My Secret Goal Reached #WellnessReimagined

Wellness Re-imagined April

Cycling

I have to confess that when I set my goals in January, I set a secret goal. I didn’t dare put it down on paper or tell anyone, as I wasn’t sure it would happen. This goal meant a lot to me, and I was desperate to reach it, but I really wasn’t sure that my knee would allow it.

Since August, I have been riding the TechnoBikes at gym for half an hour every day, except for cardio day, when I ride for 1 hour 20mins. My main goal here has been to strengthen my knee enough to be able to increase the kilometres that I am able to ride on my outdoors bike.

When my knee first failed, I wasn’t able to ride at all, and this really did upset me, as bike riding has been very important to me, since I started riding at age 30. In mid 2024, I started riding again, just short distances, that were increasing gradually. Pedalling the bike didn’t really cause a problem. The main issue I was having, was having to plant my foot onto the ground to stop. This tended to jar my knee, and I was worried that it would cause further damage.

My Secret Goal

Back to my secret goal. When I set my goals early in the new year, I set a secret goal to ride 60ks. I didn’t write it on my list of goals, as I didn’t want to put it into words. I was sure that it was unachievable and had convinced myself that if I could only ride 30ks for the rest of my life, I would still be happy. Secretly I knew I wouldn’t be happy, and that I wanted more, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud, and I thought if I did reach it, it wouldn’t be until close to the end of the year.

Last month when we went to Bright for a short break, we took my bike and my plan was to ride every day, even if for only short distances. I knew I could ride 30k, and told myself if 30k was my limit these days, then I would be happy with that.

However, I had a secret goal, that I told nobody. The only reason for the secret, was that I had serious doubts whether that goal was possible, and didn’t want to feel like a failure. The secret goal was to ride 60k.

After two days riding, I was very happy that pedalling was causing me no problems, and stopping and starting was causing no pain at all. It was actually improving each time I rode. I decided that on the 3rd day, I would do my best to ride 60k. I was riding on the rail trail, so rode to Myrtleford, 31k along the trail. My plan was to turn around and ride back, making it a 62k ride. My partner was ready to come to my rescue and pick me and the bike up, if I felt I couldn’t ride the full distance back home. He was my back up plan.

I’m happy to say that when I arrived at Myrtleford, I felt great and had no pain at all. After a short break, I was back on the bike and rode back to my starting point to achieve my goal of 60k, or 62k to be more precise. I was very happy to exceed my goal, and happier still that there was no pain in my knee at all and better still, there was no pain or stiffness the next day.

March Goal Check-In

• Do something active every day especially when away ✔️

• Gym every day except for the month when away ✔️

• One personal training session ✔️

• Make healthy food choices while away -mostly but not always

• Continue to track sleep ✔️ Yes but there has been no improvement

April Goals

Gym 5 times each week

Ride 3 times each week.

Ride over 50 kilometres, 3 times

Fruit - 2 serves daily

Vegetables - 7 times daily

It’s not at all difficult for me to eat 7 serves of vegies as they are my main food group. After having a week away, and eating out every day, I feel that I need a reminder to get myself back on track. Also, with April being the month of Easter, perhaps this could be a strategy to lessen the Easter chocolate. We will see.

Remember to pop over and visit my lovely, friendly, co-hosts to see what they are up to.

Debbie from Deb’s World
Donna from Retirement Reflections
Sue from Women Living Well After 50
Jo from And Anyways

The next Wellness Reimagined link up will be on Monday May 5. Everyone is welcome to join us, either by joining the linkup if you have a blog, or leaving a comment here.