Ftrain, by Paul Ford

Up early; coffee; cereal. I had morning half-dreams of riding a bike around London, but London has no obvious bikemaps for free on the web like NYC. (Who's the REAL SOCIALIST COUNTRY NOW?) Something to research. I also have a fantasy of doing the Century, the 100-mile ride around NYC (not a race; I'm interested only in touring), in a year. I wouldn't be fast but it should be feasible, if a serious challenge, to get from my current state (10 miles an hour, capable of 40-50 miles over four hours, 300ish) to something that can handle the Century (15 miles an hour, 100 miles in 7 hrs, 230ish). That would be ambitious for a year, but. Of course, it would goal this up, and this is not about goals. People often ask about my ideal weight. There is no such thing; the concept exists outside of time. People want algebra but it's calculus. My ideal weight compared to last month is less than I weighed before.

Try to get 20 miles a day instead of ten. What would work is coming off the Manhattan Bridge and going left instead of right, up to the Williamsburg, then back down across the Manhattan. That would add 6.5 miles and two steady (and still challenging) uphill grades to the ride; if I'm going 7 miles or so to get to work via the Wmsburg, that would give me 20 total. If I alternated that with a loop around Prospect Park (where the hill is a dreadful bitch) I'd actually be training instead of riding, for some baby-variant of training. Assuming the winter agrees; if it's icy or snowy I'll have to slow down and maybe go back to the gym.

It would be hard to train alone; I'd need a friend who wants to go on 100-mile rides with me, and to turn my morning and evening rides into something more serious (I'd also need a bike). I'm a nice guy but am I 100-mile nice? The regular suspects for collaboration are either jogging, or smoking, or lifting weights. I am yet to reach a point where I can enter the fellowship of the athletic and ride in a pack. I am still the walrus swimming behind the penguins.

Perhaps there's a serious fatty biker club in Brooklyn I could join. There's everything else. But not a feel-good club; one that's ready for pain and confusion and yelling at each other, just without all the laser-beam rejection and squinting that I associate with slend culture. I used to have a weird cultural authority, and could have found people through Ftrain and so forth. But no longer. Oh lonely me.

As to WASPGEL, my weight up again instead of down. I really should get the graph working so that I can see the trend. Ah there. There it is. Look at that slope.

Results not typical. It hurt to do that, like hitting your own hand with a hammer, or chewing through handcuffs. That line will flatten after a while and I'll have to think differently. I will spend the rest of my life in communion with WASPGEL. How can I ride 100 miles? How can I maintain this weight? How can I keep from getting hungry? How do I talk about it with my family? How can I keep from drinking at a party? You spend a lot of time in a project like this borrowing trouble.

Bad news this morning.

Weight: 302.25 lbs