Mileage Cont.

I thought I'd peaked my car last week at 31mpg, but I thought wrong. This week I put 342.2 miles down on 10.32 gallons of gas. That's 33.2mpg, and I'm certain I can do better! Woohoo!
When I bought it (used) the mpg rating was "23 city, 29 highway." I never managed to get more than 28 mpg on the highway, until now.

Stats: 2002 Mazda Protege 5 sportwagon, 180k miles. 4 cylinder 5speed, midnight blue.

Mileage

If you have read anything about hypermiling, you know there are techniques to help improve your gas mileage. I have been driving at or below the speed limit consistently, accelerating slowly, decelerating slowly, using cruise control whenever possible, and generally just not driving fast.

This accomplishes two things.
a) Most importantly: Reduced Stress. I have enough things stressing me out on a daily basis. I do tech support. Holy Stress Batman! Driving slower is one of the biggest factors to help me reduce stress.
b) Saving Money on Gas. Who doesn't need that?

I filled my tank today, and was astonished when I noticed I'd driven 312.7 miles on 9.88 gallons of gas. I usually cannot pull more than 300 miles from a full tank, let alone 10 gallons.
That's 31.6mpg! My car has over 130k miles on it. Very impressive!
Biking to work helps, because I'm not using the car for short distances, so it's all highway miles.

Yay!

Other Cool Cellists, Snow, and My Cousin Luke

Cello

Cello kid



Melodic fiddle



and some Bach....


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Snow

I've had summer tires on my car through the last few storms, and had to shovel even the smallest amount of snow in order to climb out of my driveway to get to work. My driveway is a short but steep hill. My 'allseason' tires arrived on Tuesday, I had them installed on Wednesday and noticed the difference immediately. This morning we had at least 4 inches of snow, and I didn't even have to shovel it. I had no trouble climbing over it and out of the driveway. My tires didn't spin at all, it was easy! Yay!

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Black Belt

My cousin Luke has his candidate belt (he is a candidate for black belt) and has been practicing very hard. The other night we ran all his techniques. I only needed to make minor adjustments to one or two of them. I was deeply impressed by how he ran the techniques. I have no doubt he will become a black belt and I am honored to have been part of the process. I cannot even describe just how proud I feel.

Bread and Water Workout

Today's workout took me out.
I found a stretch of road that is exactly half a mile long near my new place, and ran for 3 miles. After the first mile I went inside and grabbed a hat, coat, and gloves. I can't find my stopwatch (it's packed away someplace) so I do not know how long it took. I took my time.
50 pushups, 50 crunches, 50 pushups, 50 crunches.
50 squats with weights
100 side crunches.
arm/shoulder workout
I had planned to add another 50 pushups and crunches, however I did not have much for dinner last night so the granola bar and glass of water I started the day with couldn't hold up. I know when my body has had enough. I'm going to shower, shave, eat a huge portion of pasta and meaty red sauce, go buy a sub to go, pick up my car with it's new windshield, try to aquire some new rainx wipers, then go to work.
Double time and a half plus 8% for working second shift!