I Want To Ride My Bicycle!!! Introducing Mabel

I finally bought my bicycle on Friday. I've named her Mabel, and I got to take her out for our first ride today. When I did a short test-ride at the bike shop, I was rather hilariously shaky on it - hard to imagine looking at me that I had been on an amateur racing team in high school. But then again, that was over 25 years ago.

Mabel's definitely not a racing bike, but I didn't want one. A good 95% of the streets here have no shoulder, and given my low confidence level in traffic thanks to being hit by a truck (or rather hitting a truck) when riding back in my racing days, I knew any riding I'd be doing would be on greenways and other off-road (but not mountain biking) situations.

I started rather small, and went to the Muddy Creek Greenway, a few miles down the road from my house. The trail length is officially 2.91 miles long - though there's a bit more paved through a private housing community up at the northern end, so I'd estimate probably 3.1 miles total.

I parked at the southern parking lot, rode north, then all the way back down south, and turned around back to the car making the full circuit. Despite being shaky at slow speeds, and not very confident on sharp turns, I had a BLAST. I could feel what I used to love about riding - the wind in my hair (under my helmet), the beautiful scenery, and nice deep lung-fulls of air on a cool, damp morning.

This trail has half a dozen or so bird houses along the path, and someone has painted them in vibrant colors.

My 6.2 mile ride took 41 minutes, and according to my heart rate monitor I burned 332 calories, with an average heart rate of 142 and a max of 160. Oh, and I did it wearing one of the Man's tshirts (Colonel Mustard in the library with a wrench!) - a victory in and of itself, and it was a bit big to boot!

  I did bring it home with a bit of muddy water in a line up my back - it had been raining overnight and earlier in the morning, so there was some standing water in a couple places across the trail. I went grocery shopping that way - too bad if someone couldn't figure out I'd been exercising, I didn't care!

I'll visit this trail again - it's a good length for me right now, and will let me get my confidence up to visit more populous areas or longer trails.

My Meals

Breakfast

• Dannon Light & Fit raspberry yogurt
• Sargento Light String Cheese

Lunch

• 1 serving Chicken and Farro salad
• 1 slice rye toast w/.5 tsp butter

Dinner

• 2 oz garlic rosemary marinated lamb loin chop
• 100g mashed red potato (a little bit of cream and butter)
• 2 medium carrots, steamed, then glazed with a tiny bit of maple syrup 

Water - 40oz (bad Annie)

Exercise - Cycling! 332 calories

Daily Totals - 861 calories, 32g fat, 94.2g carbohydrates, 27.7g sugars, 54.1g protein