Motivation to ride
runnernomore
Posts: 4 Member
I have only been riding a road bike since August 2011 since my knees broke down while training for the Adelaide Marathon. No, I have not been an athlete all my life and in fact frowned on those that were believing that they were crazy. I had only been running for 1 1/2 years after loosing a reasonable amount of weight, about 20 kg's.
I started to run on my 50th birthday and have continued to exercise regularly ever since.
So, the question, motivation! This is and always will be complicated to identify but what I have learnt is that you need to set goals, different goals, as different as you can find otherwise they loose their motivational properties and if that happens then your in trouble!
I can imagine I am like many others, I have a competitive instinct but not the ability to be successful in competition. I think unlocking my competitive instinct has helped me to keep going so how have I done that?
There is one person I can compete against and that is myself! To compete against ones self takes a few tools and these tools are more readily available than ever before. If you are running, riding, walking or roller skating you can use a smart phone to load applications that use its GPS functions to log time and distance. Applications like MapMyWalk, MapMyRide, endomondo, Strava and Ride With GPS are but a few available. These web sites/applications eacha have their own strengths and weeknesses. As an example Endomondo will track your route, distance time and will intergrate with MyFitnessPal to transfer exercisises to MyFitnessPal. I am not aware of ways to compare segments of rides/runs/walks with previous times completes to see if you have been quicker. Endomondo does allow people with Garmin logging devices to upload exercises and I think will allow you to upload from a file. Ride With GPS allows you to specifiy segments of a route to compare against previous exercises and I believe with other people's exercises and Strava is the master of comparing yourself with yourself, comparing against selected others and comparing against anyone else who has ever done the same specified segment giving one a chance to widen a comparison. Strava also offers regular "Challenges" to ride/run/walk a specific distance in a set time frame, complete a specific amount of elevation gain in a period with challenges offered often.
What do I do? I Use a Garmin 500 with heart rate monitor, speed monitor and cadence monitor and upload every ride to Strave (http://www.strava.com/) AND to Endomondo (http://www.endomondo.com/) because I use the challenges of Strava but seek the exercise transfer to MyFitnessPal of Endomondo.
Having said that I am not sure the data transferred to MyFitnessPal is very accurate for the amount of calories consumed as it seems to be based on a basic formula but it better than nothing!
My journey has been documented in my blog at http://www.pcsa.net.au/ so I don't want to say too much more about it here.
This year I have done several challenges with Strava from riding 1,788 km in 31 days (completed in 13 days) Climbing 105,000 feet in 41 days, completed in 31 days and riding 79 miles (127 km's)in a single day where I rode 204 km. I also gave myself a target to ride 10,000 km in my first year of riding and in fact rode more than 12,000 km!
So, in my case, short term goals, medium term goals and long term goals of various types have kept me motivated.
I have a video interview, only 90 seconds long, taken the day I completed 1,788 km on my 13th day which you can see at http://www.pcsa.net.au/2012/08/13/every-second-counts-interview-by-phil-crick-2/ if your interested.
Remember, goals don't have to be big just improvements and one step at a time!
Good luck in your goals and I hope you get all the support you need to achieve them!
I started to run on my 50th birthday and have continued to exercise regularly ever since.
So, the question, motivation! This is and always will be complicated to identify but what I have learnt is that you need to set goals, different goals, as different as you can find otherwise they loose their motivational properties and if that happens then your in trouble!
I can imagine I am like many others, I have a competitive instinct but not the ability to be successful in competition. I think unlocking my competitive instinct has helped me to keep going so how have I done that?
There is one person I can compete against and that is myself! To compete against ones self takes a few tools and these tools are more readily available than ever before. If you are running, riding, walking or roller skating you can use a smart phone to load applications that use its GPS functions to log time and distance. Applications like MapMyWalk, MapMyRide, endomondo, Strava and Ride With GPS are but a few available. These web sites/applications eacha have their own strengths and weeknesses. As an example Endomondo will track your route, distance time and will intergrate with MyFitnessPal to transfer exercisises to MyFitnessPal. I am not aware of ways to compare segments of rides/runs/walks with previous times completes to see if you have been quicker. Endomondo does allow people with Garmin logging devices to upload exercises and I think will allow you to upload from a file. Ride With GPS allows you to specifiy segments of a route to compare against previous exercises and I believe with other people's exercises and Strava is the master of comparing yourself with yourself, comparing against selected others and comparing against anyone else who has ever done the same specified segment giving one a chance to widen a comparison. Strava also offers regular "Challenges" to ride/run/walk a specific distance in a set time frame, complete a specific amount of elevation gain in a period with challenges offered often.
What do I do? I Use a Garmin 500 with heart rate monitor, speed monitor and cadence monitor and upload every ride to Strave (http://www.strava.com/) AND to Endomondo (http://www.endomondo.com/) because I use the challenges of Strava but seek the exercise transfer to MyFitnessPal of Endomondo.
Having said that I am not sure the data transferred to MyFitnessPal is very accurate for the amount of calories consumed as it seems to be based on a basic formula but it better than nothing!
My journey has been documented in my blog at http://www.pcsa.net.au/ so I don't want to say too much more about it here.
This year I have done several challenges with Strava from riding 1,788 km in 31 days (completed in 13 days) Climbing 105,000 feet in 41 days, completed in 31 days and riding 79 miles (127 km's)in a single day where I rode 204 km. I also gave myself a target to ride 10,000 km in my first year of riding and in fact rode more than 12,000 km!
So, in my case, short term goals, medium term goals and long term goals of various types have kept me motivated.
I have a video interview, only 90 seconds long, taken the day I completed 1,788 km on my 13th day which you can see at http://www.pcsa.net.au/2012/08/13/every-second-counts-interview-by-phil-crick-2/ if your interested.
Remember, goals don't have to be big just improvements and one step at a time!
Good luck in your goals and I hope you get all the support you need to achieve them!
0