Lots of Biking Happiness

October has been a good month for me so far with a few milestones crossed this week. I increased the length of many of my rides from the 20-25 mile rut I'd gotten into. I finally crossed 2,000 miles for the year and feel I have a shot at tagging 3,000 if the weather holds. And, I beat last week's best mileage with a total for this week of 222.93.

I always like riding, but had lost a lot of fitness earlier this year, so much of the recent block of riding has taken a lot of determination. Most days have felt hard physically, but also mentally. It can be disappointing when you know you've previously felt so much better on harder, longer rides. But the work finally paid off this week with the feeling like I'd reached a threshold allowing me to feel energetic and strong out there. If you consider my weekly mileage chart, you can see what it seems to require for me to get to a new level of ability.

I know the energetic feeling won't last since now I will just work at getting stronger! But I've savored it this week. Now, I will have to anticipate the next threshold I'm going to reach to keep me motivated. Hopefully I'll get there before the inevitable winter slow down. I want to feel very fit before then, so it's not as hard to build back up in the spring. Since there will be a lull over the winter, I want to make sure it's a little beneficial.

Motivation hasn't been a problem lately. My new bike friend has definitely been a factor in lengthening my rides. Company makes it so much more fun. In fact the last day I rode with her, I ended up with 52.88 miles, though only 32 of it was together. Jeff is doing the 'weekend warrior' thing and his excitement about riding on the weekends is contagious even when I've been out all week. (See pic below of him doing laps around the fields with me earlier today.) Also, I tend to visit bike blogs in the morning when I'm often having a latte just before my ride and all the enthusiasm and entertaining ride and race reports out there in blogland really help me!

For the first half of October, the temps were in the 60's at least. On the 16th, a cool front moved in lowering the temps to the 40's/very low 50's. Fortunately, I still find it pretty comfortable though I do cover up more. We've only had one rain day so far, so I've already ridden 17 days and 464.62 miles. I'm looking forward to seeing my totals at the end of the month!