At the start of the year I set myself some cycling goals for 2009. Now that a full half of a year (and more, I know this is a little late) has passed, it’s time to do another quick review and see how I’m doing.
The goals I set myself were as follows:
- Get fit enough to cycle commute 4 days every week, with occasional 5’s
- Make time for training and social (ie: non commuting) rides
- Get a road bike
- Get my “classic” (ie: old) mountain bike (’95 GT Zaskar) out of storage and into the mud
- Motivate a former mountain biking buddy back into some kind of cycling
- Attempt a local sportive road ride
- Eat better (I’m not too bad, but there’s room for improvement!)
I did a review at the end of Q1 and scored 4 out of 7. Let’s see how the next three months went.
I’ll address each goal in order:
- I’m still cycle commuting three days a week regularly, though I’ve been forced to cut back in the past few weeks due to injury and lifestyle changes. This, let me be clear, sucks.
- Sunday rides have become a regular part of my weekend routine.
- Still got the BeOne !
- The 1995 GT Zaskar has been retrived from it’s storage cave and I’ve even got the parts I need to get it back in trailworthy condition. I now just need to make the time to do the rebuilding work.
- I’ve let this one slip a bit. Bad me. Note to self: must pester more.
- I completed the 50Km Marie Curie Craigavon Cycle Trail in May and the Bangor Coastal Challenge in June, with Lap The Lough coming up in August.
- I’ve got better (far from perfect) at resisting sweetie treats, but a sensible sleep pattern is seemingly still beyond my capabilities.
2009 report card, Q2 interim result: +1 point each for achieving goals 2 and 6, but -1 for task 5 compared to Q1, so my score goes up to 5/7. I’m tempted to award myself a half-point each for goals 4 and 7 as I’ve moved much closer to achieving both since Q1 (but haven’t actually completed them). What do you think? Can point 7 ever really be “completed” anyway?
Let’s see what Q3 brings!
Point 7 is impossible! For instance – I’ve been watching what I eat since November, but yesterday I munched through 4 packets of Nice and Spicy Nik Naks, 2 packets of Wheat Crunchies (Bacon Flavour of course) and a packet of Haribo.
Oh, and 2 Corned Beef butties…
Not healthy – but made me feel good :O)
Simply put, you need fuel if you’re going to be cycling (or doing any sort of exercise) so a calorie controlled diet is going to be difficult and unpleasant to maintain. What I’m trying to do is be careful where I’m getting my fuel from and cutting out the high fat sources where possible.
You know, like Nik Naks, bacon crunchies and corned beef butties.
LOL!
I’ll not tell you about the block of lard I ate for my tea last night then!
Joby is right, point 7 is the hard one, especially with fuel needed, but it takes time to train and I don’t mean the body, I mean the brain, While I seem to be on the road to “recovery” now lets not forget I have attempted to lose weight many times over the last 10 years and never lost more than a stone a time and put 2 back on, Once I sorted (not totally) my head out, the rest has just followed.
I know what you mean Gary, and I think I’m getting there with the mental side of things. I was out for a meal with some friends last week where there was a wide choice of meals available. In the end I caved and ordered a cheesy chicken burger with chips, but if I was there again I think I’d be strong enough to resist and order a salad, fish and vegetables or basically anything not covered in cheese or served with chips. The burger wasn’t even that nice!