Welcome!

It's a new year and time once again to give a new look to this blog. New graphics and colors. Same bike writer!



This blog is created not only to track my own progress on my biking journey but it is intended to also assist others who have either osteo or rheumatoid arthritis or both like I do. I hope as you read about the progress I have made that it gives you inspiration and hope that you can overcome the dibilitating effects of these conditions.



If your doctor agrees that you should be capable of expanding your limits read on and don't be afraid, just listen to your body and give it challenges. Biking is a great non-impact form of exercise and greatly enhances flexibility and range of motion.



It's not a substitute for Doctor visits, taking your meds or otherwise getting off your health plan but it auguments what your Doctor does for you and can give you a better quality of life. Go for it!





Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Training Does Pay Off

As a follow up to my last post this one continues with the theme and trend.  And I'm happy to report the trend is great!  My fitness is returning by leaps and bounds and the scale is moving in the right direction.  As much as I'd been bemoaning the loss of fitness and how I had lost so much hard gained ground, the tide has turned.  Quite simply, training works.  Take a sluggish body, lagging spirit and the feeling of general malaise and put all of that through the paces and magic happens. The body, the mind, the spirit and soul respond and rebound at an amazing pace.  The human body is nothing short of miraculous with its resilient capacity to transform. Short of adding new limbs or changing eye or hair color, you can pretty much remake your body in any fashion you want to if you're willing to put in the effort.  The beauty of all of this is that it's possible for anyone to do.

Getting started is the hard part.

Not quite half way through the month and the miles are piling up.  I'm well over a hundred miles for May, rides are getting longer in miles for less time spent on the bike.  Today was a hammerfest.  Having spent the last half dozen rides working hills I turned my attention today to doing a flat out fast (for me) ride.  I chose a local rail trail that was as flat as it gets around here and straight as an arrow.  Generally there is a slight rise as you go out and a slight downhill as you return.  The combo of flat and straight allowed for kicking up into harder gears and upping the MPH considerably.   I pushed far more miles into shorter time span.  It's a different way of training than the hill work I've been mostly working on and I have to believe that mixing it up like this is going to produce even better results.

I did a routine like this over a week ago and the combo and mix up proved to be a good increase in performance level.  Yay me!

Happy trails to all!

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