Well, 33% of 2021 is in the bag. It seems like it was just New Years Day recently. But time flies when you’re having fun. Or to quote early AI researcher, Anthony Oettinger (not Groucho Marx): “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” And while biking for me feels sometimes like a job just to reach my mostly meaningless mileage goals, of course I mostly do enjoy it. Some might say my number goals are quite mental, and they may well be. But I see them as targets to which I aspire, signposts along the journey that I’m making progress. As it turns out, I’m averaging 101 miles a week for the last four weeks, which puts my on track to make 5,200 miles for the year. But bicycling is not the only game in a little town called A Dude Abikes, Population: 1 dude.

My health and fitness activities for April included the following, often for more time than allotted. Activities are daily unless noted.

• Biking: 90 minutes
• Foam rolling: 5 minutes
• Flute playing: 15 minutes
• My Fitness Pal: Measured and entered virtually everything I ate
• Reading: 30 minutes a day
• Salad: 1 a day
• Strength training: 15 minutes (every other day)
• Walking: 30 minutes
• Writing: 30 minutes
• Yoga: 30 minutes

That’s a pretty active month, despite a few less miles. So it was pretty tiring. Some observations:

• I had to give my legs a break from the daily exercise of March. I work them quite enough biking, walking, and in yoga. Also it’s a pain to keep track of reps using stretchy bands when the watch is on my hand but I’m using my legs.
• Flute playing isn’t technically a fitness activity, but it does require eye hand coordination, breath work and control, and a good amount of concentration and effort. That’s especially true when sight-reading music, which I consider playing something I haven’t touched in decades. So I’m counting it, and you can go fly a kite if you don’t like it.
• Although my biking goal in 2021 started out as being half of 2020, it’s looking a lot more like it’s going to be closer to the mileage of 2019 or 2016. I’m not sure why that is, except I just like the symmetry of saying I biked 100 miles a week.

This is a different view that Premium Strava Members such as moi can see. It would take too much space to list them all. But I do like the different colored dots representing different activities which aren’t visible in this view.

My additional health goal for April was to be more and better sleep. I had mixed success with this, probably due to stress about my living situation. That and just poor time management and overdoing it. I even got Arianna Huffington’s book The Sleep Revolution from the library and some tart cherry juice which is supposed to help with natural melatonin production. But going to bed without blogging thrice a week, and doing all those other things daily, just seems wrong. So often I’m sacrificing some shut-eye for checking off everything on my to do list. As a bike shop friend likes to say, that’s no bueno!

I’m never going to become like Mark Cavendish or Lawson Craddock. It’s not news that I have a long way to go to truly be “in shape.” I’ve previously quoted George Carlin the famous comedian as saying, “Hey, round is a shape!” But I do seem to be on an upward trend these day. A health kick, if you like. How long it lasts, who knows? What can I say except that I’m a work in progress, like everyone else. And I’m very fortunate to have the time, which I have always wanted more than money. Maybe my example can be helpful to someone. Either that or a cautionary tale of what NOT to do!

Meanwhile, I invite you to go ride your bike or do what makes you feel good. After all, only 66.6% of the year remains!

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