At the beginning of the summer I made a decision I was going to ride my bike across Florida. An easy trip – from Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach to the Gulf of Mexico on the West Coast. I estimated the trip betweeb 130 and 150 miles. Previously I have ridden two centuries, but that was in 2006 and 2007. Then, training to ride in the bike across Florida Race I hurt my knee. Ultimately, I had to have orthroscopic surgery and essentially quit riding. In 2009 I injured my back when we moved from Florida or to our cabin in North Georgia. The last five years truly became a battle of pain management, and strength maintenance. In 2013, last year, I started running as a way to stay in shape while we were living in our RV and building our house. Unfortunately, one Sunday I had to run to get a life guard for an injured person at the beach and tore a calf muscle in the process. Again, dreams were sidelined.
Over the past year, August 2013 to May 2014 I attended law school at Barry University in Orlando. Over the course of the year since my focus was on grades I did little or no working out (nil would be the best description). I found myself snacking on skittles and drinking Starbucks Frappuccino’s on the way to class since I attended four nights a week. This past spring while working on my Appellate Brief for LRW2 I realized I needed to change some habits, I didn’t feel healthy. This was subsequent to some similar thoughts around the New Year. In January I started doing the 7-minute workout – very irregularly. Off and on I would do Yoga, stretch, push-ups and abs. Most was hit or miss.
Finally, when I set out to start on the Brief I set a plan to complete the work. I also realized it was a very concise eight week goal and I could simultaneously take on a committed workout for eight weeks which would result in feeling better for summer. So, in mid-March I started riding my bike.
The first few rides were incredibly tiring and slow. The weather was colder, I was out of shape and overall my ass hurt. However, I did some reading with a focus on how not to hurt my knees and learned I had been a “masher” instead of a “spinner”. I changed to focus on spinning and just worked on making sure I was on the bike nearly every day. Any good cyclist knows it is time in the saddle that creates success. Over the course of writing my Brief and preparing for oral arguments I started to ride each morning. I was not as consistent as I hoped, but averaged two to three times a week and sometimes more. The best outcome I was found a route I could do daily, safely, and knew how long it would take me.
As I improved, I found myself knowing I could ride the route in exactly 40 minutes (or less). Initially it was 45, and today it is closer to 30 minutes. The route is exactly eight miles. Since I knew a workout took 40 minutes I could look at the clock and budget my time, thus I became consistent.
By May I felt good about my progress and knew I could ride further as I had not been hurt. I set my goal to ride across Florida by my birthday, August 12. I am writing this post in past tense and have the advantage of knowing what has worked and hasn’t, but will share more in separate posts. For now, I started the summer with about 120 base miles behind me and a goal to get across the state.
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