First Bike Ride

In preparation for closing most roads of Vancouver downtown for the Winter Olympics, I decided to ride my bike into work today.  Road closures in the downtown core have started but it's still relatively easy to get around.  Nonetheless, it wasn't raining, it wasn't cold so it seem like a good day to ride and test everything.   As you can see, it's dark at 6:30am.  When the Olympics arrive, I'm hoping to ride everyday to get around.

First, my tires were half flat but ridable. I had to buy a new bike pump for the special tires  I have on my bike.   Other than that, everything seem good.

It's a 30 minute ride from the North Shore to the Lion's Gate bridge (photo), through Stanley Park, through downtown ending up in Yaletown.  It totals about 10k, 6 miles.  Double that returning home.   Quite doable and it's a bit of a cardio workout.  On top of that, I save $10 on parking, plus the cost of gas.

I even got a work out at lunch today. Went for a 2.5mile run on the treadmill then did some weight training.   Three stars today!

Adding a new dimension - Photography

I've always loved photography.  In the last 3 years, I've taken some 18k photo's.  Something I've been meaning to do for many years is take a photography course.... I finally did it!  I'm taking a night course at Cap U, the same university my son is attending.  It's messing his mind up a bit that we're attending the same school.  I just think that's cool.

I attended the first class yesterday.  The instructor was all over the map and he was hard to follow.  I could hardly understand his english but I just enjoyed the experience.  I'm going to learn a lot from the instructor.    We talked a bit on the picture finder, backgrounds, depth of field.   I'm going to like Monday nights.   I hope my photography skills improves.

My goal is to post video or photo's of my fitness experience this year and make it interesting to view.

2010 Fitness End Game

Life has been catching up on this old fart.  I'm overwieght, slow and out of shape.  What's worse, if the trends continues, it just gets exponentially worse.  I gain more wieght rapidly, slow down more rapidly and deteriorate fitness more rapidly.  I've made good progress last year but this year I'm going to take it up a notch.

I've decided to set  hard stretch goals.  I think its achievable goals for myself but it's going to take a lot of focus.  My health and fitness goals:

1. Lose 10 lbs.  I'm currently 203. This gets me to 193.
2. Run 1 Half Marathon
3. Run over 200 times this year, totaling over 750 miles.
4. Bike to work  a minimum of 50 times (average of once per week).
5. Build some muscle mass by doing some weight training.

Ok, let the work begin.

My Blog, I'm coming out. Hello World.

Well, I've  been meaning to do this many years ago.  Although it's taking me this long, I've finally arrived in a new decade determine to understand this technology.  Woot woot!

In this blog, I'm trying combine my passions.  That includes being physically active, my photography hobby, a bit of writing and technology.   This combines all four disciplines I just love to muddle in.

I'm planning to go a little slow and primarily blog on two subjects.  My current passion is running.  Last year, I logged 190 runs covering over 620 miles.  This blog will primarily focus on that subject and some of my adventures of running in 2010.    I will hope to bring in my passion for photography into the blog as well.

Let this new journey and experiment in learning begin.