Just Do It

"The slogan for Nike, "Just Do It" was introduced in 1988 in an ad campaign 37 years ago. It debuted in a television ad featuring an 80 year old runner named Walt Stack, who ran 17 miles every morning across the Golden Gate Bridge. The ad was designed to appeal to all kinds of athletes, from casual walkers to elite level competitors, and helped propel Nike's brand from a niche sports company to a global leader." That's according to my ChatGPT assistant. I looked Walt up just to be sure and that dude is 100% legit. There are articles all over the place about him and the many, many miles and races he ran in his lifetime. Do you want to guess just how many miles he logged in his life? According to him, he figured he ran about 62,000 miles in his 87 years on this earth. And here I was, pretty stoked at myself for logging 143 miles ON MY BIKE in July. Now this was a huge increase from the 54 I did in June, the 58 I did in May, and the pathetic 26 I did in April. But hey, tripling my mileage from a few months ago is progress and I'll take it.

My July Totals in Strava

My point to all of this is that as I reflected on just how lazy I had gotten in the previous 6 months or so, the only excuse was just me being lazy. I live in a beautiful place that has nearly year-round good weather to ride, I'm physically able to do so, and I moved into a new job after teaching for 31.5 years that provided me the opportunity to have more freedom to ride my bike. And I wasn't doing it. It was as simple as that. On that day, at the end of June, I decided right then that starting in July, I was going to stop making excuses for myself and ride at least three times per week. Since then, I actually rode 4 times a week except for one week that I was just busy with work. Other than that I've ridden just about every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and at least one day on the weekend and I'm pretty stoked about it. I've dropped a few pounds which is great, and I plan on keeping this up. I'm no Walt Stack but I'm making progress and "just doing it." Who else wants to join me? Join my Strava group called "Da Crew-sers" and let's push each other to keep riding! It doesn't cost you a thing except to use Strava, which is an app that you can download and use for free. Let's gooo!

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