November 20, 2011

Week 2- A lesson learned

The Good News:

Total Time: 3 hours 10 minutes (6hr 58 min)*
Total distance: 69.7 km (149.7 km)*
Weight Loss: -1 lb (+0.4 lb)*
$ spent to date to upgrade my $99 bike: $0 ($189)

*The first value are this week and details in parentheses will show the cumulative for the whole project.

Week 2: A Public Service Announcement and Business Travel

Ahem, right, I will start with the Public Service Announcement:


left hand pedals have a reverse threading and thus have to be removed with a clockwise rotation. (So much for the righty tighty- left loosey rule.)

This was pointed out to me by a reader- who did not provide a name- with great mirth that the two tools installing the pedals had not bothered to research this fact. And you are absolutely right- we didn't. Didn't even occur to us. After I thought about it it totally makes sense that you do not want any possibility of forward rotation of your pedals causing your left pedal to come unscrewed- thus the backwards or left hand thread. Spot welding was not required after all. (Dad, I am talking to you!)

So thank you, nameless reader, for your help. I am learning all kind of things- the least of which is to Youtube things before you try new stuff. For those of you who are interested here is a good how-to video on installing pedals: noredirect=1
Learn from my mistakes!

I travelled for work this week and tried to stay on program in the hotel. I did okay. I have a total of four workouts this week when I was supposed to have six. But from a big picture perspective four workouts in a week- for me- is really good. I still take this as a win.

Eating out while travelling is challenging. I really admire those who have no issue with this. I do well for the first day or day and a half and any time after that I am in a flat spiral back to my horrible eating habits.

At home I am the primary cook for our house. You can see here and here that does not always go well- feeding a family is challenging too. (Understatement.) But at home I am in control. (In theory.) Eating out in Calgary, especially when dining with oil companies, tends to bring you to The All Beef Buffet. Where your lunch choices are girly-portion 10 oz steak, 12 oz steak and 18 oz steak. If you dare order anything but steak you have to deal with the justification of your life choices at the business table and the unintended insult to the quality of Alberta Beef. (Yes, I like it just fine. Honest! I just don't want to need a nap when I will be in two more meetings this afternoon!) Don't even get me started on how I ate there when I was a vegetarian!

Week 3: The High Holiday
This coming week will offer a new set of challenges- not pedals this time- but with my high holiday: Black Friday. My sister, a handful of girlfriends and I are heading to Bismarck, ND for our annual girls trip. We typically get up at redonculous times and shop until we almost literally drop. Now Friday is usually designated as my "cross-training" day (I have been using it as a recovery day to be honest) and I think this week I can legitimately say that I will be cross training. 14 hours of straight shopping- in those crowds- ought to count and maybe earn me a small treat at Cold Stone Creamery or Starbucks or the like. Saturday may be a wash as well. So my goal this week is to work out 5 days and to start and finish my Christmas shopping!

I'll keep you posted!

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