9 months now and I have made so much progress and I have felt so much better than last year this time.  I might have stopped updating this blog for a few weeks but I have been on the journey still and enjoying it. I have not updated this in a while becuase it has been hard with this time of year and less time on my hands to get more things done. One thing taking up a lot of my time is getting the kids out and seeing the lights and other fun things that are around this time of year. My Daughter loves seeing Santa and loves the lights shows people around have put on so we have been going out every weekend to at least one place that has cool lights and Santa if we can. As much as I have enjoyed blogging its not going to take time over seeing the joy on my kids face when she is jumping for joy at Santa. 

Anyway what have I been doing and what is the year in sport? I did not know this was a thing but Strava gave a run down of all the miles across the logged sports. I started my journey in March and over the year I have moved 2,315 miles most of those miles are biking and it has been awesome. Nearing the end of the year I am still getting miles in but it was a good time to take a look and reflect on the journey thus far. 

Looking back at all the progress!

Starting in March I was getting into the swing of things, was overweight, and did not fit into work pants anymore. I thought I was going to start with more running and lifting than I was going to do bike riding. I have always loved riding my bike but treadmill was in the basement and why go outside of the house when I can run on the treadmill naked if I wanted to? Turns out that I like the treadmill and I am not one of the people who gets bored out of their mind running on it so that was good but I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed getting out on my bike. I started riding on my older Specialized mountain bike before finding that walmart was selling a self branded gravel bike for cheap. A cheap gravel bike that is faster and I could care less about than my more costly Specialized. So I ended up getting off the treadmill and onto the Ozark Trail G.1 bike. I decided that I was going to try to ride as much as I could as it was a lot more enjoyable than the treadmill. Over the months I have ridden that bike more than I though I ever would have. I put 1,353 miles on that bike alone over the months. That might not be a lot to someone who cycles all the time but I got the bike in April or so and was still overweight and had not done much exercising the years prior so I would only be able to ride 8-9 miles before being done and taking an hour to do that. Today I ride each morning and go for at least 13 miles and it takes me about 45 minutes with a few stops along the way for coffee. I am thrilled with the improvement over the few months on how much I can ride and how much faster I am at riding. 

Along with riding alone I also ended up buying a kid cart to ride with my kids as well. This was something I was thinking was a crazy idea when I was setting it up. I thought it was going to get used once or twice and that would end up being that but I have used that thing for about 500 miles of riding. My kids like to go on the rides and we can go to the park or other places so much simpler and quicker than if we were to go by car. That sounds silly but getting to the parks around here and then finding a spot to park is not always easy so putting the kids in the back of the kid cart on the bike I can just ride to the park and then lock the bike up quickly and there is always a place to do that. The places to lock the bike up might not be the best places I would rather not lock my bike up to a tree but if there is nothing else then tree it is. Buying the cart was the second best purchase for the journey that I have made becuase of how it allowed me to continue the journey with the kids and have fun along the way. 

Starting from no riding to riding my bike 13 miles a day even in December with ice on the ground is a lot of progress. I don't get to ride with the kids right now as its too cold to put them through that even if I had a smal heater in the cart it would be too cold with the wind and risky with the ice so they stay home for now. I fully intend to start riding with them again once the weather gets nice again and that is more progess as years ago I would have just driven to the places or just had the kids play in the back yard. What does this mean for the goals I set when starting the journey and what does this look like you might wonder. I took photos of myself along the way and even though I am slightly embarrassed to post photos of myself it really helps show the progress. First photo was taken at the start of the journey and the second photo was a few weeks ago. 

I tried my hardest to keep the angle the same as well as the perspective of the photo but they are a little different, I did take them months apart. No matter though you can see that its not just someone sucking in their gut there is far too drastic of a difference for that. You can see in the second photo that I still have some fat over the top of the pants but that is nothing compared to the belly in the first photo. The first photo I was 190ish LBS and the second photo I was 140ish LBS. Most of the weight loss was in the first few months and more of the stamina to ride my bike or do any physical activity rose in the last few months. October I attempted a 100 mile ride and though I fell short its not like an 87 mile ride is a short ride. I fell short mostly because I was not fast enough I had enough stamina to keep riding but not the time. I am still going to get back to that and get a 100 mile ride done next spring or summer. 

So whats the plan now?

What is the plan for the future of this blog and the future of my journey? Other than the answer I am going to keep at it and keep on keeping on I still plan to start lifting again. I was thinking I was going to do that instead of riding my bike in the cold and snow but I have ridden my bike in the cold and snow and I like it. It sounds fairly crazy to enjoy something that is a bit uncomfortable but I am obsessed with riding. I almost want to upgrade my bike to a better one or buy better parts for the one I have but I think I will be leaving it as is for now and not buying a new bike. I like the Ozark trail and its bad parts the way it is for now anyway. I will be thinking about adding lifting to my morning routine after a bike ride a s I think that will be a good way to keep riding and get lifting in I will have to see about that. 

I am going to keep updating the blog as well as threads but for now the updates are gong to be a bit fewer than before. I was really planning on trying youtube to face some fears and get better at being online again but that has not panned out for me. I turn on the camera and just hate everything I attempt to make. I hate talking to it and I hate feeling like I am fake or something. It also brings out the worst part of my thinking for some reason. I am still hoping to change that as part of the journey was about not being a home body and not shutting people out anymore. Each time I think about uploading a video to youtube I think its not going to be any good and people will hate me personally for it but like no one will ever see it even if I do post them and I know this yet I can not do it. I used to like to make videos and sharing them with friends so it should be something I enjoy. Anway that is the plan for now. 

I am off to enjoy my cold December riding. Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful day!