Getting Ready NASCAR Style!

In a day I’m going to be on the road headed to the big bike-a-thon event, and I’m going NASCAR STYLE BABY!!! I’ll tell you about my logo craze but first…

As a last bit of training I jumped on a bicycle safety event at the local NASCAR track where you could actually take your bicycle on the track. Let me tell you it was more dangerous than any stock car race I’ve seen. I work as a bicycle currier but I don’t deal with that level of danger in my normal mail routes. After three laps I got out while I was in one piece.

Why the danger? Well imagine throwing about 200 children all hopped up on soda on to a NASCAR track. The older ones really think how they are on a race car track and want to book it for all it’s worth. Then there is the group that’s just so excited that they zigzag across the track rather than follow a normal line. If you can avoid those collisions then there is the clueless group that end up going the *wrong* way on the track. Can it get worse… oh yes. See there are the 3 year olds who just are learning to ride and are doomed by the Gods of crash and skinned knees. Lastly you have the parents of said children trying to walk with them until they get distracted talking to their friends who also have children in the event… those gals just stroll along oblivious to all, around the track.

I’ve used the Bike-a-thon event as an excuse to “carb load”… after all, any excuse to eat two pizzas in the last couple of days will work right?

Back to my NASCAR Style. I had an idea while I was at the track. I have a decent expense for travel in gas and tolls, plus snacks and spring water. So I am actually putting on panels on my rear panniers with company logo sponsorships! Ahem… I’d like to thank all my sponsors on and off line who supported the Zoo New England Gilmour ride (Over 100 dollars raised now!!!)


AND I’d like to thank my corporate sponsors who are taking care of the Fools Fitness Team Raleigh operation costs… Genesis Behavioral Health, Dance On dance apparel and more , as well as Happy Jack’s Pipe and Tobacco Shop. So… how’s that for wild? Supported by someone who sells two-twos! I’ve even got logos on my helmet and a logo shirt from a sponsor.


Hey does this mean Fools Fitness Team is now “Pro”?

Bicycle Scavenger Challenge!

I have a game we can play, encouraging you to get your bicycle out . My challenge is for you to take a picture of your bike (and you?) next to an “old car“. In future posts I may challenge you to take pictures next to other things. Please encourage me to do the same. Make some suggestions for me to “find” something I can take a picture of my bicycle with too in an ongoing scavenger hunt!

Leave a comment with ideas and a link to your own blog posts of your own adventure picture. If the game takes off, I may link your blogs in my posts and leave my own current challenge in the right column of my blog. Try to keep the challenges reasonably generic. Not all of us can get a picture of our bike next to the Grand Canyon or Mayan Pyramids. (Well, with photoshop, but that‘s cheating!!!)

SO where do you want to see my “Boba” bicycle next? With a statue, next to an exit sign, by the water, Next to an elephant, in front of a church???

I’m still trying to build up my endurance to ride the bike-a-thon I’m riding for this coming Saturday. If you’d like to make a donation on-line to help out animal projects through Zoo New England please go here:

http://www.zoonewengland.org/foolsfitness

I’d like to thank my supporters so far… and also to share some great news. “off line” I’ve been able to raise over $60 dollars so far, and on-line I’ve got a current $30 in donations. I’d appreciate your support. That being said this will be the last time I “beg” for donations for the event. There are many wonderful causes that people can support. I think it’s important to try to be a positive influence in the world and naturally there are many other great things you can participate in as well. So, no pressure.

Back to my “training”. I’ve rode over the weekend a casual ride around the State Capital of New Hampshire (in the U.S.A.) and got the two pictures… the Liberty Bell is a replica. That famous crack in the bell is actually *painted* on this one. Somehow a faux crack in this replica seems a bit cheesy to me. The picture in the right column is next to a hot rod bucket Model T.

The ride this weekend was riding about Concord from comic book store to book store, and a little random roaming. I always forget to hook up my speedometer so I have to guesstimate the ride at 3 miles or so? I also learned to carry extra water as I ran out and had to beg some nice lady washing her car at her home for some water from the hose to refill my bottle and to bring my tools too as my front fender got loose. Ride and learn!

Don’t forget next week I hopefully will be posting a multi-part series with pictures of the Zoo New England Gilmour Fund bicycle event. I’m getting *really* nervous… I don’t know if I can ride the whole thing and I’ve never tried something like this. But I guess the key here is I’m going to try! If a guy like me at 330 pounds can pedal, maybe you can too. Remember we are in this fitness thing together and we are riding for our lives… fighting off Diabetes, keeping our hearts strong, and being able to breathe easier. If you can’t ride, walk. If you’re in a place that walking is difficult, just make a choice to downsize to a slightly smaller portion in your next meal and build on that success.

I’ve been thinking that while I make lots of mistakes in poor eating choices, and I kick myself for not being perfect, I’m still trying to do something. Healthy choices add up too! I may never be a Mr. Universe, but I can try to be a slightly more fit Alan.

At Foolsfitness we wonder when this place ended up being a bicycling blog… - Alan

Levitating Children

I couldn’t help but take a picture of this odd sign in a bathroom. Why is that child floating in levitation over the table? Dark Magic my friends. (LOOK CLOSE! THAT KID IS FLOATING IN THE AIR!!!) Moreover what’s with “Baby Changing Stations” anyway? I think people should keep the babies they have and not trade them. My mind spins so odd as thoughts like these drift in somehow.

In an average day my mind tends to wonder a bit. Unfortunately usually so does my focus on eating well and in the proper amounts. There is this ice cream shop five miles out of town that has decided to do dollar cone days not only every Tuesday this summer… but now *every* day!!! I now have a sweet new mistress.

I also have an opportunity. That ice cream shop is five miles out of town and the vast majority of it is going up hill. I’m thinking if I want one of those dollar cones maybe I should ride the bicycle. I’m not even sure if I could make it there without walking half the way up those hills. Perhaps just maybe after 4 hills in I’d rethink my choices, and if I didn’t I would still come out the right way as far more than a small cone of calories would be burned. Gee, maybe that should be my summers fitness plan… ride that loop for ice cream every day. It’s a ten mile loop. Returning would almost always be coasting. By the time I would get there I’d be too tired for a cone anyway? I haven’t attempted it on bike yet… those hills are just daunting.

I have a smaller version of this now. I go for a walk for a fountain diet soda to the convenience store down the street. In the end my light workout usually is a good way to burn a few calories. Except for tonight where somehow I ended up with a donut and cinnamon roll too.

I am trying a few bike rides to get ready for the upcoming bike-a-thon. I figured out how to use the quick release on my front tires brake cable and take off the front wheel to fit it in my car… so I can get it to the biking event on May 8th. I’m riding with someone else too who I’ve adopted into the Foolsfitness team. She’s even guest posted way back. I can’t wait to get pictures… I think it will end up being a multi part series posts. This is exciting stuff. I think it might be her first Bike-a-thon too.

I’ve got a few more trips planned. The First Sat in May is “free comic book day” where comic book stores usually will give a way a comic to people just for showing up. I use to be a huge X-men (Gambit), Batman, and Green Hornet Fan. There is also a couple of neighborhood bicycle safety events I could attend. I’ve also been eying out a new air pump, but I hate spending money sometimes. It’s weird to justify the air pump. I could just pay the 75 cents or a dollar for the local petro station air pump a lot of times before paying for the cost of that foot pump. I think my mind spins sort of odd. I waste so much energy on weird thoughts.

And Remember that Foolsfitness has a center for weird thinking near you!- Alan

You Won’t Believe This! But it’s TRUE!!!

What’s Happened in the last week you may not believe… If you’ve ever seen the movie “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” While my own life is not to the extent of his, I certainly have a bit of it and the level is increasing.

I have the blessing of waking up on a day and have an adventure pan out for me that was unplanned so many times. Sometimes I don’t know what each day will bring. I think it’s a spiritual gift from God. In the past I HAVE somehow ended up in a parade, gone to a rock concert, or even made the choice to go on a mission trip to Belize within seconds when I had woken up those mornings not having any idea what adventure was awaiting for me.

Even more adventures have happened within this last week!!! I’ll mention them of course, but first understand All of them happened as a day unfolded… not all in one day, like Ferris, yet somehow. Perhaps it’s a lesson of awareness and being open to the Spirit of God moving you… But while I do not hide my faith I’d rather not Bible thump and perhaps push people away so just let me continue with the story…

I think it’s a lesson to live life as an adventure and not give into the fear. Maybe food is perceived to be “safe”, yet it seems to rob some of us in the end with ills and short lives. Being massively overweight is a prison. It limits your ability to live life Ok, all right no more lesson pondering… what did I do this last week:

*I GOT KNIGHTED!!! That right, Perhaps I should refer to myself in third person character as Sir Foolsfitness now? Well Sir Alan is a First Degree Knight of the Knights of Columbus. Yesterday I was asked… I knew it was right within moments… For my love of the Rosary just connects me with them. So now I am part of the Order. (I feel so Jedi…)

*I WAS ON A NASCAR TRACK! Not in the bleachers, but standing ON THE TRACK and ON (in, on top of) the pit row at New Hampshire Motor Speedway!!! Right next to race officials scoring and talking with them as the held the *first* NHCC (New Hampshire Cycling Club) at the track for this year.

*I GOT an audience with the *CARDINAL* in Boston Massachusetts (U.S.A.) as they were helping him adorn his vestments for Holy Mass, and he blessed my Rosary. Not to harp on the Rosary but it’s an antique and it prays well and powerfully… I have no proof but I wonder sometimes if it is a relic. It was given to me by my sponsor when I joined the Roman Catholic Church way back when.

*I GOT skinner!!! Last week I recorded at my work a weight of about 324... That’s somehow about 6 pounds drop within a week or so!!!

*PRISON BREAK! Back to the prison of being over three hundred pounds… I still have to look at a 2xl shirt and debate slightly if it will fit (but it’s a marked improvement over the 3 and 4XL’s of before!) I still can’t look at “normal” clothes. Watching that bicycle race was all I could do. There was *NO* way I could pedal that hard for that long. Moreover I’d literally snap one of those carbon fiber bikes with my sheer mass. This is a prison. I am still in prison and it may be a time for a prison break!

I’ve got a gut feeling that as that gut goes down the adventure will go up.

At Foolsfitness we say it may be time to plan our escape from the prison, and try to never see that Warden of Fat and his Candy pushing Guards again. Say good bye to your super XL sized prison cells of sloth.
- Sir Alan Jones, Knights of Columbus, First Order.

I Got Grounded

I sadly look outside and want to go play… but I can’t. I’m grounded. At least today I’m trying to ground myself as lately my activity level has been through the roof and I really think a down day to let the body repair might be for the best. I’ve got a bicycle ride in the back of my mind to do but I’m laying low.

I think I mentioned the 13 mile bicycle ride on last Sunday. In the last week I also got to go exploring some old railroad tracks that had been converted to a walking path too. The “Northern Rail Trail” I scouted out with a friend as I wanted to check it out to judge if it was worth getting the bicycle over to it. (the pictures are of the general store front and depot. That caboose had been converted to a camper.)

We stopped a couple of times at various points, saw a wild turkey and some turkey vultures. The last point we stopped it was called “Potters Place” and it was an old train depot and general store that had been converted to a historical society museum. It was the custom in some areas back in the old days to have the post office within the country store. Sadly visiting the place off peak season it was closed and all we could do is peak in all the windows. A form of that post office was run until 1988.

In the late 1800’s the rail line had a head on crash of two locomotives, one freight and the other passenger. According to the paper, 3 or 4 people died, the locomotives were demolished, and a few more folk were hurt.

Speaking of hurt…An update on George from my last post who got hurt in a game last week. He can walk but had to take a couple of days off work and there is no chance he can play for the rest of the season as he did some kind of heel damage to himself. It was sad. He came last night to say goodbye and sat on the sidelines and heckled us good naturedly. He was in pain to really want to play as well as the foot pain.

Another wild volleyball game last night. The league is loosing players as the season progresses and I think some of them are burning out leaving early. Somehow I got traded to a team after my own lost a couple games in a row. I knew I blew a few points working as center in a row (it’s my weakest area… I serve well.) So I was feeling pretty low. Then I noticed that my old team had a eight point loosing streak without me on it!!! Then being on the new team we won the game against my old team. After that I couldn’t help but yell, “Are you rethinking the idea of trading me now!?” Ok, it was a bit unsportsmanlike but I was kind of emotionally hurt being traded off.

In the last week or so my diet has been hampered with some less than calorically miser like choices in snackage. I’ve been experimenting with making wraps as sandwiches, they rock and I think with tinkering I can make some decently filling and calorically prudent fare. Then there was the KFC, the tale of two cities. One a stop on the bicycle just out front to mock them taking a picture of the sign with Boba. However the next day some choices inside KFC that I can’t say I’m comfortable with.

A check of my weight is down 4 pounds! Apparently KFC was merciful. Lets see if I can stay downward of 330 and finally break that 300 into the 2’s… a goal that has for a long time alluded me.

AT Foolsfitness it’s time to get a workout in a bit of pleasure reading with some cheesy novels. Hey, is reading scary books is an aerobic workout? I mean your heart gets pumping and all right?- Alan

Mental Olympics

If there were such a thing as Mental Olympics I would get a gold metal in “Pondering and Planning”. Following through with them on the other hand, I wouldn’t make it on the team. I have spent so much time wondering why I would logically choose to overeat. Why on Earth would I engage in an endeavor that would take me to an early demise via Diabetes or Heart Attack? Why on Earth would I do something to my body that leaves it in such shambles that I could not fully function in life to run and jump and play and live… I still struggle with the answer.

Is it an honest addiction to food or it’s psychological comforts of pseudo safety? Is it playing it safe to live just outside normal life enough to not have to fully try and ultimately have a chance to fail? Yet in the logic it will if course unchecked lead to failure never the less. Perhaps in the modern venacular… WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?!

The current picture was in front of a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). I couldn’t help but take the shot next to it!!! Their new sandwich called the Double Down has an advertising campaign around being so meaty that there is no room for the bun. (32 grams of fat and 540 calories! According to the LA Times) There will be no room for my buns in their booths (or my bicycle) if I ate those unchecked!!!

So the positives: current bicycle ride on Sunday, over 13 miles. Didn’t go in to KFC.

The negatives: Got home and still ate too much in other stuff… then visited KFC today, didn’t get the Double Down but more calories in other tasty goodies.

So in the end likely negated any caloric deficit in exercise with extra food, plus. The answer is beyond logic and reason. I’ve got so much exercise down I’m even over exercising but I haven’t lassoed and hog tied the terrible hunger monster. Why? WHY? It makes no sense. It’s beyond any rational sense to do so. Somehow I need to get beyond sense to understand the pull, drop the attachment to the food insanity or die in madness.

At least the fight goes on. I obviously haven’t given up. I fought head winds of 10-15 miles an hour riding my bicycle out Sunday. So strong in fact that when I stopped for a break the wind lifted my bicycle off the kick stand. My legs burned with lactic acid and tailbone with agony… then of course it being Sunday I went to evening Mass at church and God had a bit of a chuckle… you see in the Roman Catholic Church the Mass is filled with getting up, sitting down and kneeling. Or in my case wobbling, straining, and silently groaning in pain.

So why do you guys and gals over eat? I can’t make sense out of it obviously. Maybe it’s not meant to make logical sense about in the end and just needs some flat out choice that I need to get lip piercings for hoops and padlock my mouth shut, then a cattle prod to zap myself when I get within one foot of the kitchen area. How to get past this hurtle confounds me. I wonder if it’s some perceived path of least resistance and result of some basic pain avoidance and pleasure seeking? See my gold metal training in thought coming forth again?! Maybe if I can really focus on the endgame that it really is a choice between living more fully longer or living quickly and shortly.

At Foolsfitness our heads hurt. So do our tails.- Alan

The Extreme Sport of Life

The first rays of the new day washed over the landscape and filled the cracks between my blinds. This was the day when I turned the bicycle training up a notch. My most ambitious ride with my new bicycle “Boba” was planned. I looked at the clock, just after five… I decided… it was really early and was going back to bed on my day off.

Take two… it was a clear late morning, the air crisp yet warming nicely… I got the bicycle downstairs and out the door a little before noon. The ride I had planned was not only ambitious in miles, but also in difficulty as it was mapped along the hilly roads near the lake. About a mile in or so I realized I forgot to attach my speedometer so I could never “officially” clock the miles of the day. Speaking of speed, two interesting speed related things happened. The first is a gut check going down a hill without using my brakes. I can not say if it was courage or temptation of fate yet I remain unscathed thus I lean to the former.

I wildly got clocked by the police radar at 15 miles an hour. The police near my home have these machines they set up in different places around town from time to time to remind people to think about how fast they are driving. I rounded a corner and saw one ahead and couldn’t resist peddling for all I was worth to see if I could get the machine to pop up a number… it started at 13 and crept to 15mph before I flew by.

I’m starting to get concerned that I may be infected by the “bicycle geek” virus. Slowly I’ve started to get a tiny mirror on my helmet, those half gloves, and multiple water bottles to choose from as well as pannier bags on order. Someone feel free to slap me if I get one of those pointy helmets and glossy synthetic body suits!!!

As seen in the picture I made it all the way to Weirs Beach (about 6 miles or so from my house one way) I had enjoyed sitting on the benches at the beach for a bit and started the ride home. (Insert ominous music) I got about a third the way home and My bike aply named “Boba” after Boba Fett is proving it’s danger to myself and everyone around it by freaky chaos. The gooseneck on the handlebars loosened up and I had to call out for help. I didn’t dar ride it when the handlebars got sloppy. This is the second time I’ve had to be “rescued” by my kind nehbor who I have before mentioned about borrowing all her cookware for my veggie eating experiments. (If you’re following along from posts before she didn’t forget me owing her the paring knife back… If this keeps up I‘m going to have to break down and buy my own kitchen utensils!!!)
Anyhue, the bicycle shop is now literally on speed dial on my cell phone. I think I need to open a running account with them… this time I left with a nifty gadget that looks like a swiss army knife but has lots of bicycle tools in it that I can tighen up the handle bars on the go, or other minor stuff… when needed. It’s ironic that the old bicycle “blue” that costs a third of the new one never gave me any grief ever while this one is so finicky.

I’ve mentioned Volleyball before. The games I play are intense. Many people wear knee pads as they end up sliding across the floor in games. I usually go home with bloody knees myself. If anyone tells you that a 300 pound plus guy can’t be active don’t you believe them!!! But the reason I mention the games is I’d like to ask prayers for a gentleman named “George” who dove for a ball and… well… he didn’t get up so well at all. The poor guy may have just really twisted his ankle or he may have done something a bit more serious. He had to be escorted off the court and ankle iced. I’ve said a prayer for you buddy! Hope your recovering well.

We do sort of play it really hard. One of my team mates actually asked him to borrow his knee pads after he got out of the game. Ouch extended… a bit cold? I couldn’t help but think of him as some old car that the team had decided to strip for parts. It wasn’t my idea honest… but I have to admit wanting to get back playing after a few minutes.

At Foolsfitness life itself is an “extreme” sport!- Alan