Fit Friday - A Varied Week
Well, this was not such a bike-centric week. That’s not to say I wasn’t as active. Though I have no photographic proof. The above shot is actually from the very first ride on the new bike after it was truly mine. DH and I rode to the NE area of campus and had breakfast at a local somewhat crunchy/granola-y restaurant, The Rainbow. It was fabulous! They have added sweet potato latkes to their new breakfast menu and they are delish! Of course I like sweet potatoes nearly as much as pumpkin so I’m not much of a critic.
You all had some fabulous name suggestions for the new bike! Thank you all sooo much for sharing them with me. While I have not chosen any of the suggested names, they did get the gears turning and helped me find the name. The comments about the bike being “racy” and such had me thinking about how already the bike has caused me to explore new areas of town I otherwise wouldn’t have been likely to do (like this week’s Wordless Walk With Me Wednesday). The first name that came to mind was Amelia (as in Earhart) as she both flew and explored new territories.
Amelia didn’t seem to quite fit so I started researching other women explorers. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I learned about no other female explorers in any of my history classes. But there are many remarkable ones from around the globe and through the years! It was Isabella Bird’s story that struck a chord with me. Despite various chronic health problems, in the 1850’s she came to America from her home in England with 100 pounds and was allowed to stay until her money ran out. She followed that up with tours of Canada and Scotland. Eventually she landed back in America, specifically in Colorado. In 1873 she covered over 800 miles of the mountains and wrote A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains
(free for Kindle
).
So, I present to you, Isabella! It may end up as Izzie for short. We’ll see. Isabella and I had a momentous first this week even if my mileage was modest - I hooked up DH’s panniers and rode her with an extra 15 pounds of cargo for about 10 miles last Friday! I should have taken a picture, but I’m not a fan of my iphone photography skills and for the moment taking the good camera along isn’t ideal. The Friday ride was also on a totally new route to a different part of town than usual. It went so well we used that same route on Wednesday. I also attended a bicycle maintenance class last evening so I’m a little better equipped to keep Isabella moving smoothly.
With the low mileage this week I think it is a good time to adjust my “week” to run Friday - Thursday to line up with the Fit Friday posts. It’ll be much easier to keep things straight that way. That means this week’s numbers include Wednesday and Thursday of last week as well, though truthfully I took those as rest days after having ridden Sunday-Tuesday with my longest ride to date kicking off that string. I am finding rest days to be pretty crucial at this juncture. It gives me some time to stretch back out my overly tight quads and IT bands after building/abusing them with the biking.
Miles Biked: 22.9
Avg Gas Price: $3.39
Gas Money Saved: $4.09
YTD Gas Money Saved: $12.84
This week also marked another milestone on the road to better fitness - I *finally* after several weeks of frustrating weigh-ins reached my first goal! It has been a rough road, one in which I had inadvertently slipped my body back into starvation mode by not consuming the calories I burned in exercise. But I can say I’m past a mini-milestone weight marker which also coincides with a total weight loss since mid-December of 35 pounds and 28 pounds since starting to use Lose It! in earnest in March. Now, on to the next 25 pounds!
How are you doing? Did you move in a new way this week or hit any milestones?
