Who turned up the amp to 13? Great, it's stuck there now...

Finally on board now. Whew. I just had to get my lazy ass around to clicking on DB's invitation. Expect to see me more often here, and if it goes well, perhaps I might even start my own blog.

--The Past--

Perhaps 2-3 months back I caught the biking bug that Ryan's had for awhile now. I didn't have a bike at first, given that the mountain bike that I had during college was thrown out.
Important note: I use a mountain bike. Ryan and Ted have actual road bikes.
One day Ryan asks me to come over and hang out while he fixes the tube in his wheel. He also asks if I can pick him up a pump while I'm there. I decide that I want to go riding with him and that hey, maybe having a bike would be useful. I roll over to Performance Bike, take a look around, price some up, pick one, and buy the damn thing right then and there. I also opened a Performance Bike account-thingy.
That's a whole other can-o-worms...perhaps I'll make a post later about HOW MUCH FUCKING EMAIL THEY SPAM YOU WITH.
We meet up, something happens (I think he might have fixed his bike, or put that one aside and used the other one), and I think we ended up back in Mayfield Heights. I pitch the idea that once we head a bit North, we'll encounter a nice wide paved pathway next to the 4-lane, essentially flat, grassy median-ed SOM Center. I also let him know about one of the many (or just one section of the larger?) Metroparks up there. He thinks this is a good idea, and we head out. It was a decent ride, but I got my ass stomped. Road bike + seasoned Ryan vs Mountain bike + not-used-to-this-shit Mike = Ryan is breezing along way in front of me while I'm pedaling inefficiently, tired, and wondering what happened to me. This irritates me. I tell myself that despite the fact that I may very well not follow through on this plan, I'm going to try and bike more so this doesn't happen again.

--The Present--
Fast forward to now. I've actually sort of followed through. I've gotten out more frequently. The rides I've been on are MUCH longer, like 1 and 2 hour rides instead of little 20-30 minute sessions. I've become more efficient with my pedaling. I don't always stand up to gain speed and thus blow out my legs. I force myself to sit down and just grind it out. You have to understand that I'm a sprint type of guy. Running, biking, swimming...I don't really do endurance events in those activities. Whenever I've biked before, I did little sprints where I stand up and pedal hard for bursts of speed. It's fun. I love speed. You go fast as hell, and then slow down and pedal slowly. Repeat when the tiredness subsides. The types of bike rides I've done lately are NOT conducive to that, and thus I had to change.

Last big ride I was on was with Ryan. We left from Coventry and headed down to Lake Erie. From the lakeside, we headed up to an abandoned Howard Johnson. Slipped ourselves and our bikes through the gap in the fence gates, quasi-hid the bikes and locked them up, then explored the gutted 15-ish story structure. Dealt with a potential cop scare, snuck over the fence to a gravel road behind the building, and jetted. After the HoJo, the one place we checked out was fully boarded up and in the middle of the a neighborhood, so no real ability to be sneaky and get in there without being visible to a shitload of people. Headed next to the telescope factory. About to head in when Ryan's eye spots an (assumed) homeless dude tucked away in this little brick...thing. He stared at us for awhile while we stood around and decided whether we should still go in. Ryan checks the hole we'd climb through one more time and sees people/hears footsteps. We decided it wasn't a wise idea to lock up our bikes and explore this place when there are bums all over. Take off, hit up THE CORRIDOR (why does he capitalize the whole thing?) and head back to Coventry. One big-ass uphill climb in Little Italy later, and we're back to where we started. Good ride. Good workout. Good sights. Lots of pictures taken on Ryan's end (and one video clip I think). I still can't keep up with Ryan, but I did a MUCH better job than the first time we headed out. I can tell this is turning into something good.

Lately I've been swimming, mostly because while riding is great, it's only working my legs. I want some upper-body activity, so I hit the pool. It's a similar situation there as was with biking for the first time. You try swimming laps again after not having done it for 5+ years, and you find out real quick how you're not in the same shape as you were then. Hopefully I can have a similar ramp-up as I did with biking.

PS - Please excuse the rambling, somewhat incoherent look and feel of this post. I know the layout is iffy. I haven't blogged before, I don't have a blog, and this is the first blog I've dealt with, so deal with it while I get used to this. Oh, and one more thing...you might find that some of my posts are long. Hope you don't mind walls of text from time to time.