Why do you excercise, really?

Siege_Tank

I do it becuase my dog needs LOOONG walks everyday
and I want to look hot for my hot boyfriend!

And I'm sure he appreciates all your hard work and dedication, the effort that it takes to look good. :drinker:

action_figure

I've been bicyling for years. I used to ride with cycling clubs but got frustrated with the whole group dynamic. (There's so much rant material there that I could write a novel.) More recently I have found another female of about my speed to ride with and we have very pleasant although not especially vigorous rides. We ride in a rural area west of Orlando on a shady, postcard beautiful recreation trail. We might see gopher tortoises, snakes, alligators, bald eagles, sand hill cranes, herons, ospreys. There's even a small ranch that has a herd of watusi cattle. You have to google them, they're amazing.

A few years ago, my cycling partner and I decided to enter a local MS ride that was to be a two day event totalling about 150 miles. It meant we had start ramping up our distance and endurance (as well and speed if we didn't want to miss the time cut off.) Instead of just dawdling along with chit chat, we started to ride with intent. We added miles each time out and made sure our speed didn't drop off. We also found that the fun was over after about 50 miles. It was't that we were exhausted, but that we were just over it after three or four hours. We persevered and eventually completed the MS ride with no difficulty and it was a memorable experience, but for a couple of weeks after that we didn't even want to look at our bicyles.

We have now made peace with the bikes once again and are back to our leisurely ways and cycling has become fun again. Lately we have come under some benign criticism (call it chiding) about our lack of focus and purpose when we ride. We both need and want to loose weight and get more fit but maybe we are wasting our excercise time by not buckling down to burn as many calories as we can and to get better, faster, stonger. To those who are making this argument to us, it's as if cycling is a metaphor for life, and not striving to achieve and improve is some sort of character flaw.

Based on how I felt after that big training effort before the MS ride, I fear that all that so called purpose will kill all the joy of riding. I know I'm pretty lazy. I suspect that my concern about spoiling the fun of cycling is just a cover for not wanting to work hard at anything. But this is pretty much the only excercise I get consistently.

Do I need to start cracking the whip on myself?

Do you want to become a competitive cyclist, or do you want to live an active lifestyle? I don't think you have to pick a sport and then be the best at it. I don't think you have to become "an athlete". I go biking three mornings a week. I go hiking / trail running three evenings a week. I go kayaking three evenings a week. I burn some calories each time, and I break a sweat, and I do my best. But am I fast enough to qualify for anything? Ever? Nope. Three mornings a week I do my kettlebell routine with some body weight fitness. That's my most challenging exercise and it is helping me build muscle. Still, I'm not competitive level. Does this mean I'm a total failure? Nope. I look at last year when my total exercise was. . . um, NONE. At all. I burn about 4,000 calories a week, and I put some miles away under my own power. It's fun, it's relaxing, it's *my* time away from the kids to destress. Maybe when I'm at goal I'll "train for" something. I don't know. But I know that I simply CANNOT do exercise just because it's good for me. I would chew my arm off to get away from the gym if the only way I could get healthy was to use an elliptical. For those who can force themselves to do it, more power to ya. I have to use my willpower to keep from eating all the things. Ain't got none left over to do exercise I hate. So, make it fun and rewarding in and of itself.