All packed up and ready to go!

Yep, there's Ol' Red, my trusty (and rusty) mountain bike. We've been together for *thinks* geez, at least 10 years. Red harkens back to a time when they didn't think of making titanium-frame bikes for regular non bike racing folks. Times when they made the frames out of lead, or mercury, or something similarly and unnecessarily heavy. I figure between my ass, and Ol' Red's weight, and those packed up panniers, I'm getting a hell of a resistance workout when I ride to work.

Now that I've got a bike computer, I can stop deluding myself about how long the ride is to the station that's farther from my house. Of course I mapped it out on my car's trip meter, and then pretty much rounded it up in my head to 6 miles. Which at some point, like any good story, got exaggerated to 7-somethingish miles each way.

No. It's 5.8 miles. Not that that is anything to turn up one's nose at, especially considering it was done at 7am, and a good bit of it is uphill. And the fact that I'll be doing the same 5.8 on the way home tonight. Hopefully I'll get myself a little mo' goin' and get up early tomorrow morning and the next day to ride back and forth to work too. There's a sense of finality and inevitability once I make the right turn off my street and go down that first hill. This is it. There is no other way to get to work but under my own power, so get movin'. I need that sometimes. Hell, who am I kidding? I need that just about all the time.

One drawback to this whole process - heck this whole way of living - is the sheer amount of planning involved in all of this. Just like I have to cook healthful meals out of good, non-processed, non-adulterated ingredients, chop up a big salad each day and plan a good breakfast -instead of grabbing lunch money like many people do - I now have to make these meals bike-friendly, and make sure that I have all of my uniform stuff packed and ready. And a hair brush. Oh, and Naproxen, in case I start feeling decrepit. A claw clip for my hair. Contact lens solution, in case a rogue June Beetle who doesn't know what month it is flies into my eye. And of course, my travel mug of coffee for the road, safely housed in a ziploc. I mean, where does it end? Next thing you know I'll be strapping Queez, coffee beans, filters, and my coffee grinder on top of all that gear so I can have *reallyfresh* coffee when I get to work. Ol' Red'll look like the Beverly Hillbillies' truck when it's all said and done.

Yesterday's session:
I feel I have made a good bit of progress from my session 2 weeks ago to the one yesterday. I'm very happy with my new sense of what a portion is. I can tell I'm back on the losing weight and not maintaining track, though I try not to weigh too often because I start getting obsessed. I tried on a pair of jeans that hasn't fit for 3 years and they were tight, but they fit! Exercise isn't quite where I want it to be, as I know I can do more; more frequently, more intensely. I'm still getting more exercise than the Average American, so I just have to realize that it will come, and keep plugging away. I have the opportunity now to go to a support group instead of/in addition to my sessions. I'm kind of excited about this, as these are all people who are right now struggling every day with this stuff, just like me.

Exercise:

• Walk/jog around lake with little Girlie Monday
• Cut grass yesterday, then went road/trail biking with Dan. Trail biking is a horse of a different color. Never have I felt so timid and uncomfortable on a bike. Trails sometimes only marginally wider than the bike. Creeks to cross with big honkin' rocks in the mix to stop me dead in the middle because I couldn't steer around 'em. Deliberately placed tree obstacles everywhere. And downhills that, if made out of cement, wouldn't faze me - but made of hard-packed dirt with roots and rocks, terrify me. It was definitely out of my comfort zone. Something I would have loved when I was 12 (before I knew what a broken bone felt like - white hot unbelievable pain, in case you're wondering) but now just brings out the medic in me. I sit there at the top of this narrow-ass rutty dirt hill and imagine all the trauma that will befall me when I, well.. befall on myself. But I did it, and I'm looking forward to more. It was a really good workout.
• Today: ride back/forth to work. 11.6 miles round trip.
• Tomorrow, Friday - hopefully more of the same.