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Getting Back in the Saddle (Literally!)

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As I mentioned, I’ve been either walking or cycling in and out of the office for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately (though this depends on your perspective) I live a little too close to the office for the commute to be a decent workout.

So the only way for me to get a proper bit of exercise is to take longer routes or to schedule specific rides just for exercise.

This afternoon I did around 10km down by the side of the river.

It’s not an unattractive route and you do get to see some nice things like this lock:

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The actual route I covered was essentially a tight loop out of the town and back in again:

10km-bike-ride-may-2015

I’m happy I did it, but it was painful. So painful. I’m seriously unfit and I’ve also got out of the habit of cycling.

On the upside I did burn off a few hundred calories 🙂

As long as the weather doesn’t deteriorate too much ie. pouring miserable rain, then I’ll try to get out a couple of more times this week. I’ll try. I’ve no idea if I’ll actually manage it!

 

Weather and Exercise

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Carlow town park

How good, or bad, the weather is has a direct impact on how much outdoors physical exercise I want to do.

If it’s cold, damp and grey I’m highly unlikely to want to get off my ass and walk or cycle.

But if the weather is pleasant then it’s a hell of a lot easier.

Walking from in and out of the office, for example, is a relatively easy way to get myself a few thousand steps towards my daily goal. Cycling might not help with my “step count”, but it definitely contributes to my overall calorie burn.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been making a conscious effort to either walk or cycle in and out of the office. When the weather is bad I have my cycling jacket which keeps me relatively dry!

As we head into the Irish “summer” I’m hoping to increase my level of physical activity and get back to cycling longer distances. Seeing some of my friends clocking up hundreds of kilometres per week is helping motivate me a bit, though at the same time it’s a little depressing 🙂

 

Exploring Carlow Environs By Bike

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For the last couple of months I’ve been cycling in and out of work and around the town. The distances I’m covering every week aren’t exactly amazing in terms of burning calories etc.,
So this weekend I decided I’d do a bit more.
The Barrow river flows through Carlow town and the old tow path is accessible on a bike.
It’s not an area that I was familiar with, as I’d never explored it.
The track apparently runs for about 100 km both north and south of Carlow town, so in theory I should be able to go in either direction.
It’s pleasant to be able to cycle away from cars and trucks, though the downside is that the surface isn’t exactly even.

But you do get to see some lovely old locks like this one:

lock on the Barrow near Carlow town

And nice old bridges like this one

bridge over one of the Barrow's smaller tributaries near Carlow town

I like variety, so I’ll try a slightly different route out and back the next time I head out.

Unfortunately Google maps isn’t too helpful when it comes to the southern part of the track, so I guess I’ll have to find out the “hard” way 🙂

Tracking Cycling With MapMyRide

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mapmyride logoI used to cycle every day. When I was in school I often cycled to and from the train station and when I was at university in Limerick cycling was the easiest way for me to get in and out of campus. Back then I was clocking up 10 to 15km per day minimum – often more.

Unfortunately I stopped cycling on a regular basis once I moved away from Limerick and didn’t even own a usable bike until recently.

So a few weeks ago I decided to avail of the “cycle to work scheme” that’s being run by the Irish government. Essentially you can get a tax break if you buy a new bicycle via your employer. There’s a cap of EUR1000 for the bike and associated gear, but that’s more than enough unless you want to get some crazy over the top handmade custom bike. I got a bike for about EUR700 with all the bits and pieces I needed.

So now I try to cycle in and out of the office every day and when I need to run an errand I try to use the bike instead of driving.

Of course I’ve been tracking (somewhat erratically) my activity, consumption, weight etc., via a number of devices and apps for the last couple of years. So when I started cycling I needed to find some way of hooking that all in to my existing “system”.

After trying a few different apps I ended up settling on MapMyRide. There are both free and premium versions available, with the premium one giving you you more detailed stats and a breakdown of them. Unless you’re going to be cycling semi-professionally the premium features are probably overkill.

One of the main attractions for me was that the app can “talk” to other systems, so I don’t end up with data in silos and can keep using the other apps and services I’ve been using up until now.

I also like the goal concept ie. challenge yourself to cycle more, longer and faster.

So far it’s made me much more conscious or how much and how little I cycle and how much more I need to do in order to burn more calories.

 

Which Exercise Plans Actually Work?

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I’m very conscious of my own limitations and I know that if I’d tried to change my diet AND start doing a lot of exercise at the same time it would have been a disaster.

Exercise machines (284617740)

Image via Wikipedia

So, I’m now eight days into my diet. I’m eating better and more systematically ie. I’m actually having breakfast every morning and I’m eating a couple of reasonable meals every single day.

Now the big challenge is exercise.

Walking appeals to me, as I used to walk quite a bit when I was younger.

Cycling could also be an option, though I haven’t cycled regularly since I left college in Limerick back in 1999 (there’s an interesting story there, but I’d probably be sued if I published it without changing some of the details!)

Swimming is another activity that I used to really enjoy, but I haven’t been swimming regularly for years.

Doing any of the above is a “nice idea”, but unless I have a proper structure to my exercise regime I suspect I will fail.

So I’ve been looking into exercise plans and systems.

Which of them actually work for people and, more importantly, why?

Are any of the “couch to X” type programs worthwhile? Or, put another way, are they suitable for someone as lazy as me? (Obviously the idea being that I’d be able to get past the lazy part .. )