tpage
09-28-2008, 01:22 PM
Hello everyone, my name is Tina Page, I am from Blue Mountain, Ms. I was employed at a furniture factory till it closed it doors. I decided to go back to college. Now I am a fulltime college student at the best college in Mississippi for Educators, Blue Mountain College. I started back riding this summer as a way to complete a 100 mile cycling class for school. I have a Schwinn Hybrid road bike complete with back rack and saddlebags. It isn't anything fancy but I love my bike. My 3 children (2 girls 9 & 10, 1 boy 15) decided they also needed bikes. Together this summer we rode 100 miles. We averaged 5 miles almost every evening. Most of it was straightways. During summer and fall break I mapped out a route to school and started riding to get myself familiar with it. I didn't get to ride everyday but was confident I could manage. School started and riding with full saddlebags was harder than I expected. The first couple weeks of school one of my assignments in "Intro to Ed", I had to observe 30 hours in a classroom at 2 different schools. My school schedule is so loaded (7 classes, 5 on MWF, 2 TTh), the only time to ride my bike was MWF but I kept finding reasons not to ride, ex: a chance of rain. Then it didn't even rain. But this week I have rode every day. My route has some hills and I am conquering them. My overall goal is to get heathier. Plus as an added bonus I am saving gas. My short term goals are endurance and speed. My route is 4.6 miles one way.. My first trip took 27 minutes. Those hills are killers. But now I can make it in 21 minutes if I concentrate on speed. On MW, I concentrate on cadence, TTh I concentrate on speed, then Fridays I just enjoy the ride, no worries about speed or cadence, I just enjoy the scenery. On the weekends I rest. I look forward to learning all the secrets to better cycling.