What have I gotten myself into?!

[amyelice]

Hi everyone! I'm a 34-year-old mother of two and decided that I really need to get back into shape. It's as much for my girls as it is for me - I want them to have positive self-images and I want to be a good roll model for them. I'm not over weight per se, but I am definitely out of shape!

For example, I went for my first bike ride today since I was a kid, I think, and couldn't even make it up the smallest hill! I have a 21-speed cheapy bike, which should have helped, and I swear I tried, but I could not make it to the top! So I rode around my neighborhood, which is fairly flat, and managed 4.32 miles in 26 minutes. I intend to keep at it and my first milestone will be climbing my way to the top of that hill!

Does anyone have any words of encouragement and/or tales of when they first started that will help me laugh my way through this horrible pain?

[Veronica]

Everyone starts somewhere. Just keep swimming... errr pedaling!

V.

[mimitabby]

Hey Amyelice, sounds like you need to learn how to shift those gears. When you get that figured out, it gets a lot easier. And sometimes, when a hill is too steep, you just have to walk! Sometimes, if you're in too high of a gear and you approach a hill, you just CAN'T get the wheels moving fast enough> that's when you need to get off and walk.

Welcome to TE

[Kano]

Hi Amyelice! Welcome!

Like Mimi said, learning to work with those gears will help a lot. DH is FINALLY getting the idea that working in as hard a gear as he can stand is the way to go -- keep pedaling pretty easy, without being too easy. You'll soon see what I mean by that! There's easy pedaling, and then there's that one gear lighter that's like, crazy pedaling!

I have one of those nemesis hills this summer, and some days I can do it, but some days I can't. Yesterday was the latter, darn it! I persevered -- stop and rest if you need to, then tackle a few more feet. Check out Jiffer's thread on the evil hill climb in the "Open Topic" forum. I was SO glad to see her pictures, cuz that's exactly what I look like when I ride up my most evil hills! Eventually, you'll be able to do the whole thing. Something else that I've found helps me with hills -- better if I don't go up them "cold," but instead have a few miles under my shorts already.

If your bike has been sitting around a while, it might be worth taking it to a bike shop to be serviced -- make sure all the moving parts are moving the way they should, and are well lubricated. The bike shop where I have since purchased three bikes (one for DH) was happy to do this for me (for a fee, of course) cuz I'm sure it helped get me hooked on this happy hobby!

Karen in Boise

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hey Amy- you're 34, girl.....you haven't had enough TIME to get out of shape yet! Try being 53 like I was last year and never having exercised in my life and hadn't been on a bike in 37 years!!!!! Shucks, you'll be zooming up those hills in NO TIME FLAT!

[Zen]

Oh to be 34 again.
Keep climbing that hill. One day you'll laugh at how easy it is.