Recently, I've fallen in love with biking. It's fun and invigorating, builds stamina and increases cardiovascular endurance. Plus, cycling develops leg muscles without stressing your joints.
Fitness benefits aside, what I like most about biking is being outdoors and enjoying the open air and scenery.
As I do with most sports, I decided to see how far I could push myself and entered my first 40 km (about 25 miles) bike race. Training for the race required spending more time in the gym on the stationary bike and treadmill to build my endurance and doing leg exercises with weights to build muscle. I also increased my outdoor cycling in terms of speed and endurance by about 10 percent each week in order to reach my race performance level.
Although I was a "middle-of-the-packer" in my first race, I loved it. The strong camaraderie among bicyclists made the event enjoyable and inspirational.
You don't have to race to have fun and get fit in this sport. If the idea of biking appeals to you, let me offer some suggestions for getting started.
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