discipline

5 Years of Using the Strava Fitness App

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

Late in December 2015, I finally got a cell phone. At the same time, a cycling friend said I had to get Strava (strive in Swedish). I’d never heard of it, but figured why not. So the friend and I met for a ride, and I started recording all of my bike journeys ever since. At that time, I had to use the phone because I didn’t have a Garmin watch. Without Strava, or some other similar situation, I would not really know how far I’ve gone, and all the other data it captures. And man, have I gone far (better than being far gone). I mean, if you consider my having biked the equivalent of around the entire planet at the equator as far. I sure think 24,901 miles is a good, far piece. And what a long, strange trip it’s been.

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14 Months of Consecutive Daily Bicycling

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

For 426 days beginning October 11, 2019, I have swung a leg over the top tube, fired up the Garmin watch, and pedaled my bike around Austin, Texas. Starting and maintaining several other daily habits like walking and writing back on January 1, 2018 eventually led me to do the obvious one for a bike rider and blogger. Although I’ve traveled the equivalent of around the equator, and surpassed this year’s bike goal (and several other goals since), for some reason I keep at it. Why, you might ask? Well, stopping a streak would be very easy, but getting here was extremely hard. So I just keep on keeping on, so far, for now. Doing my small part to help Keep Austin Weird.

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611.8 Miles in November 2020. Oh Yeah: 5,999.9 Miles in 11 Months of 2020!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

Penultimate. I used to think that meant a really great writing instrument. (Actually, I didn’t; I just made up that pun right now.) Anyway, November has ended, and December has begun. Eleven months down, one to go. I’ve already surpassed the number of miles from my second longest year, the first one I kept records. That was 5,306 miles in 2016, and now I’m on the cusp of 6,000 miles for 2020. Since I’ve already achieved my huge goal of the equivalent of once around the equator (24,901 miles), anything else is gravy. Yummmm…. gravy. Anyway, here’s a short review of my statistics from last month.

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2,500 Consecutive Days of Yoga: Streaking Towards 7 Years

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 13 Comments

Back on May 30, 2019, I wrote a post titled 2,000 Consecutive Days of Yoga: Oh Yes, I Did It! Now I’ve come to another round number, over a year later. As of October 28, 2020 (my mother’s birthday — congratulations to her for her milestone!), I completed 2,500 days of yoga in a row. I began on December 6, 2013, but since I had to take two days off a few weeks later, my true anniversary is Christmas Day. I didn’t begin tracking it until several years later with Insight Meditation Timer. It took many years after spending a summer at a yoga center, but I finally developed a regular yoga practice and somehow, miraculously, have stuck with it. Starting streaks and maintaining them is kinda what we do here at A Dude Abikes, so grab your sticky mat and stick with me while we talk about my sticking with yoga.

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Call Me Mister Consistency

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

In my last post, Muscles, Might & Math Mean More Miles, I touched on how numbers help motivate me to achieve my bicycling goals. As it turns out, the last seven days I’ve ridden an average of 21.25 miles per day, from 20.5-22.2 miles. And I did that because of the math, which then went from my brain to my legs. Sophie the sea foam-colored Fairdale Weekender Archer got the memo as well. All I did was subtract the mileage I’d completed for the year (over 5,000) from the total goal, and then divided that by the number of days remaining in 2020. The answer? The number 21. So that’s my new mantra. So far, for seven days, I’ve done just that, 21 miles, within .5-1.2 miles difference. Call me Mister Consistency.

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Muscles, Might & Math Mean More Mileage

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 10 Comments

As summer winds down and autumn finally cools us off, my stock is trending upward and quarterly reports are good. By that I mean my bicycling progress, of course. As mentioned in my post 55-Mile 2020 Birthday Bike Ride with Friends; 5,009 Miles for the Year, I’ve surpassed 2019’s total miles of 5,005. And, that was 81 days early, too. While I continue to come nowhere close to breaking any wind, um speed records, like the tortoise and the hare, I’m not the fastest dude, but I do get there. The race is on to cram as many kilometers as possible into the rest of this most shitty of years, 2020. And it occurred to me while naming last night’s ride that my formula for success is simple, although far from easy. Allow me to explain.

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I Bicycled Every Day for an Entire Year: Lessons Learned

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

Here’s the thing:  I didn’t set out to bike 366 days in a row. If you had a crystal ball and told me my future a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I just went on my birthday ride, a mile per year of life, as I have done the last several years. But instead of taking the next day or more off to rest like a normal person, I became more like Forrest Gump:  I just kept bike-ing and bike-ing and bike-ing… Except there was no Robin Wright as Jenny yelling, “Bike, A Dude, bike!”

The Energizer bunny I’m not. I’m just a middle-aged, slightly overweight (aka fathlete), regular guy who chose the bicycle as his vehicle for his mid-life crisis mobile. I can’t tell you why I did this, except at some point it was simply to see if I could do it. And now I have. Don’t believe me? Check my Strava activity log – it’s all there. But this isn’t really about me. Here’s the main thing I want to tell you: If I can do it, most of you can, too.

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Approaching the Summit of a Goal? Prepare for the Ride Downhill

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

As with most if not all of my posts, I’m writing it because I think it might help others in some small way. But I’m a work in progress also trying to figure things out myself. This comes after 2.75 years of daily walking and  writing, 4.75 years of blogging, 5.75 years of a whole bunch of bicycling and almost 1.00 year of daily biking, plus 6.75 years of daily yoga. So I know a thing or two about my own sports psychology. (I’m no professional though, so see a real doctor if you need one.) As I approach the zenith of several goals, one quite big, another that’s Huge, and a third that’s FREAKING GINORMOUS, I know that there’s a big zenith of a let-down coming, too. So let’s talk about what we can do about when that happens.

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September 2020 Stats: And I Did Walk (& Bike) 501 Miles

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 1 Comment

Last September set records for being hotter than July even here in Central Texas. This year, wonderfully cool weather arrived on the 4th, cancelling out 29 days of 100+ degree F days in August. But I still had to do less biking because of my dumb J-O-B. So it was all I could do to make my 100 bike miles and 10.5 or more walking miles for the week. But together, 501 is still pretty respectable. Life goes on, even during a pandemic. You do your best. Let’s go to the numbers.

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My 500th Blog Post: Thank You, Dear Readers!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 11 Comments

When milestones come and go, as they do for us all, they serve as signposts on the journey of life. Some, like birthdays, just happen. Others, we made happen through an action in the past, like the anniversary of college graduation. And still more are things we create every day with our efforts. Such is the case for this, my 500th blog post. That’s a ton of words in five years if I may say so. (532,738 to be exact, not including this post.) That’s an average of 1,068 words per post, and maybe somewhere around five or six novels. But this is not all about statistics, it’s about what it all means.

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