I fully planned on keeping track of how many miles I ride on my new bike, and did not do that last year,  therefore I figure it best to start over and track from the first of this year. That would be easier.

Cycle Date 09 — as in January 9, 2012 I have ridden ZERO miles since the first of the year because my bike is still at the lake and I am back in the burbs. I plan on fixing that on Tuesday when I go out for my horseback riding lessons. The weather is promising to be far too beautiful this week to miss riding.  That and I got a post card – and a twitter message – reminding me to bring my bike back for its 30 day check up. I should probably put a few more miles on it before I do that. While I’m there I will purchase a helmet and gloves and ask them to please remove those toe strap things that keep making me fall over because I forget they are there.

While I may not have ridden last week, I am at least down 3.5 lbs since the first. That’s good, right? Losing the weight was easy.

1. I’m out of cookies and egg nog.
2. I’m back to cooking fish, chicken and veggies.
3. I have not had a bite of red meat in almost 9 days.
4. I’m also thinking about Juicing, but I’m not convinced on that one yet. If I try it, I will be sure to let y’all know.

I promise not to spend 2012 writing ad nauseum about my cycling adventures. I do however want to keep an online journal about it. So if you don’t mind – I’ll post updates on Mondays.

• This keeps me accountable
• It might inspire someone else.

I don’t know about you, but it’s easy for me to read about people like Lance Armstrong, or whomever and think “Oh sure, they are professionally trained, of course they can do x.” — and thereby discount myself from the race. I still read about Lance, follow LiveStrong, read Iron Man Spence Smith’s Blog, and what not.  But I also read about every day Joes like Sprinting the Bell Lap (See Blogroll) and Ken Davis and feel encouraged. Kind of like if they can do it, well then so can I.

I would love to find a female cycling enthusiast who blogs, but I haven’t yet. So I read the guys and that is okay.

There is a great post by Spence Smith on Three Steps to Buying Your First Bike. Honestly, I wish he’d written it before I got mine. Then again, I was encouraged when I read it because it turns out I did a lot of things right. — He’s a credible athlete with great advice. Go ahead and read him.

Happy Monday Y’all.

Deana