I'm gonna chime in too and agree with everyone who says listen to your body and have fun. I'm in the same boat with y'all -- and yeah, I'd like to see 250 by the end of summer. What I did was start out very slow and easy, paying attention to what I feel like both out there and post-ride and letting that dictate how far and how often. Then ~7 weeks ago I started tracking the mileage starting with what I'd done the previous week and I'm adding ~10% to that as a goal each week. If I don't make that goal no big deal but having it does encourage me out the door. I'm still listening to the bod and taking rest days as needed while riding to work and back as often as the body will allow and pushing out the distance every weekend on one ride with the husband.

The entertaining part is that the scale says I've gained, but my upper body is shrinking while my lower body is getting bigger -- and I can see muscles in my calves for the first time in years. Aaand clocked 70 miles last week. The weight's gotta start coming off sooner or later, I reckon.

Oh, and other than trying to keep some good eating habits that I've developed over the last year I'm not worrying at all about food right now -- figure my body's getting enough thrown at it without that. I'll start thinking about that again ... maybe ... when I'm able to regularly do 90-100 miles a week. By then the muscle I'll have gained will give me a bit better edge on the weight loss. *grin*