American Fork Canyon Fun

On Monday, June 30 I rode a trail that started at the top of AF canyon and ended up at pineview reservoir with Brandon Peterson and Wray Sinclair. I just met Wray and found out he's pretty dang good with a camera. He shot us along the way and we did a good amount of trails. 

I only had my hardtail and that was super fun although it did get pretty rough and I may have had more fun on my Patrol. I got to try and chase down some dirt bikers on the trail but it got a bit easy so we had to wait for them to get ahead. The trail was about 11 miles. I ended up pedaling out of the canyon and that was another 6 miles. 

So far, since thursday when I started I've ridden 41.6 miles. I'm shooting for 100 and I'm nearly ahead by 4 days already. 

I still need to work on my food a bit better. Obviously with such an increase in activity, I've been so much more hungry and have wanted to eat more. I haven't really, but I've wanted to. I need to cook more healthy stuff so that I could eat more and still work out this much. 

20 miles on a Saturday!!

Today was an awesome day. We started out riding the crest trail in the morning. While waiting for someone to replace a flat, I decided to ride through a park of Desolation Lake. The video turned out pretty amazing!! The ride was amazing. 11.6 miles, beautiful trails. I got to ride my hardtail the whole ride. It climbs super good and was challenging on doing the downhills. I definitely had to choose my lines a ton more. The trail really is amazing. 

I ate at a belgium waffle place with justin so we could get some calories. 

At night, I went up to a trail at Parleys Summit and rode about 5 miles. Saw some friends on the trail. Then afterwards, I rode just some roads with Jamison and Laura. 3.1 miles. It was kinda the final straw to kill my legs. So today I hit 20 miles, so that was pretty amazing on these trails with a ton of climbing. 

Food side, I had to eat a ton of calories today. Breakfast burrito, egg and potato hash with vegetables, and cottage cheese for dinner. I bought a bunch of vegetable to cook some food to take to work for the week. It should turn out well. So yeah, good day!

They say it's the rider, not the bike

So, I realized in order for me to accomplish my goals, I really needed to get a bike that could pedal even better than my Transition Patrol. So, here's my NS Eccentric. The drivetrain has an 11-42 extended range cassette and a Wolf 34t oval ring. XT brakes, deity parts, continental tires, fox 32 float. It's an awesome setup!

Thursday June 25- My first day of this experiment didn't go very well. I was working for 12 hours and was in class for 2 hours. It was a really terrible day and I missed lunch. I was helping out with a focus group at about 7 and they had a bunch of pizza, so i ended up eating a few pieces. So that was pretty bad. I did to a bunch of pushups and sit-ups when I got home at about 11.

Friday June 26- I ate decently well today. Breakfast I had grits and protein. Lunch I had cottage cheese. Dinner I went to sprouts and got a Steak, bean, rice, and vegetable bowl then some cereal when I got home from riding. I tried out my NS Eccentric on Big Springs. The ride was 5.9 miles, 1359 feet of climbing and every one of the climbs was the fastest I ever rode on the trail. The way down took getting used to. I'm used to having rear suspension but by the end, I was having a great time. Such a sick bike!! So yeah, I'm not doing too bad, but I for sure need to do better.

So why am I sharing this now. I'll just share all the stats and important facts and let you know how I got to this stage
This is me, albeit a bit muddy.

-31 years old
-6'1
-250 pounds
-Sleep Apnea
-Slightly high blood pressure
-Graduating with my MBA in about 9 weeks. This and work makes it so I'm sitting down between 12-14 hours a day.
-Tore ACL/MCL Jan 2013. I couldn't run or do much for about 1.5 years.
-Broke Ankle and ligaments Sept 2014
-Am very poor at eating. I am someone who never likes to prepare meals. I just like to get food made and head on with my day. This usually means that I'm not eating incredibly healthy.
-I own just an incredible shed of bikes. 2015 Transition Patrol, 2015 NS Eccentric AL, 2014 Transition Bank and a Traitor Ringleader Custom. These should mean that I'm always on a bike, but for some reason, I always come up with an excuse to not be on a trail.

I've always been a very active person. I enjoy just about every sport and have always been kind of a big person. There's a few things I need to change about my life.

So I'm making some goals:
-Bikes: I need to ride or work out everyday. I'm going to start with a goal of 100 miles on trails over the next 30 days. I should be able to get out and do atleast a few miles a day.
I'll be starting on June 25 and my goal by July 25th is to ride 5 miles per day. I have 27 ridable days because I don't ride on Sundays. I don't care if it's 100 or raining. I just need to get out on my bike. This should be a good goal!

-Running or walking: My ankle is still too bad to do any running. I'm going to make it a goal to walk atleast 5000 steps. I'd like to shoot for 10000 steps, but if I can get over 5000, I'll be happy.

-Lifting: My goal is to lift 3 days a week.

-Nutrition: This is where I have a huge problem. I know I'm not going to be perfect but I'm going to make specific goals to try and eliminate some of the big problems

Breakfast-I want to eat breakfast every morning. I often skip breakfast. I know some argue with me, but I've been eating grits for breakfast quite a bit.

Lunch- I'm going to be trying to eat higher protein lunches. This may not be the healthiest lunch for my day because I'm gone, but I'm going to do my best.

Dinner- I have been shown Healthy Choices Dinners. These seem to be pretty nice to eat. A good choice of food along with some milk should be a decently healthy dinner

Snacks- Just cut out pop and candy completely. This shouldn't be completely challenging. I just have to remember what I'm doing.

In total, I just need to pay attention to what I'm eating every meal. Eating healthy doesn't always have to be boring. Some of my friends eat amazingly while it's healthy.


I'm excited to give this a try for 30 days and see what happens. I don't expect to lose weight because it's never really done much before but I just want to feel better about myself. Biking is rad anyway, so it'll be nice to get out on the trails. I'll be keeping track of my rides on strava and will be updating this blog daily with what happened. Wish me luck!