Time for an Adventure!

Hello again, I hope you all enjoyed reading my last article.

Today was quite the adventure! I had tried to stay up as late as I could the previous night so that I would be able to sleep in for as long as possible. I have found this method extremely helpful during the day's I am on a fast. I typically start my fast around 5-6pm and start eating normally again the same time the following day. I am at the point now were not eating for 24 hours is not much of a challenge for me.

I woke around noon and was surprised to see that the sun was out today. I knew I could not let it go to waste, so I planned a trip out to Horseshoe Bay. Horseshoe Bay is about as far west as you can possibly go in West Vancouver which is located on the North Shore. This is also the area which you can take a ferry across the bay to Victoria. 

I looked at a map and thought that it would be a nice easy ride over there so I grabbed my camera, phone, wallet, and headed out. Now the only bike I have here at the moment is a single speed. That means my bike has one gear, kind of like a beach cruiser or bmx bike if your familiar with either of those. Things started off really good, it was not until I hit my first huge hill that I began to think twice about my decision of riding this bike. Most of the uphills required me pulling on my handlebars as hard as I could so that I could push on the pedals to make it up the hill. Mistake number one, do not ride a single speed bike in the mountains. Although the uphills were a living hell, the ride was gorgeous, I literally thought to myself this is the coolest thing I have ever done. I rode west on Marine Drive taking pictures along the way. Some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen lay upon Marine Drive. There were a few houses that kind of reminded me of Tony Stark's house he has in the movie Iron Man. 

I rode as far West as the roads allowed me to, and I ended up on the furthest Western point of the North Shore. There was a park there and a few site seeing spots which I took advantage of to capture a few pictures.

It was around 2:30pm or so when I started heading back, and because of the inclination of several hills I had to walk them instead of ride. I was about 1/4 of the way back when I felt my back wheel start to get shaky. I pulled over onto a small shoulder and examined the real wheel; flat tire. Because I am riding a single speed bike aka fixie (flip-flop), the rear wheel does not have a quick release on it; just bolts. I have no spare tubes, co2 cartridges, or patch kits. Even if I did have any of those I still would need a wrench to get the bolts off the back wheel so that I could fix my flat. So I had about 20k till I got home, I had no choice but to walk it. I had starting walking around 3:00pm and I did not arrive home until 8:30pm. Needless to say I have learned a lesson about carrying the proper tools and supplies when going on a long bike ride. 

Although today ended up being a huge pain in the butt, it was truly the most beauftiul ride I have ever been on. If you ever come to Vancouver, I suggest you take a ride or at least drive West on Marine Drive. This is also a way to get to Whistler, they call it the scenic route.

An Update For All You Readers!!!

This post is way past due, but for all you still reading this blog I figured I should catch you up with what is currently happening. First of all I must say wipfit.net is taking quite some time to get developed. I have recently found some help from my good friend Nicole; hoping she can speed things up a bit for me. For now I will just keep updating this blog from time to time until wipfit.net is live.

Anyways lets talk about something a little more interesting. I recently came upon a website gymnasticbodies.com. This website is dedicated to develop basic gymnastic strength and ultimately elite gymnast strength. It is basically a gigantic forum were people and coaches have gathered together and shared information regarding training methods, warm ups, mobility drills, things of that nature. Since my back was giving me problems lately I decided I would take a few weeks off completely from training then give this basic gymnastics strength training program a go. From my experience thus far using the basic gymnast strength routine I quickly discovered my weaknesses. 

The routine is as follows:

60 sec plank

60 sec reverse plank

60 sec parallette grip hold

60 sec pull-up grip hold

60 sec hollow body hold

60 sec superman hold

The ultimate goal here is to develop a solid base to build off. Have you ever seen a gymnast hold an iron cross? They have the ability to hold these incredible positions without even flinching. From performing this basic routine listed above I still find myself shaking uncontrollably during most of the holds. Once I am able to hold all of these positions easily I will move onto more challenging things while turning this routine into a warm-up.

I found a park about 15 minutes away from my apartment which has some outdoor workout equipment. I ride my bike to this park most nights of the week to perform my gymnastic strength routine, using the bike ride over there as sort of a aerobic/anaerobic workout. The ride over there consists of uphills and downhills which I take advantage of by sprinting up the uphills and bombing the downhills, it is awesome. Just the other day on my way back from the park I found myself riding with a group of at least 15 other bikers. It is just so neat to see all these people riding there bikes all around Vancouver, it is definitely something you do not see often in Florida. Anyways, the ride back to my apartment ended up turning into a race between me and a few other bikers. I was hauling butt on the way back when some chick blew by me, of course I jumped at the opportunity of trying to catch her. Remember I am on a fixed gear bike with a flip-flop wheel, meaning it has one gear but the rear wheel spins freely. So basically you can only go as fast as your legs will peddle, no jumping to a bigger gear going down a hill or a smaller one when going up hill, it is what makes this a good workout. So here we are me and this chick blowing down this dedicated bike street weaving in and out of other bikers and the occasional car, it was so awesome. I love that excitement that gets your heart beating and blood pumping. If your still wondering, I caught her and passed her, hah. By the time I got back to the apartment my legs were fried. Who says a gym is the only place to workout anyways?

There is one last thing, if your still reading, haha. My sister is in a competition, The "Face of City Slickers Western Wear" Contest. So if you would click on the LINK HERE and "Like" my sisters picture (it's all through Facebook.com, just click on the thumbs up icon below the picture description, she needs as many "Likes" as she can get. Thank you in advance from my sister Bree and I.

Stay Tuned,

WipFit