And the temperatures go up

Monday, May 30, 2011

Since I slept through the ridable temps (yeah, yeah, I know, but if I go out there in 90°F+ heat right now, I'll die of heatstroke), I hied my ass over to the gym and hopped on the spinny thingy for twenty minutes before hitting the weights. My legs certainly had much to say to me after I got off the spinny thingy, but I told them to pull on their big boy panties and cowgirl up, already.

I am starting to see some changes in my arms and legs -- nothing in the midsection yet, but that's always the last to go. My calves are starting to show some serious definition, though, and so are my forearms. Even my flabby upper arms don't look quite as poofy as they used to be, which is all good.

Know what I REALLY want to see? My clavicle. I would love to have visible collarbones.

Okay, I'm Dumb

Thursday, May 26, 2011

But in my defense, no one ever TOLD me that you can adjust stuff on your bike, or that you need to 1) make sure that you're riding the right size frame for your body, 2) get a seat that isn't trying to embed itself in your crotch, and 3) should adjust the seat AND handlebar height so that you can ride comfortably.

Anyway, post-ride, the rest of the morning was spent tweaking the bike's handlebars. And for the hardcore riders out there, yes, I know that the ideal racing position is bent over the handlebars with a flat back. But as I am not going to be in the Tour de France any time soon and have a hybrid bike that is designed for grannies who want to tootle back and forth to the store (although I CAN get a good head of speed on it when I try), I want to be comfortable on the damn thing.

Thus, I set the seat at a relatively comfortable height (I still need to boost myself onto it, which must look hilarious), and raised the handlebars right smack up to the safety line (any farther up and I'd have less than 2 inches of stem in the fork, which would make it very likely that stem and fork would part ways during a ride and I would go boom), then adjusted the front brakes to allow for the additional .75" of stem height. As a result, I can sit up while riding, the bulk of my weight is on my seat instead of my arms (which is fine and why I bought the Fat Bottomed Girl seat in the first place), and my wrists aren't shrieking in agony after a ride. All in all, a much more pleasant riding experience.

On the road again


Yes, I am Queen of the Mushroom People. But at least my head is protected when I'm on the bike.

I purchased and put a Fat Bottomed Girl seat on the bike yesterday, and MAN that made a difference -- I rode for almost two miles this morning and my pelvic bones weren't screaming at me at all. Now I just have to bump the handlebars up a bit, and I should be ready to cruise. Lyndon's even talking about tuning up his bike and joining me -- yay!

So, I got my bike back

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

After a bit of faffing about -- turned out that the front inner tube was leaky and the tire was flat by the time I got it home. I pumped it up again just to be sure, and could hear the hissing noise.

So I tossed it back in the truck and went back to the bike store, where they cheerfully replaced the tube while I tried on helmets and bought a water bottle and holder for the bike. I think I look absolutely ridiculous in the helmet, so I may take it back and see if I can find something a little more low-riding.

But the important thing is, I just went for a bike ride for the first time in over a decade -- down past Capstone park and maybe a mile total round trip into the local greenbelt. My face is the color of raw hamburger, my pelvic bones are screaming at me, as are my thigh muscles, and I have scrapes all up and down my right leg from getting the pedal into position to get on the bike.

I think I'm going again tomorrow.

Sometimes, you just have to hit the road

Friday, May 13, 2011

Lyndon isn't feeling well (neither was I last night, to be honest -- I'm guessing a mild 24-hour bug for both of us), so I was able to grab his truck this morning and run my bike over to the bike shop.

I have a CBS ProMax that I bought in Sweden -- it was quite handy for getting back and forth to the store since it had these nice wire saddlebag-type baskets that I could stuff shopping in, and once I installed a bigger seat for my bigger butt, it was pretty comfortable to ride.

It's been languishing in the garage next to Lyndon's Raleigh for about ten years, now. The tubes are pretty much gone, the chain's in dodgy condition, and it's more than a little dusty. I'd stopped in on Wednesday at the bike shop to make sure they could fix bikes as well as sell them -- the nice tattooed guy at the repair counter said to bring mine on in and he'd give me an estimate.

This happened this morning. He didn't seem too fussed about the idea that it had been sitting around for ten years -- apparently the tires are still in pretty good shape, and all that really needs to be replaced are the tubes and cabling, after which he'll give it a tune-up and it should be ready for the road.

He said I could have it back by May 23, after 5 PM. By 6 PM, I hope to be wobbling down one of the local bike paths. Whee!

Bruised, and loving it

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

As I lie here on the couch (having walked in 78°F heat, 78% humidity and light drizzle for 25 minutes -- would've been longer but for the drizzle), freshly showered and musing over the idea of hitting the hay early for once, I find myself looking at my right arm. In the past few days, I've carried a large old TV out to the car in an attempt to donate it to Goodwill (the man at the collection area just looked at it and laughed -- finally left it out back for the trash scavengers), cleaned the bedroom, carried ladders and vacuum cleaners up and down stairs, and generally been active about the house.

I also bruise easily -- got that from my mother. A friend once gave me an acupressure treatment on my back, and was horrified the next morning at the deep blue Turner seascape-esque blotches that bloomed overnight on my skin. I had to reassure her that she hadn't been torturing me, it was just the way my skin reacted to pressure. And the way my torso looked after a good fencing session can only be described as "Dalmatian."

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that after the last few days, I have three small but distinct bruises high and inside on my upper right arm from where the frame of the TV dug into the muscle, a smudgy bruise on my outer forearm from banging the ladder against it, and a small pink bruise on my inner forearm from God knows what.

And I like them. This may sound idiotic, but I kinda feel like Xena, Warrior SF Writer when I look at my mottled skin. Yeah, they ache a bit, but they remind me of the work I did to get them, and that's kind of cool.

I Anen't Dead

Sorry about that -- life got...a little complicated over the last six months or so. That being said, life has just become remarkably uncomplicated because I finished my contract last week, so I can start doing things like, oh, blogging on a regular basis again.

So, what's been happening with me? Well, health-wise I completely blew my triathlon training, not to mention going to the gym on a regular basis, and generally felt like shit for quite a few months there due to a wide variety of stressors. My crowning moment came when I went to see some friends in a play down in Orlando (which was wonderful, by the way), and couldn't fit in the theater seat. I was just too fat to sit down. Yeah, that was humiliating. I finally managed to Tetris my ass into the seat, tearing my jeans in the process, and bolted for the box office at intermission to beg for anywhere else that could handle a big woman's ass. Luckily they gave me a lovely freestanding chair next to the door, and Lyndon was even able to move with me, but there were a few moments there where all I wanted to do was burst into tears (a very nice man came up to me during intermission and told me that I had an absolutely lovely laugh -- I don't know if he was trying to make me feel better or what, but it did help).

Sometimes, however, you need a kick in the ass like that. And combined with the fact that I was about to be turfed from the Death Star, I decided it was time to make some permanent changes in my life. I'm tired of dreading plane flights because coach seats are massively uncomfortable for a woman of my size. I want to be able to sleep comfortably in a hotel bed -- or, hell, in my own bed without the aid of fifteen million pillows. I'd like to wear clothes that don't have multiple X's on the label. For that matter, I'd like to shop for clothes in a regular person's store -- I've never done that as an adult.

So, what am I doing? Well, some simple things to start out with -- I'm trying to move every day, even if it's just housework. I'm eating small meals every 3 hours, and I try to stay with lean protein and veggies whenever possible. Tomorrow is my first yoga class, Cthulhu help me. And I want to take my bike into a local bike shop and see about getting it generally tuned up, since it's been sitting in the garage for the last 10 years. There are all kinds of bike paths around here -- I'm going to look like a fat idiot on a bike, but at least I'll be out there riding.

WEIGHT: 308.2