Making a New Habit

That's what I'm working on this new year, and so far, okay.  The new habit is to exercise every day, and it's not that hard during break, so my goal is to get myself in the habit pretty well and then hope I can keep it going once classes start.

The thing is, I've already ridden my bike (on the trainer, so way quicker, but not as exciting) over 100 miles.  And that makes me think about how lazy I've been all fall not being on the trainer at all.  It's amazing to think that if I rode for just 10 miles a day (about 30-35 minutes on the trainer for me), I'd rack up 3000 plus miles for the year, no problem. 

My system to avoid utter boredom is to put on a bike race from last year (many are on youtube) and ride along for the last however many kilometers using earphones to hear the commentary over the trainer.  (They often don't start televising or youtubing the races until the last 30 kilometers.)  I've now worked up to just over an hour (20 miles), so mostly the timing works out pretty well.  If I need a bit more time, I watch the last few kilometers of another race. 

The key is, I have to not remember who won the race, so Paris-Roubaix is out, because that was very memorable for me.  But stages are really good because I tend not to remember who won the stage, even if I remember who won overall (the Giro, for example, will be good).  And most of the classics and monuments are good (those are one day races, often in spring or fall).

Today's stage is Stage 7 of the Dauphine, I think. 

The racing season has started in Australia and New Zealand (new national champions in both countries today/last night), but they're not available here, alas.