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[JoshuaFH]

I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.

I'm feeling very exhausted today, maybe I should take it easy for a bit. I did a fiver today though.

Odometer: 165 miles.

[Starver]

There's ups and there's downs. In all things*. So don't worry about the mere five miles. Or the rest.

* - Although whilst cycling, downs are easier and often more preferable than ups.

[TheBiggerFish]

I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.

Eh, you needed to say it somewhere and honestly, mental fitness is still fitness.  So...keep talking if you want, y'know?  It's your thread after all.

[JoshuaFH]

OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.

If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.

Odometer: 190 miles

[Reudh]

I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. It really doesn't belong here.

Eh, you needed to say it somewhere and honestly, mental fitness is still fitness.  So...keep talking if you want, y'know?  It's your thread after all.

Cycling is strenuous. Strenuous exercise releases endorphins (the so called "runner's high"). It's also fantastic for focusing on something simple when your mind is wandering places you don't want it to go. When I was feeling my worst, I'd just go out and cycle. One day, coupla years ago, I was feeling horrific, y'know the standard depression works, and I just hopped on my bike and cycled 63km (~40mi?) without stopping once (excluding traffic lights, of course.)

By the end of that day, those bad thoughts had been chased away, and while physically I felt exhausted, mentally I felt just a hell of a lot better.

Any kind of exercise is a very good method of keeping depressive thoughts away; even if you feel the day was a total mess, if you just get in a decent cycle, you can say "I accomplished something today", which is a step towards recovering from depression.


(I'll add here I'm not a cycling superman like say, Meph, but the km melt away when you have a good seat, adequate water and nutrition and a good path ahead.)

OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.

If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.

Odometer: 190 miles

25mi is a pretty damn large distance. Be it across flat land or hilly, that's a long way. Also, is this a "general cycling" thread or more of a blog? Just curious, because I'd quite like to have a cycling thread if there isn't one already.

(snipped)
Meant to comment on the bike, but forgot.  Looks Ok, and Ivve seen far less 'road capable' machines in use.  Remember to lock off that suspension for normal road riding (so long as it isn't rutted dirt-road, anyway!) as it tends to soak up pure forward effort as much as minor irregularities in the road surface, so you have to balance the two demands. Or perhaps exploit this effect for your endurance-training?

I have a fairly similar model bicycle to Joshua's, a Giant Boulder 3, and it has the same variable suspension. Lock it off when you're doing anything that isn't gonna make your bones judder; especially while standing the suspension soaks up a fair proportion of your power, and makes it difficult to stay stable as you're constantly wobbling forward and downward due to suspension. I generally only use the suspension on my bicycle when I'm cycling on very rutted track, and even then I prefer to have it off nearly everywhere else.

Riding in a park... With a speed limit...  Strange situation, to me.  I also pretty much assume that you're not in the UK, where anyone who looks old enough to shave (or would do, if they were male) really ought not to be on footpaths (unless so designated for cyclists as well).  If you were, I could probably point you to a cycling club (one that didn' t just do racing) and soon get your milages up to perhaps 50 to 60 miles by way of newbie-friendly clubrun, if you were so inclined.

But you're probably elsewhere, and I wouldn't even know what your Road Traffic Act says about cycles.

Also I forgot to mention this explicitly, but yeah I live in America. Michigan. Saginaw. The stinky finger crotch of Amercia, right next to Flint which was just recently found to have lead in the drinking water, just to let the world know that we're shitty and backwards in all ways possible.  Also, I'm not sure if the United Kingdom has trailer parks, I always think of everywhere in Europe as being very highly cultivated and developed, so I don't know if the concept of trailer parks exists in the mind of your ordinary European. I wanted to point out though that I've been using the word "park" too loosely in my various posts, cause I'm using it both to mean the Trailer Park which are massed produced side-by-side rectangular houses that the stereotypically poor and uneducated live in, and the Children's Park which is just a field with a swingset, slide, gazebo, and Springy rocky-horses for the kids of what is basically this small neighborhood that IS that trailer park. As far as my biking route is concerned, I'm riding *through* the trailer park, but *around* the children's park. Just for utmost clarity, because I feel I miscommunicate very often, and it frustrates me to no end when I want to communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible.

The size of my trailer park is about roughly 1/2 square mile if I had to guesstimate, as it requires one back & forth lap to go 1 mile, so yeah, the place isn't very big, and I'm trapped in it for all intents and purposes barring enormous personal effort involving car trips to the next town over or whathaveyou.

Here in Straya, we have trailer parks too. Small, pre-fab houses, some are just caravans, usually arrayed around a central green. We call them "caravan parks" here, though.

[JoshuaFH]

OK, took one day off, now I'm back on the road, and this time with panache. Very sunny today, with light wind. I road 25 miles today, again with breaks every five miles.

If I'm not sore tomorrow, I'll be doing some more.

Odometer: 190 miles

25mi is a pretty damn large distance. Be it across flat land or hilly, that's a long way. Also, is this a "general cycling" thread or more of a blog? Just curious, because I'd quite like to have a cycling thread if there isn't one already.

I was intending it as a blog, but if you or anyone wants to join in with their own bicycling adventures I'd more than welcome it. It's heartening to have company after all.

Very warm and nice day today. Despite exhaustion, I pushed myself 20 more miles.

Odometer: 210 miles

Maybe I'll get to a thousand miles before summer's end.

[JoshuaFH]

+10 today. I think I'll take a break tomorrow, my knees kinda hurt.

Odometer: 220 miles

I mentioned this before in (more than) one of my Sad Thread Posts, but I think my biggest hurdle isn't one of physical effort, but rather one of visualization. I can't visualize or imagine what it's like to be in a better position in life, I've never been really physically fit, or even mentally or emotional fit if that's a thing. I've never been in a relationship, so I have no clue what that's like, and I can't picture it being a 'real' thing that can happen, it feels entirely fictitious. I feel that if I want to make a drastic change in my life, I have to push myself very hard, much harder than what I'm sure many would consider healthy or necessary.

I'm not sure if I've shared this story before, but it was a couple years ago when I was feeling particularly motivated to 'go out' and meet someone. There was a concert in town nearby, so I thought it was perfect. I went to the concert, but I still felt so much like I didn't belong, I wound up not talking to anyone. I was so angry at myself, it seemed like such a perfect opportunity wasted. I felt I had to do something drastic, to push myself very hard, to shock myself out of my social anxiety. I started walking and walking and walking, through town, into the next town, and then into farm fields. The sun set, and it was completely dark out on those back roads, but I felt completely alright, I normally would have been scared, but I was too angry to be scared. It started raining shortly thereafter, and it was a colossal rain storm, and I was walking through mud and puddles, I was completely drenched. Still, I felt I *had* to keep going, no matter what. Eventually, I made a huge circle around, and wound up back in town, and slowly through the hard wind I made my way back to my car, still parked near where the concert was. Getting back into my car, I had to take off my shoes first, cause my feet were bleeding and blistered from the trek. I felt accomplished, however dumb the accomplishment was, but it still didn't change anything in my life, I was still a socially anxious loser, just now with bleeding and blistered feet.

Maybe it was simply too naive to think that a single large 'shock' was enough to get me out of my sad lifestyle, but that's what makes me so anxious about this blog. I'd like to give myself a tangible record of accomplishment, and one that holds me accountable for my actions with a clearly set goal, but I'm also worried that I may jinx myself again, by thinking about it too much. By 'again', I mean I had one of these weight loss threads before, but I quietly abandoned it years ago, though I can't remember the reason why, perhaps my raison d'etre was simply too weak at the time so I ran out of motivation, or something happened that discouraged me, it could have been either. I just feel I'm setting out into dark and unexplored territory in my life again, and I don't want to turn back, and I feel I'm going to need to resort to increasingly drastic measures in order to avoid turning back.

[TheBiggerFish]

*applies hugs*

[NRDL]

Just keep believing man.  Have faith in yourself, as difficult as that can be sometimes. 

[JoshuaFH]

*applies hugs*

Just keep believing man.  Have faith in yourself, as difficult as that can be sometimes. 

I appreciate the sympathy. It's not necessary, I wasn't emotional at the time of that writing, it was just something that had been on my mind. I'll keep doing what I'm doing regardless of how I'm feeling, that's what I've planned and have determined I will do.

But I am feeling increasing... rapidly increasing... unease about college. The teacher is frustratingly irritating, the work is asinine, the expectations are low, and I've clearly spent a lot on what is clearly of very little benefit, not educational and not social. I'm thinking I should just cut my losses and run from it. I can educate my own damn self better than this.

[TheBiggerFish]

Ask the college about self-paced courses or testing out of that class.

[JoshuaFH]

I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.

I'm thinking I'll go through with school til the end of my classes, at the very least. I'm still upset at my behavior, I'm not the ideal man I want to be so very badly.

Biking: +5 today, I still feel very tired.

Odometer: 225m

[TheBiggerFish]

*applies hugs*

To be human is to be imperfect.

[Starver]

I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.

You realise that you are saying sorry about being sorry, but you're also sorry that you aren't sorry in a sorry-enough fashion..? 

Actually, winky-smiley aside, I don't think there's a :hugs: emoji on this forum, is there?  Because I'm not good at emotional support in general (although I'm not unfamiliar with excessive self-deprecation myself.. not that I'm much good at that?!?...erm...) and I don't know whether this board is a better place to get it than Real Life™, but if you're not getting it there then I suppose here's as good a place as any, as a stop-gap. Just don't go without some more reliable support from some better place, as well, if you can find it.

And, talking of circumlocution(!)... all power to your pedals as you continue to regail us with your expeditionary exploits. You're doing more miles than me, at the current rate, due to a number of factors, although I've had a busy bike-filled weekend in other regards.

[JoshuaFH]

I apologize, I'm being so very negative about everything. I want to make an excuse about how all the negativity in my head is echoing and reverberating all the time without release, but that's a sorry excuse.

You realise that you are saying sorry about being sorry, but you're also sorry that you aren't sorry in a sorry-enough fashion..? 

^{Yo dawg...}

But I woke up today, and jumped up and felt amazingly light and limber, free of the fatigue from before. With an empty stomach and a liter of water, I felt fine just jumping on my bike and powering out 25 miles. The sun set about a third of the way in, but even with the pitch darkness and frequent mosquito clouds I felt just fine.

I got home and found that my dog had chewed up my favorite cup that I've been using for years, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied right now.

This is very embarrassing to admit, but I had taken a cue from R/Nofap, and I'm already a week in. It promises benefits to masculinity, it honestly sounds very pseudo-sciencey since there's no conclusive studies that prove or disprove it, but it's plausible enough that I'm willing to believe.

EDIT:  Forgot the odometer update:

Odometer: 250 miles