My first blog--broke the 200 mile mark!

This morning I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 296.4lbs. I weighed 306lbs in late April so I guess that means I've lost about 10lbs this month. This week decided to take a classmate's advice and I ordered 5 weeks of food through NutriSystem. The weight could really start pouring off now. I have not been this "light" since I started school at Parker in January 2006.

With the encouraging news of my weight progress I decided to explore Lake Grapevine in Grapevine, TX. There was only a small stretch of road that was in view of the lake that crossed over the dam. I need to get a camera because the view is pretty nice up there. My ride got off to a rough start because the headwind was blowing pretty hard. As I was suffering, I watched the boats in the water and noticed the water conditions were pretty choppy down there, but I took solice that the ride back would be very comfortable. I rode highway 26 towards Grapevine and passed some nice shopping centers out there. I love the fact that I am exploring new areas and now I know of a few new places to check out when my family comes down to visit. I also passed some well known hotels including the Gaylord Texan. (http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylord-texan/) After coming to a dead end in an industrial park I did not want to stray from the main road and get lost so I turned around and headed back. My goal was to ride about 15-20 miles but I ended up with only about 14 miles, oh well. On my way back I hit a new personal record for top speed at 34.23mph; probably because of the tail wind. It also could have been my new drag reducing nike sleeveless jerset I bought last night to help me improve my nasty case of farmer tan and show off my new guns.

This evening I decided to hop on the bike and ride down to the local Vietnamese restaraunt since my nutrisystem meals did not come in yesterday. Its funny how if you have to do a little bit of work for your food, you realize how bad you really want it; imagine if you lived on a farm! I could have ordered pizza, but I wanted to eat something relatively healthy. It is exactly 2 miles from my door to their door. By the time I got home my odometer read 202 miles! I bought my bike (http://www.lemondbikes.com/bikes/road_racing/performance_aluminum/reno.php) on May 12th so in 20 days I have averaged 10 miles per day. If I continue this pace I will wind up logging over 3,650 miles in 1 year! I can actually see myself going over the 5,000 mile mark. My commute is 14 miles rountrip and I try to ride in at least 3-4 days per week.

My goal is to ride to school 4 days per week and go on a long bike ride every Saturday and eventually I would like to average over 100 miles per week. It would be great to move to an apartment that is about 10-12 miles away from school so I could increase my mileage. I am also trying to get ready for the Parker Ride for Wellness (http://www.parkercc.edu/parker_ride_for_wellness_2008.aspx) in late September. I would like to finish the 100k portion (60~miles) so I am going to have to start increasing my mileage on the the weekends; my longest ride was last weekend's 23.75 miles.