30daysofbiking | Team Cross Runs and…

For the past few years I’ve signed up for the 30 Days of Biking Challenge. It is a great way to kick-off spring and there have been some really cool stories through the years of people being inspired to ride and having their lives changed. I missed the inaugural event due to Lyme disease, but have participated every year since.

In 2012, I was doing Project 365 – taking a picture each day – and dedicated April to taking a bike related picture each day!

Registration for this year’s event opened on March 1 and I was rider number 265 to sign up!

Here is my confirmation:

And my “pledge card”!

201430daysofbikingpledgecard

Of course I’m dedicating my riding and running this year to raising money for clean water projects in the Congo. Your support of any amount is greatly appreciated!

I’ve really been struggling to get all my workouts in each week. It seems like I can get up one morning, but then struggle the next. The 5:15 alarm makes it tough and knowing that some days I have to be home by 6am it is easy to psyche myself out. April was 30 Days of Biking and I did pretty good with riding every day. I missed riding 7 days which is a lot more than I thought.

Here are my goals for 2012 and my progress towards them:

Goal #1: Finish Buffalo Triathlon on June 3. 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run. (Under 1:15)

I’ve been getting plenty of swimming and biking in, but the running has been a little harder. Bike commuting is really helping build leg strength as I tow the trailer around. I also got a new bike! Thanks to Bikesdirect.com I got a new Motobecane Fantom CX.

Goal #2: Improve on my Square Lake time from last year (1:58) 1/2 Mile Swim 16.5 Mile Bike 5 Mile Run

See above.

Goal #3: Use and write about the FIRST Method for my running. 5k for the spring and 10k for the fall.

I’ve not been following it strictly, ok mostly not at all. I’ve done some fartlek runs and some tempo runs but nothing consistent. I’m not even getting the mileage in consistently. Ugh.

Goal #4: Complete Project 345 Bible Reading plan – takes you through the New Testament in the year.

Finishing up the Book of Luke.

Goal #5: Read a variety of books (genre, style, authors).

I finished the Hunger Games series by reading Mocking Jay, I was a little disappointed in the ending. We actually borrowed it from a friend so I was able to save my April Lending Library book for Meb Keflezighi’s Run to Overcome, but I haven’t finished it yet. We also finished an interesting book called Nomad Diaries, we’d been reading it for a long time. It started out as a decent novel about a refugee family from Somali and about half way through became really weird. It started out realistic and then the author just kept adding more and more drama to the story line that seemed unrealistic.

Goal #6: Document my thoughts on at least 6 of the books I’ve read.

I’m planning to write a review of Meb’s book.

Goal #7: Blog.

Running – not a very good job!
Midtown Phillips – averaging one post a day
Nadia – averaging one post every two weeks.

Goal #8: Project 365

My goal for April was to take a bike related picture each day in honor of 30 Days of Biking and I did a really good job. Only one day did I post a picture not related to biking and that was mostly because I was able to get a really sweet shot of downtown that couldn’t incorporate a bike! See for yourself. These are my 3 favorites:

Running: 32.5 miles

Swimming: 4.1 miles

Biking: 224 miles

LAST YEAR: I ran 49 miles, swam 500 yards and 136.3 miles and 46 minutes on the bike. Last year I also ran the MDRA Mudball race during April but we were working the nursery that morning so I couldn’t make it.