Back again!

I finally went to a pulmonologist to get to the bottom of my breathing. I have post-viral bronchitis [can't remember this word] disease. Yes. "disease." There are two fixes to this disease: time or drugs. I opted for the drugs. It's a twice-a-day-puffer. It's been 4 days and my lungs are working again. No more wheeze.

Now the reason I can't climb hills is just because I've been sitting around drinking beer for the last 2 months. No more blaming the lungs. Alas, I've gained nearly 10 pounds. I'm just out of shape now. But I got lungs baby!

And the Midnight Century is a month or so away, so I have a goal too. I'd love to give a run in under 8 hours. Best I've done is 8:15.

In the old days, when I was a youngster, I'd go on a strict no-beer diet. That's not wise. My beer intake will need to be reduced a bit, but the lynch pin to any good fitness plans is obvious to any cyclist: hills.

More hills. (Bill, if you're reading this, do not take this as an invitation for Tuesday mornings torture sessions. Give me a month, at least.)

So: start by waking up and riding the trails. I did that this morning and I was embarrassed for myself in my lame slow panting painful crappiness.

Ramp up the commute: take the long way home every day. Just add a couple miles and make sure there's a good climb in there. I'm looking for slow-steady climbing here. Maybe swing through downtown and take Cedar/Highdrive to Bernard.

Throw in a couple trail rides during the week: short, fast, hard.

At least one mileage ride per week. Start with 50 this week, ramp it up over the month to 120 or so by the end of the month.

This should also mean, maybe, that I'll actually do some blog posts about riding! Yow!