Why another blog?

Seriously, why another blog? Why create another blind-shooting self-indulgent personal blog when I'm (clearly) not a huge fan of them and have consistently failed at maintaining them?

I blame Eric. College roommate/friend is helping out at some friends' startup, Bolder. A new function in their great positive-actions-gain-rewards system has people make personal challenges, so instead of "eating organic and getting a coupon," it's more like "make friends food and I'll give you good recipes," or "run 3 days in a row and I'll run to work for a week straight."

So the next part, the main impetus for this blog, centers around my recent attempt to bike a lot. More on the philosophy of biking later, I suppose, but long story short I've been trying to use biking as a way to challenge myself, to get back into some not-round shape, and it's revealed itself to be something I love doing. It's my "Nate" time, zoned out, music in my right ear, miles of road running below. I set out a couple months ago with the goal of riding 150 miles per week (seemed achievable but seriously challenging), and with exception of a week and a half of a broken bike, I've been doing it. I think I'm close to 1000 miles down and loving it.

So, in launching their new personal challenge section, I was given the chance to make one. I figured "I'm riding a ton, how about for every 1 mile you ride, I'll ride 2." Great idea, Nate. Things started off simple enough, and actually even slower than I expected. People posted 3 miles, 6 miles, 10 miles. Then the bombs started dropping. "210 miles last week." Shit. 420 miles? Alright, I can do it, but that's gonna take me a little while. Then some smart alec rides from Vancouver, BC to SF. 1300 miles. Umm... 2600 miles? Plus 420? Plus the other 100 or so from the stragglers? All of sudden I'm staring more than the width of the United States in the face, realizing I may need to shift the timeline I had envisioned for holding up my end of the bargain.

Well, if the challengees got to stick it to me be creative with the timeline (i.e., including miles done before the challenge started), I figure I get to play by the same rules. So I'm going to include the miles I've done since I started my personal challenge, and use the other thousands of miles to be inspiration for staying on the bike.

Which brings me back to the blog. Eric, being the savvy genius that he is, encouraged me to blog about it. Well, blogging is for dorks (says the kid who writes for a German car blog), but it will be cool to document my biking, keep myself honest, and let people, challengees and otherwise, see what I'm doing to fulfill my role as challenger.

One revolution as a blogger at a time, I guess; maybe this one will be different.