Couch to ATHLETE!

This morning I woke up motivated and ready to ride. I was happy because yesterday I could barely function. I took a short ride on Saturday and knew I needed to take a long ride this weekend to boost my confidence for the 60 mile ride next week. I decided to head down to Yellow Springs, Ohio to check out the Little Miami Scenic Trail. I heard it was a long trail that basically goes from Springfield Ohio to Cincinnati Ohio. I have to say this is going to be my favorite place to take visitors when they come to visit me, not only can you take an awesome bike ride but you can get AWESOME ice cream at Young's when done. While riding this morning I was thinking about my plan to ride 100 miles in a day by the end of the summer. I imagine I will need an entire day to do that ride so I can stop and snack/lunch a few times along the way. This then made me reflect back upon my college days. While in college one of the very famous drinking games we would play was Century Club. The idea was to s...

I got to Chicago on Friday at which time my Uncle Pete and Dad put the clips on my shoes and then installed my new peddles. My mom and Auntie Evie sat across the table watching the process asking 20 questions. Some examples: what are those, why would you use those, how do you get your feet out, do you wear a helmet, you are going to fall, what if you can't get your feet out? During this conversation Aunt Evie and Mom told me I shouldn't use the shoes. They told me it isn't necessary, and I was going to get hurt. I got my big bro involved and called him to verify the fact that I would be much more efficient with these shoes and peddles, and he also made sure I knew I would have a massive wipe out at some point (I'm proud to say it hasn't happened yet). After completing the installation and the very serious talk about my safety I went out to the street to test the new equipment. I had a very large audience. Auntie Evie, Uncle Pete, Dad and my Mom all stood there a...

Helmets are Sexy (but cute on kids) There are a few things that bother me: 1) Seeing adults ride their bikes without helmets 2) Seeing parents riding their bikes with no helmets but their children have helmets 3) Seeing kids riding around on their bikes with their parents and none of them have on helmets. I'm going to start a helmets are sexy campaign here in Columbus. I'm going to start by having a cycling jersey made with this saying on the back. After that I'm going to try and figure out how to get bike helmets donated so I can stand on the bike path and hand the helmets out to all the people who have their heads openly exposed to the concrete. Distracted Drivers I almost got run over yesterday. It seems to be the story of my life these days, but yesterday was the closest call. I was riding to work and while turning a corner in a double turn lane, the guy in the inside lane decided to go straight. I bet he/she was texting while driving. I am going to try and pay a litt...

The question of the day is are bike shorts a luxury or necessity? I have a very STRONG opinion on the answer to this question. Now that I can say I've logged over 60 miles this week (and it is only Wednesday) on my bike and about one hundred last week I have decided to explore this very important question. My sister commented on my last post saying something about how my butt must hurt. Let me start by mentioning that I am still using a pair of bike shorts that were gifted to me about seven years ago from the exact sister who questioned the comfort of my behind. I now know exactly what is on her mind when she thinks of cycling. I believe she gave them to me in her exercise bully days to make sure I had few excuses to go out for those long rides with her. Of course my sister was always riding with her burly and Brady in tow and I could barely keep up. One of my favorite memories was when we got on our bikes and while we were riding up a hill that when you looked to the top kind of l...

It's been exactly a week since I signed up to do the 60 mile Tourdecure here in Ohio. Although I still stand by my decision to sign up for the ride I'm still freaking out. I think I have logged about 100 miles of riding this week, but I'm sure I should be logging much more. The struggle is finding a good route here in cBus where there is little traffic and NO college students (sorry little cousins who are reading this, but seriously you all text on your cell phones while driving WAY too much). The other struggle is finding riding time when I'm working too much. My strategy for this week is to take an extended ride every morning, and take the super long way home from work. So, my big excitement for the week was also my big disappointment. I took my bike to the bike shop in town and asked them to fix my "masking" taped together brake cables and give me an overall tune up. They told me they would complete my bike quickly (which they did) but when I went to pic...

I have been wanting to get into real shape and decided to make it happen by signing up for more events this summer. Example, 60 mile bike ride five weeks from now. For those of you who know me, you may say, Uh Oh Sarah got in over her head. Hell I am saying Uh Oh I got in over my head, but I paid the money, I'm going to do it. I created this blog for a number of reasons. 1) Two years ago I was participating in the Chicago Triathlon and a couple of things happened that day. I was cheering people on while "jogging" and at the end of the race a gentleman came up to me and gave me a hug, thanking me for providing him the motivation to finish the race. All I thought I was doing was distracting myself so I could finish the race. 2) The other thing; At the end of the Chicago Triathlon two years ago I talked with one of the folks who participated with our group and we both talked about how we wanted to do better the next year. Neither of us trained like we would have liked to, an...