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Health & Fitness

Putting His Progess on Paper: Joe Peoples

Along with Brigid Lossing and an intrepid group of very dedicated exercisers – including, frequently, his wife Kim – Joe is not only up, but riding his way to fitness at RydeOn!

For many of us it's difficult enough to imagine getting up at 5:45 in the morning. But along with Brigid Lossing and an intrepid group of very dedicated exercisers – including, frequently, his wife Kim – Joe is not only up, but riding his way to fitness at RydeOn!'s earliest indoor cycling class.

Joe started indoor cycling with RydeOn! during the first week of January. "It was more important to me to start and just get the experience – I never started with the intention of riding as often as I am now!," he laughed. Joe shows up for Brigid's Wake Up and Ryde! class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. "But now it's just the way I start my days, and I get to have the excitement of knowing I did something right away, the first thing in the morning."

Joe, who uses a heart rate monitor so he can get the best possible effects from every RydeOn! class he takes, also uses something else that other exercisers might find useful – a journal. "I like to keep track of things, so I started to track some of the basics – my heart rate, calorie burn, and watts – just to see what's happening with every indoor cycling session," he explained. "I started the journal out of curiosity, but doing this has helped me understand where I'm at and when I can push a little harder."

What has Joe learned from his journal and from his overall experience with RydeOn!'s indoor cycling classes? "I've discovered that my body can continually recover in the midst of strenuous workouts! About fifteen minutes into a class I'm feeling exhausted, but somehow I recover and continue to push myself, recover then push again, over and over again throughout a class."

Joe said that he's also seeing great results from his regular indoor cycling classes, both during classes and in his life as a whole. "What I'm seeing from my journal is that every two and a half weeks I appear to get stronger, and I can move up my resistance. It's not consistent – I have ups and downs when I don't get as much sleep on a given night or when I get a cold or something like that – but the trend is definitely there."

Joe said that seeing his progress in his journal helps him stay motivated, but that his biggest motivation is being able to share his fun at RydeOn! with his wife Kim. "My favorite thing about this is that it's something she and I can share – we come to an indoor cycling class and do our separate workout plans together. I don't think I would be as consistent with this if it wasn't for her."

But why would someone with Joe's busy schedule – in a family with three kids, Joe is the real estate sales manager for Charles Reinhart Company Realtors – decide to take on such a rigorous excercise schedule? According to Joe, that answer is simple: "I want to be able to do the things I want to do when I'm older and done driving my kids around for soccer," he chuckled. "My mom and dad have health problems, and I realized it's time to start taking care of my body."

We asked Joe what advice he would give someone who wants or needs to start working on their health and fitness, and he replied that starting and making health and fitnesss goals "really important to you," are the keys. "If it becomes really important to you, a lot of things are possible. In addition, "Don't worry about anything other than starting. Make getting there the only thing you worry about, and let the rest happen. Nothing happens until you show up!"

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