What a ride!

14 riders, 30 miles, countless smiles

What a treat this morning was, after meeting at the church we decided to head North instead of the route I posted last night to save the wind for the end of the ride. I had a plan B ride put together. After getting out to downtown Frisco and posing for the shot below we decided to split into two groups. 

Doug took Pete and the fast group up to Panther Creek and I hung with the steady group and we made it out to El Dorado. We went over to Teal Parkway and headed back south with the wind at our backs. That wind helped us finish up strong in the steady group, we only lost one spoke, everyone ended up upright, so that's a plus. One of our riders took part in her first group ride and quite impressively never changed gears, oh to be 19 again. She and another rider set their personal best for distance ridden. 

We saw the fast group momentarily on Teal Parkway as we headed back in, they were enjoying a nice tail wind and making good time. Everyone was smiling so it looks like they were having as much fun as we were. Got a text from Pete after the ride and he said the group did really well but more importantly had a great time, which is what we were looking for.

Good looking group, in spite of that dude on the left

The consensus from the steady group, or at least the consensus from Sheila B and myself, was that coming back down through Frisco was a little more trafficky (that's a word, look it up on WikiFordia) than we prefer so we are going to stick with the southern route down Luna next time. Hope you can join us.

Thanks to Doug and Pete for making this ride a big hit, to the folks at Bicidichi for those sharp looking jerseys and especially thanks to all the riders for making it out today and helping spread the word that Today We Can!

Today I Can ride with Pete

and you can too this Saturday!

Hey everyone, my friend Pete Briscoe, Pastor of Bent Tree Bible Church is interested in helping me start a group ride for Today I Can and Bent Tree Bible and this week will be the first one. To help start it off with a bang Pete is going to ride along with us this Saturday, October 18 for the inaugural ride!  

Initially we are thinking it will be a no drop intermediate type ride that we can split off and create a beginners ride if we have some folks interested in getting into the sport, in fact that's why we are doing it, to get some beginners out for a ride. Everyone has to start somewhere, so give it a shot. We will gauge the ride (or rides) pace based on the feedback, don't worry, we won't be riding the whole thing at a race pace.


For those of you thinking of getting into the sport or intrigued by the prospect, there is no better way to do it than in a group ride. There is great camaraderie and you can get a lot of feedback on your strategies and technique. It is also a way to build up your strength and stamina. 


We will leave from Bent Tree Bible Fellowship 8 AM so plan on meeting there by 7:45 in the parking lot on the south side of the building near the entrance to the gym. You can even get a selfie with Pete in tight slacks and his Today I Can jersey for you to share with your friends on the Facebook! We will ride north up to Frisco, perhaps see the trains and then cut across and head back south, somewhere in the 30 mile range. If there are more advanced riders, we can add on to the end if anyone wants to go further. Of course, if we get any interest in a shorter route, just say something and we will add a beginner ride right away, that would be a great way to start off. 


I will post a link to a map of the ride later in the week in case you want to try and catch on as we ride through town. 


If you can please let me know you are coming by posting a comment on the Today I Can Facebook page or on my personal Facebook page. You can also give me a heads up on Twitter by tweeting to @TodayI_Can or @fordbaker.


Hope to see you out there and please share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or email, the more the merrier!

Thanks and remember, TODAY I CAN

Ford

Final Statistics from the Today I Can Pacific Coast rides

• There were 29 different rides on the tour.
• I traveled 1,873 miles on those rides. 
• There was 90,617 feet of elevation (riding uphill) on the ride. 
• The tour took 128 hours and 47 minutes of moving time to complete (only counted "moving time" doesn't include time while taking a break, taking a selfie or standing around holding a bike over my head). 
• The rides ranged from 50 miles to 100 miles.
• The most elevation I had in one day was over 5,000 feet twice, once in Oregon between Pacific City and Florence and again in California, on the Big Sur between Carmel and San Simeon. 
• Their were two long rides of just over 100 miles, once from Santa Barbara to LA and again from Arizona to Arizona State. 
• The Arizona ride included my best speeds as I was able to roll without traffic or big climbs for virtually all of the ride. My moving time was 4 hours and 41 minutes on that ride for an average of 21.5 miles per hour over the 100 miles.
• That ride also included my fastest 40 km (approximately 25 miles) at 1 hour, 2 minutes and 10 seconds for an average speed of 24 MPH.
• The lowest temperature was 50 degrees on the ride I crossed over from Oregon to California on July 11th. 
• The highest temperature was 114 degrees, two times, once between Fort Bragg and the Napa Valley on July 14th (a ride that began at 57 degrees before the temperature literally doubled as I rolled away from the coast) and again in Arizona, where it was just hot the whole darn ride. 

Thank You Junior Miller

Inspiration Comes From Strange Places

140 plus pounds ago

2 years and 140 pounds ago, before I started riding, I really knew very little about cycling other than once a year they have a big race called the Tour de France and guys rode ridiculous distances every day up and down huge mountains very fast. Lance Armstrong woke the sport up in America but as a guy incredibly out of shape, I kind of assumed that was something I wouldn't do. That being said, the marathon and the long rides always fascinated me, for a guy with an incredibly short attention span, the idea of a marathon intrigues me, I don't know why. It certainly isn't something that translates to TV very well, even though I ride a lot now, I don't follow the sport that closely, like a lot of riders do.

Tour de Pac 12 at Cal

I do know that not much was said about the sport other than some friends of mine who rode and a radio host in Dallas named Craig (Junior) Miller. He did more than talk about it, he lived it, he went to France and rode the course after it was done. He is an incredible story teller and he would spend several segments of his morning radio show talking about the ride and it got me interested. One of the things about Junior that struck me is there weren't stories of his athletic achievements when he was young, he tells a lot of stories about electronic football, collecting baseball cards, and things like that but I have never got the feeling that he was an all-state three sport athlete that things like this came naturally to but yet he could ride the toughest courses in the world and he did it at my age. He is now an incredible athlete, through hard work and determination, in fact, he just completed his first Iron Man a few weeks ago when I started this ride from Canada to Mexico aka the Tour de Pac 12.

17 Mile Drive in Carmel

So almost two years ago, when I started my cycling journey he gave me that bit of confidence that the fat kid, me, that didn't make the cut in the sports that he tried out for, could ride a bike. Probably not as well as he did, but at least I could try. I have always dreamed big so the fact that Junior rode the rides they ride in the Tour de France got me thinking along those lines. It gave me the perfect mental backdrop in 2012 when I saw a group of riders when I visited the Rose Bowl on our first trip to California and they just glided down from the mountain and majestically swept around that venue. I thought "I have to do that" (and I will on the UCLA leg of the Tour de Pac 12) in part because Junior Miller told those funny stories about lost bikes, big rides, and continuing on after his friend said he couldn't go on. Those kind of stories stuck with me and made me think those things a month before I dusted my bike off and took it to the shop. I have listened to that station since the first day it aired and been a fan of the morning team since they made the shift from afternoons so it has been something that just kept coming up every summer when the Tour de France came up. He got that ball rolling and for that I am very thankful. 

Tour de Pac 12 w
Oregon State Players

On Friday I head to Santa Monica Pier in LA from Santa Barbara and on that ride I will pedal through Oxnard California, where the Dallas Cowboys are holding training camp this year. I tried to ride from LA up to Santa Barbara last year when Linda and I came out to renew our vows on Venice Beach and I couldn't get it finished. I did make it through Oxnard and, candidly, the part of Oxnard you ride through on a bike is kind of a dump, I wondered why the Cowboys would ever leave Thousand Oaks for Oxnard so Friday I can see why and ride by where they are practicing. Additionally if I veer off the path there I will actually make my ride 100.2 miles, so I can vindicate myself for last year at the same time. 

Of course the Ticket will be there covering the event, so it's the perfect way to ride by and get a selfie with the Ticket setup in the background in what I am dubbing the Junior Miller leg of the Tour de Pac 12. It's hard to say thanks to someone like that who you really don't know so this is my way of doing it. It will be fun, I will be sure and post a picture or two on Instagram and Twitter so follow @fordbaker on either and maybe you can get a chuckle out of it. 

Ain't nothing but a thang ...

A day full of things

When I was a kid my Dad would always say "ain't nothing but a thang", I think I finally know what he meant. I thought I did, I even talked about it at his funeral but if I did then, I had forgot until my ride yesterday.  It was the end of his favorite verse, slightly modified, by him, to fit just about any situation, "In all things give thanks ... and this is a thing ... ain't nothing but a thang." I don't know why it would change from a thing to a thang but it did and my ride yesterday was a thing, maybe a thang, maybe it was three thangs but there is one thing for sure, I was not in charge, I couldn't have planned that. In fact had I stuck to my plan, it would have been a disaster.

When I set out to do this Canada to Mexico thing I thought I would cut over from Highway 1 to the wine country and have an off day with Linda, she would have a good time and get to relax. I don't drink but we could hang out, maybe do the spa thing, after all, how tough could an extra climb be? I planned to cut over on Highway 128, make a pretty gradual climb southeast and then drop into the wine country, piece of cake. I have become a lot better at these climbs with all the practice I have had out here, so I planned on attacking this one, it was gradual but I wanted to see if I could pick up the average on a ride with a lot of up.

When I turned southeast off Highway 1 the temperature was in the 60s but as I turned the crank I could feel the temperature rise, almost with every spin of the wheel, I entered one of the southern most portions of the Redwood Forest along the Navarro River and enjoyed a pleasant and shaded ride under the canopy. Pleasant because I was really flying along and it was nice to finally be warm and get to break a real sweat. It was very isolated and I had been looking for a place for a while to fill my water bottles and get something for lunch and decided to just pull over, park my bike sideways under a sign right by the road so Linda would see it when she passed. She was taking the same route and we were going to eat lunch or something but there wasn't any cell coverage so we hadn't determined where. I was hoping she would see my bike if she passed by while I dined on yet another Granola Bar and checked out the creek in the forest. 

As I was checking things out a car stopped with another rider in it wanting to make sure I was okay. I said sure, just taking a break and she warned me about the logging trucks that ran up and down this stretch of road, I had seen a few of them earlier in the week and they do run pretty fast, mainly to build up momentum for the next hill. She told me the next town was only a mile up the road. I thanked her and just after she pulled away Linda pulled up and while we talked a truck blew past us, it was the second one on this portion of the ride but the first one with a head of steam, we both commented that we wished they would slow down. We talked some more and determined that we would stop in the next town and I could grab a sandwich and continue on the ride. 

Due to some unusual circumstances though, we ended up at a fruit stand and I was going to have to fill my water bottles from a hose. It wasn't exactly what I wanted so I reached into the cooler and grabbed the water bottles we had in there and filled my bottles with them. There wasn't any ice so they weren't cold and that really made me mad, I meant to put ice in the cooler before we left and I didn't. For some reason that made me think since the water wasn't really cold I should grab an extra water bottle and put it in the back pouch of my jersey. There isn't any logic to that at all, why I should carry more lukewarm water than I would ice cold water especially because I don't like the bottles bouncing around on my back but I thought it made sense so I headed out with three full bottles of water.

Shortly after Linda and I separated I got into the climbs and the temperatures really started to rise with the elevation. There was a fresh coat of asphalt laid down and my Garmin started to report the temperature to be over 100 degrees, I knew it was getting hot and heard temperatures might get into the 90s but over 100 caught me off guard, as I broke the 700 foot altitude barrier the temperature was 107, at 1,000 feet the temperature reported on my Garmin was almost 115 degrees on the black top and I was really beginning to feel it. I looked at my Garmin to see how far Yorkville was, the little town with all the signs talking about the Yorkville General Store. It was under an hour away, I had almost two full water bottles, I would be fine. 

In addition to the water situation, I was also dealing with those trucks I mentioned before but the strangest thing would happen, I would ride on long stretches of road with absolutely no shoulder, sometimes nothing but a drop off into a ditch, a barbed wire fence or the Navarro River but during all those parts of the ride, no trucks would pass. In fact, a couple of times before I realized what was going on with the heat, I would ride past a passing lane or a portion of the road with a wide shoulder and I just felt an overriding sense that I should pull in and wait a second, drink some water and take a break, I wasn't tired, I just had two breaks together, but I did and while I stood in that spot with a shoulder, a truck loaded with giant trees blew by. When I got out on the road behind him I thought wow, if I had gone on I would have been around this blind corner with no shoulder when he got on me, I would have nowhere to go and he wouldn't have time to react. A short while later I came on a passing lane and pulled to the right and rode through it, no trucks came, so I started to pull out, I checked my mirror, nothing there and then I felt something say "wait" so I stopped completely, a few seconds later I looked over my shoulder and two giant trucks were there, they weren't the timber trucks, just 18 wheelers loaded down and building momentum for their climb, again had I pulled out and rode on I would have had no shoulder, the first truck would have seen me but the one on his heels, not a chance, I would have just appeared off the side of the truck in front of him and that might have been it. I started to look for every spot I could pull in, it would make the ride slower but it just made sense to be safe. I began to curse the trucks for driving so fast, there were signs up that said share the road with the bikes and it was a popular route to ride by what I could tell, this was going to kill my average.

The ride continued exactly like that, I was very aware of my water level, of the heat and of the sounds trucks made from very far off, I made sure I got in a place where there was a shoulder and that I hustled through every spot that didn't. As Yorkville got closer I thought I was going to finish off the water in my bottles before the water got any hotter because I was about to fill them anyway but I thought I would be better off conserving, just in case the General Store in Yorkville was closed ... which it was. Due to renovations, the only thing open was the giant dumpster backed up to the front door, there wasn't even a crew there working on it for me to get some water from. So now I had to finish the climb with a limited amount of hot water and energy that needed to be managed through the rest of the climb. 

Oddly enough, I had just been prepared for that kind of ride, by those trucks of all things. Those trucks that taught me to ride in spurts and look for shelter had just prepared me for finishing a climb with very little water in lots of heat, in spurts, looking for shelter, conserving energy, never taxing my heart rate, keeping safe. Every time I got 100 feet of up behind me I would pull in somewhere, a truck would pass, I would sip on my water, and then I would start to climb again. I didn't expend too much energy trying to climb it all at once like I had trained to do, I needed to conserve that energy and that water as long as I could in the heat. Be safe, look for a pullout, find some shade and keep on working up to that summit. The summit was at 1400 feet but it was a tricky one, with lots of peeks and then drops so I ended up climbing about 2200 feet to get to that final summit and then it was a 7% grade all the way back to sea level.

As I came over that summit, I showed up on Linda's iPhone, the app we use to track my location relies on cell coverage and she has to wait until I come into a place with coverage to see where I am. She drove to where she thought our paths would cross which happened to be exactly where I pulled over to call her, the parking lot of the only Baptist church I have ever seen in California. She was there, literally, within 30 seconds of my call. 

And this is a thing ...

As I think back on that ride, I could see someone's hand just watching over me and preparing me for the rest of the ride, those trucks I cursed when they blew past, they were a thing, and in all things give thanks because that thing might totally change my mindset from a ride I was making good time on (and using a lot of energy and water on) to a ride I was managing and conserving energy (and water) on. I might not have wanted to, but I had to and those are the kind of things I find it hard to be thankful for when I am in them. 

The fact that there was no ice in the cooler, that's also a thing and therefore I should give thanks for it because for some reason it made me grab an extra bottle of water that wasn't cold so I wouldn't drink it as fast. When the ride was over, I had just under half a bottle of very hot water left. Had the water been cold because it was on ice, I would have run out completely on the top of the mountain.

There was also a construction delay in there that set the tone for pulling over because it released traffic behind me in bunches, but I complained when I got stuck behind that thing. And a deli that we spent $15 for lunch in that next town that wouldn't let Linda use their bathroom, forcing us to go the fruit stand and fill my bottle from the cooler, that was a thing and I was irritated. I bet there are more but that was one day, one ride and I can list 4 things that I thought just ruined my ride that might have actually saved my life.

It really makes me wonder what other things do I bitch about (sorry, it's the only word that adequately describes how I complain) that are just preparing me for another thing that might not go exactly as I planned. When I look at this story now, it makes me think of how I was taught that if God cares for the little birds in the field, how much more does he care about me? I would guess just enough to stop me in traffic for construction or to send a bunch of trucks down the road at the exact right time or enough to let me forget to fill the ice chest or run into a deli that wouldn't let let Linda use their restroom or maybe all of the above ... and that's a lot.

Is there anything you are thankful for now?

Oregon ride

Quick overview of the ride I had on Monday. Just to see if this is an easier way to update the blog since the Internet is so iffy.

Click here to see statistics from the ride.

Tour de PAC 12 - Stop 3 - Washington State University

Tuesday, June 23, 2014

Today I Can at Martin Stadium

I would have to categorize this ride as my favorite ride to date. All time. I have heard before how difficult it is to recruit at Washington State, it's too remote and too whatever else, so maybe I was in a mindset to be underwhelmed and that led me to the best ride ever conclusion or maybe it was just how amazing it really was. I'd like to think the latter. 

Me and a Cougar

I started out around 9:00 in Pullman and rode over to the campus, took a couple of pictures and fell in love with that campus, I think to some extent, I always do fall in love with the campuses, I picture them on game day as fall comes in all decked out in their school colors and school pride, tailgating with parents and alums and all the buzz that is a Saturday afternoon on campus because this is the year we might just win it all.

Martin Stadium

What I really liked about Washington State was how open it was, the gates were open and you could step into the stands and really get a feel for what the games are like. It is a compact stadium, right on campus, beautiful architecture and just very well done. It is definitely on the list of places I want to see a game at now, it just felt fun.

On the ridge heading to Snake River

Anyway, Pullman is rather small and it didn’t take long to climb out of town and up over a ridge that led to the Snake River, I had heard there were some nice rides from a friend that was a Vandal from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho about 30 minutes away. As I got on top of the ridge, everything turned green, the grass was so thick, so lush, I felt like I was in Oz. It rolled along and the only thing that really got in the way was the wind, if you get that high up the wind is whipping along without much to slow it down. It was a Tuesday, mid-morning and I rode that ridge for 10 miles and saw 2 cars. It was so isolated, it was one of the things that made the ride fun, you felt like you were on your own personal track.

Me screwing u p the view
of Snake 'River

After 10 miles I connected with the Wawawai Highway which plunged off of that ridge and down to the river, it dropped 2,500 feet in 5 or 6 miles and I literally did not pedal more than 5 or 6 times on the way down. The wind was still blowing but because the road was winding you never could tell where it was coming from next. It was a country highway so it wasn’t in pristine condition so I was more or less terrified of a 40 mile per hour, out of control, crash over the rail so I gripped that brake pretty hard and did my best to relax. I gained a whole new respect for the guys that ride down the mountains in the Tour de France at just crazy speeds. I don't know if I would ever have the confidence to just fly down a track with a pack of riders like that.

 

The Wawawai Highway eventually just ran alongside the Snake River, it opened up as you rode down from the top and was unreal, huge hills and mountains on both sides of the river and once again no traffic. It was perfectly flat and in some spots there was no wind either even though it was blowing pretty hard out of the East, when you found those spots of winds they were really amplified but for the most part you could fly. The only down part of the ride was the chip seal. Chip seal is the bane of any cyclist’s existence. It is a rough surface that’s easy to put down and somewhat durable but it will shake your teeth out. We have a lot of it in Texas and the Trek Domane I ride was built to absorb rough rides, it made the ride much better than the Madone I almost took out instead. After 25 miles of riding along that river I met Linda in Lewiston Idaho and we set out for Canada.

It's SUPERHAM!!!

We are taking a few days off to vacation in Vancouver. If I ever do something like this again I won't ride and travel on the same day, it made for some long days and 3 or 4 hours on the bike plus 8 or 9 hours in the car wore us out. We won't have that again on the ride as I will put my bike down where I picked it up the day before, the drives for Linda will only be an hour or two and I won't really get in the car again until August other than to grab dinner or see a local site or two. Next up for the college campus visits will be the University of Washington on Sunday. I cross the border early Saturday morning and head to Oak Harbor Washington, a small town Northwest of Seattle on Whidbey Island. On Sunday I will ride down the rest of Whidbey Island and catch a ferry over just north of Seattle and from there I will cut southeast through downtown over to the University of Washington and then back west to where I will catch the ferry out of Seattle on Monday morning for the third day. Lots of riding in Vancouver, I will post a picture or two I am sure, until then, enjoy the sites from Southeast Washington and Pullman, home of the Washington State Cougars. #gocougs #gohuskies

Tour de PAC 12 - The Holy War, BYU to Utah

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Wind not out of the North

Today I Can!

Great ride through Provo but the GPS routed me up through a residential section of Salt Lake City that had a lot of construction. Additionally the wind was out of the North despite the fact that the wind is never out of the North in the summer in Salt Lake.

Just another view in Utah

No statue for Crankshaft

Had a pretty nice climb in the middle of the ride and the views of that part through Provo were great. When I was riding through the residential section of Salt Lake I couldn't help but wonder if the folks that walk out the door to a sunrise or sunset over spectacular mountains if they take them for granted, so I asked and sure enough they do. They said after a while, they don't really notice them anymore. 

Richard Burton of All My Sons of
Salt Lake City came out to support

Here is to not taking for granted what we get every day, whether it is warm skies, beautiful mountains or whatever you open the door to, take it in and enjoy it. Here is what I saw on the ride in Utah. 

Lavell Edwards Stadium
in Provo Utah

STATS FROM THE RIDE:
49.5 Miles
2,221 feet of elevation
3 hours and 33 minutes

Rice - Eccles Stadium
in Salt Lake City

TOTALS FOR THE RIDES
2 Rides
91.2 Miles
4,710 feet of elevation
7 hours and 1 minute ride time

Tour de Pac 12 – University of Colorado – Folsom Field

Lessons learned and things I saw on first ride in Tour de Pac 12

What a beautiful place to start the ride and what a great reminder that the best laid plans often don’t pan out. I didn’t get an email that was supposed to update me of a new start

After ride at Folsom Field. #todayican

point and therefore the ride started much later than planned. I had to jump into my ride right in the middle of the route I laid out. I couldn’t tell if the Garmin was picking up the route in midstream or another route and it seemed to lead me all over the place, when I thought I should be turning right, it told me to turn left and it took forever to get rolling.

#todayican at Mile High Stadium en route to Boulder

It was a great reminder because while on the way to Mile High, where the Broncos play football on Sundays, the Garmin told me to turn left and I could clearly see the top deck of the stadium stands sticking out on the other side of a building in the opposite direction it told me to go, as I went up the street it told me to turn again and I was not heading to Mile High, of that I was positive. After all the stands were sticking out of the building behind me now so I turned around and headed back, got back on the trail by the river and headed to my destination while my Garmin screamed OFF COURSE! OFF COURSE! OFF COURSE! I was certain it was giving me the wrong route or trying to lead me away from the stadium instead of toward it, after all I had been in Denver all morning and that pretty much made me the expert on where the Broncos play football. Since I rode the trail by the river I really could not see much of the landscape up along the road so I worked my way back up right where I thought the stadium was and that is when I found out that thing sticking out was not part of the stadium  but actually was a unique

River trail by downtown Denver

piece of architecture protruding from a museum I later learned. It was not even close to the size of a football field and several miles in the opposite direction from Mile High Stadium. In fact, as the pictures from my ride show, there isn’t really a top deck of the stadium that sticks out. Not only did I not know where the stadium was, I did not even know what it looked like.

What it reminded me is how I so often live my life, I’m pretty sure I know where I am going and that the man upstairs does not really understand the best way to get there even though He has a view from above that actually knows what is behind the next corner where I think I want to go and when I get warnings that I am off

Haunted Colorado State Capitol in Denver

course, I plow ahead and ignore those messages. I got a lot of those messages from a couple of Doctors that told me to lose weight or suffer the consequences and when canes and sore backs and high blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels showed up, I plowed ahead and just took more meds that put a different Band-Aid on my problem without ever stopping the bleeding. Thankfully in 2012 I listened and even though I did to that message I find it funny how frequently I still miss those messages.

Victor Davanzo with All My Sons Moving in Denver 

Colorado Rockies home field 

Enough of my deep thoughts though, how about some pictures from the ride, after all Colorado is a pretty state and a lot more interesting than my rambling. I got some good climbs in but I picked a route that would challenge me but not wear me out. I had a rough spot with the weather toward the end but I felt really good about getting up and down the hills and fighting through some wind. It’s on to Salt Lake where I am going to ride one of four state rivalry rides I am going to do, where I ride between two rival schools, this time it is riding from BYU to Utah. We are plowing through Wyoming now and cutting over to Utah and Linda is ready for me to shut up, hope you enjoyed my thoughts and the pics from the ride. 

Beautiful lakeside park outside downtown Denver

STATS FROM THE RIDE:

Ride #1

Saturday, June 21, 2014

41.7 Miles ... 2,489 feet of elevation 

Colorado Football

To Date

41.7 Miles ...2,489 feet of elevation 

Total rides 1

Pulling up to Folsom Field

doing the airplane thing on my bike

 

Folsom Field in the Summer

10-net 1: These Are Not Steps

These 10-nets that I have been writing about are not steps or stages that you pass and do in succession. As I have said over and over again, this mentality is a lifestyle. This is not a diet with a start and finish; this is a new approach to how you live your life. The 10-nets are beliefs that are enacted in my life on a day-to-day basis. Some days I focus more on specific ideas, but they are all part of my daily routine.

So if you choose to take the “Today I Can” mindset, then remember, I have no formula or routine specific for you. I have no “eat this specific food and do this exercise program today” to get you healthy. My recipe is this: Each day I try to make the right decisions about what I put in my body and when I exercise,  and if I succeed Today, I will start again tomorrow. Today I Can be healthy, and so can you.

10-net 2: Evict the Icants

Everyone has heard of the Minions, the little yellow guys that hung around with Gru in Despicable Me, right? Minions are more than just yes men, they are YAY men. No matter how bad an idea Gru has, they literally go bananas like it's the best idea in the history of ever! Steal the moon? Hell yeah baby, let's do this thing! All we need is a shrink ray!

The Icants are the exact opposite of Minions, they are the little guys that live in my head and tell me I can't do things. Oddly enough, they gain strength from my weakness, from my failures, from me quitting and most often from me not even trying.  I think it's something that all of us that have suffered with obesity can relate to. “I can't fly” because of the looks other passengers have when I get on the plane, they might as well stand up and scream “Dear Lord NO! Please don't let the fat guy sit next to me!” Even though I've lost a lot of weight the Icants insist on still screaming the thoughts people aren't thinking when I get on a plane. They love it when I can't and they are the kryptonite of Today I Can.

A couple of weeks ago I rode in a rally called the Richardson Wild Ride, but I did not adequately prepare for it. I rode too far the night before because I thought everyone was going to keep an easy pace. When we got going it was obvious nobody remembered the talk of an easy pace and we all roared off like we were going to win the thing, my legs weren’t fully recovered, we hit the hills and I fell off the back end after a couple of climbs. Immediately I returned to the kid in junior high who finished last in every track meet, I can’t keep up with these other guys, I can’t do this, I can’t climb as fast, I can’t ride this fast and I ended up being right. Not because I wasn’t physically ready but because I said those two little words that are one of the key ingredients of every missed opportunity. I said “I can’t”

As I prepare to leave for my coastal ride, there are a lot of Icant’s that say a lot of lies, but there is one that speaks the truth. I can’t listen to them. I know I can do it. I’m sure there are lots of you with Icants that are keeping you from being all you were created to be. Before you can, you got to shut up the Icants, they are tougher than big hills, big winds, or high heat.