Over 1,500 consecutive days and counting

I received a little pub in "Her Voice".   Not sure how I fit in that crowd, maybe it's because of the shaved legs?  At any rate, David wrote a nice little article.

Over 1,500 consecutive days and counting

Over 1,500 consecutive days and counting

Biking to work, long-distance training part of Kevin Brady’s healthy lifestyle

by David Lias

Published: Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Kevin Brady

Kevin Brady of Vermillion is so into biking that he writes a blog about it: “The Life and Times of Biking Brady.” (http://bikingbrady.blogspot.com/) One portion of his blog’s web page is constantly changing. He keeps a running total of the days he has biked to work.

As of Feb. 20, 2013, he has ridden his bike 1,547 consecutive days. This long streak began on March 5, 2007.

A one-way trip from his home to his job at the University of South Dakota is about 10 blocks, not counting the diagonal crisscross path he takes through Prentis Park.

This habit could almost be described as a healthy addiction.

Kevin was interviewed for this story at a local restaurant. His mode of transportation to the interview site was by bicycle, naturally. By the end of the interview, it had begun to snow. He had listened to the forecasts; he was well dressed to pedal back to his job dodging both snowflakes and fourwheeled, gasoline-powered vehicles on Vermillion’s Dakota Street.

“I’ve been an active biker for about 16 years,” Kevin said, who grew up in the Wakonda area. “I was a runner, but I just can’t take the pounding of running anymore, so I turned to biking to fill that void of running.”

He’s able, he said, to perhaps go a day, maybe two, without taking a bike ride. Kevin, however, is hooked.
“I can’t go an extended time (without biking),” he said. “Here and there, I take a day off. Sometimes, I force myself to take a day off. There are days when there’s plenty to do around the house and you do it, but you get the itch to go to the Wellness Center or get out on the bike and ride.

“I don’t know … it (the urge to ride) just triggers inside of you after awhile, I think,” Kevin said.
Shortly after Kevin began biking, he decided to not pass up the opportunity to buy a high-quality, touring bicycle for a bargain price.

“That’s when I realized the world of difference that a high quality bike makes,” he said. “People wonder how you can bike 100 miles at a time, and it comes down to the quality of bike.”

He rides a traditional-style bike for his commutes to and from work.

For long distance rides, Kevin recently began using a recumbent bike to avoid back pain.

A recumbent bike provides more back support, and a rider doesn’t have to pull his or her head with that type of bike. “The reality is it’s easier – I call it riding the Barca Lounger, because you’re in a chair, and you’re looking straight ahead. To me, it’s a lot easier.”

One reason he began his blog was to spread the word about the benefits of bike riding. He began keeping a running tally on his blog of the number of consecutive days he biked to work as a way to encourage others to consider pedaling to work or other destinations more often.

He’s only let weather be an excuse not to ride to work once. That was years ago, when he tallied about 60 consecutive days of biking to his job.

Today, he’s prepared for any type of weather – heat, cold, rain and snow can’t stop him.
“I have the gear for all of it,” Kevin said. “Rain is probably my least favorite thing to ride in – especially if there’s a thunderstorm. I do not like lightning at all.”

Once spring arrives and the weather warms, he will begin training for long distance racing. Last year, he participated in Gut Check 2012. The Gut Check is an endurance race across South Dakota via SD Hwy 212 where riders have 48 hours to make the 412-mile journey from the South Dakota/Wyoming border east to the South Dakota/Minnesota border.

The purpose of this event is to raise funds and awareness for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).

“I’m planning to do the Gut Check again this year, and in getting ready for something like that, you can put in between 200 and 350 miles a week,” he said.

Besides the sheer pleasure he receives from his biking activity, Kevin said he also appreciates the health benefits that he gains from his “addiction.”

“I tend to try to watch what I eat, but I don’t always,” he said. “That’s kind of the beauty of cycling; I probably average about 2,400 calories a day, and especially if you are a dieter, you’d think I’d be gaining weight, but I don’t. I stay about the same all of the time, and if I want to lose weight, I’ll drop under that (2,400 calorie amount).

“But part of this does involve trying to eat the right stuff, especially when bicycling season comes around,” Kevin said. “If you don’t eat right, when you get out on a 50 to 60 mile ride, you’ll feel it.”

Biking activities that test one’s endurance, such as the Gut Check, also demand a high calorie intake to maintain enough energy. “On something like that, during a two-day span, you take in about 28,000 calories,” Kevin said. “But, the health benefits are a big plus.”

Biking has allowed him to stop taking lipids, as his cholesterol almost immediately was lowered to normal levels.

He’s lost track of the last time he needed to take a sick day from work, except for a time when he broke out in hives. “That was more of a very uncomfortable day rather than a sick day,” Kevin said, laughing.

Since there’s a good chance he hasn’t missed any work thanks to his healthy lifestyle, there’s more than a good chance that the number of consecutive days he’s biked from home to work has grown by the time you’re reading this. You can check on that growing number by logging on to bikingbrady.blogspot.com.

Whew! No Surgery!

I've been dealing with pain in my groin area for 2-3 months now and finally figured that if it was serious I better find out for sure and get things taken care of.  I had a Physical Therapist bend me seven ways from Sunday and even though I had some pain, it wasn't enough to make me jump off the table, which I know he was secretly shooting for. I was instructed to follow his stretching routine, which I have religiously, but it just wasn't getting better after three weeks.

On the advice of the Physical Therapist, I started my search for a specialist in the area of sports hernias.  After getting opinions on who to go to, I chose one in Yankton and made the appointment.  I have to admit, I was extremely nervous.  I really expected the worst and hadn't told hardly any body except my wife and a few people in my cycling class about my issue.

The doctor took his time in checking the area and completed all of the typical hernia checks (turn your head and cough anybody???).  In the end, he was satisfied that I did NOT have a hernia.  He did state that he could tell by the way I twitched hard when he dug in the adductors that they were WAY too tight and inflamed.  He asked what my current workout regimen was and I told him honestly.  It was like telling your parents that you broke something in the house.  Needless to say, I'll be taking it easy, along with 2400mg of ibuprofen for the next two weeks (at least).

Below is a picture of the area in question.  They are not some of the bigger muscles you have, but let me tell you, they can be incredibly painful when inflamed.  It's tough to become the "aging athlete", but it's better than being a couch monkey.

Does Either Streak Matter?

Six years ago today, after what I thought was an impressive streak of 49 consecutive days bicycling to work, I hopped on my bike and rode to work, which was a fairly normal occurrence at that point.  Six years, and 1,559 consecutive days later, it might be considered a compulsion to continue to do so.

Maybe it is.  After all, I have had a handful of days that I must have taken stupid pills to be on a bike.   Days of torrential downpour rains, roads so icy that I couldn't even stop the bike, snow so deep that my jeans were wet from the knee down by the time I got to work, just to name a couple.

Part of that can also be attributed to a second streak that will have an anniversary in three days:  the decision to sell our second vehicle five years ago.  I really didn't drive it, it sat in the driveway or on the street just taking up space.  Remove one vehicle, remove the possibility of driving to work, right?   Here we are, five years and with two of three kids in their teens and still we are doing just fine with one vehicle. Well, at least I think so.

Why does either streak matter?  Well, not really.  The cycling to work streak is my OCD side not wanting to let it die.  I like the fact that sometimes people stumble across my blog and I receive messages that it's very motivational to see people "do what I do" on a daily basis and it hopefully motivates some to drive less.

What "I do" seems natural to me.  I've retrained my brain to not think of a vehicle as my first transportation option. The purchase of a pull behind cart, or grocery getter if you will, was one of my biggest purchases in leaving a vehicle behind.  I learned I could go to the store and pick up things just fine without a vehicle.  Unfortunately I don't do as much of the grocery shopping as I used to so it's time to get back in the habit of hooking up the cart more often.

When will the streak end?  I don't truly know.  There is a possibility that it may be sooner than later depending on how a certain doctor visit goes tomorrow.  At this point, it would make me sad to see the streak end as it has been a source of pride, but it would never end my love or my advocacy for cycling.

At any rate, for those of you who occasionally pop out to check out my blog, I hope you do try to bike more for short errands and not drive so much.  I see so much foolish driving in our small town.  People who literally drive three blocks to the college campus, people who go less than a mile to the store for one simple thing, just to name a couple.  Let's not forget one of the best reasons to bike somewhere:  As long as they have a bike rack, you have no "parking lot amnesia" to worry about. At least not until my dream of this happens: