Wrap Ups

Just a quick post to update the recent stats! For the past week, I did 5 rides around my short route for 111.88 miles total. For April, I rode 20 days and a total of 533.24 miles.

This is the weather outlook for the next week...I'm hoping I can get out to ride between the rain showers?!

So Far..

I think logging ride days and miles makes me even more conscious of how quickly time passes! Since a quarter of the year is up I figured I'd post some stats so far. I'm very happy with the miles, but want to build up speed. I've been too content with base miles and will have to push myself more. Hopefully I'll get there doing intervals and group rides with friends to inspire me.

Here's my table showing number of days and miles biked by month.

And, the miles by week chart that you are familiar with. My outside miles are catching up to the trainer ones as the weather gets better. (The most recent week showing is not complete.)

YTD Outside Ride Details
Solo Rides: 15 (set out alone, but found friends on 5 of these rides)
Rides With Jeff: 8
Group Rides: 1
CX: 19
Road: 4

February Wrap Up

Aside from the head cold, February's been a good month and I've met my expectations. Tonight, I did one more ride to wrap up the past week with 6 days of riding, a total of 123.94 miles. For the month, I rode outside 4 days/144.46 miles and inside 17 days/355.84 miles, a total of 500.30 miles. As hoped, I bagged my first thousand for the year and am currently at 1,050.34 miles in all. Here's the updated chart of my miles distributed by week.

I've started reading the book by Burke shown in my last post and so far I'm finding it very good. It's so clear and answering a lot of the questions that I've had. Hopefully a bit of study will give me a clear idea of what I need to do when I want to maintain and what I need to do when I want to increase intensity. I guess I'm looking for some reassurance that I'm doing the right sort of things in a sustainable way, or learn what to change. Also, I need all the ideas for drills and exercises to try. It's still all about having fun though! I just like to challenge myself!

January Wrap Up

January turned out to be a rather pivotal month as trainer riding finally 'clicked' for me. A few things contributed to that, primarily my determination to keep a positive attitude, road conditions that did not allow safe outside riding and the discovery of a fairly local computrainer multiride center. Besides reading about bloggers going through similar efforts to keep riding, it's helped enormously that Jeff is doing the trainer as well as ride buddies ribuck and Lynn, who just bought her first trainer this month.

At the start of January, I had it in mind that I'd try to do 500 miles, though I wasn't sure that would be feasible on the trainer. Turns out, it was about right!

Out of 27 days of riding, 25 were done on the trainer. I feel so relieved that I managed to check off my January metric century on what was probably the *only* possible day for it! I did 83.65 miles outside and 466.39 on the trainer for a total of 550.04 miles.

Since the week also ends today, I'll report that I did 6 days of riding and 116.81 miles. It doesn't look like much yet, but since I don't have a picture for today's post I'll show you my graph for 2009 miles by week, just getting started. I love seeing the lines grow!

For February, I want to keep up the frequent rides and work more with the training dvd's and features that come with computrainer we've ordered. I want to get some of the CTS ones I've tried at the shop to use at home too. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can do 2/12 of the Metric Century a Month Challenge!

Recent Stats

It's time for some totals for the week as well as the month of October! I wish I could ride like this all the time, but I tend to fluctuate depending on things going on in my life and varying degrees of motivation. But it's good to know I can do this when I set my mind to it and I love how strong I feel when I am riding just about every day!

For the week, I rode 7 days and logged 196.09 miles. The weather was pretty good, apart from maybe Tuesday, when I think I experienced my upper limit of wind tolerance along the beach. Any more gusty and I think I'd have fallen over! I had some white knuckle moments and could not hold a line!

For October, I had a personal best for most days and most miles biked in a month! I biked 30 days and 866.64 miles.

Today, I started November off right with a nice 40.66 miles with Jeff. The sun was shining in clear skies and the temps were in the mid 50's.

I'm not going to set any specific goals for November as I think that could jinx me and cause it to snow a lot or something! But, I will try to keep up the frequent rides even if they become shorter to avoid becoming very frozen.

September Wrap Up

Well, it is about time I got out of my slump and got myself back into regular riding. September was good with 24 days of riding and a total of 515.09 miles. I focused on getting out as much as possible and mostly did 20-25 mile rides. I'm now to a point where I should start to mix it up with longer rides like my 30-35 mile loop. As the weather inevitably gets colder this time of year I probably won't be able to do many of those as I tend to start really feeling the cold and lose dexterity after 20 miles or so. Perhaps I'll work on doing intervals at the shorter distance.

My weekly miles totals prior to August are so woeful compared with last year that it's hard to fess up with this chart of them, but I have to be honest on this blog as that's kind of the whole point!

The lack of miles in February relates to the death in the family, in March/April it was the flu. I'm not sure how to explain the summer...I guess I'd just lost momentum. At least there is now a nice block of riding showing for the last couple of months and I feel good about that! (Note that the most recent week showing is incomplete as it ends October 4th.)

November Wrap Up

I finished up November with a 24.54 mile ride today. It was 34 degrees and breezy when I set out and my toes were pretty frozen by the time I got back, though I was otherwise pretty comfortable. The views and sunshine helped to keep me going. At one point, I was picking my line slowly through a potholed, patch on patch section of road and noticed this hawk perched overhead on a power line. I didn't think it would stay there while I dug in my coat for the camera with clumsy full fingered gloves and then 'woke up' the camera, but it did! I guess it was too cold to bother with flapping away.

Along with dropping temperatures, we had a lot of rain in November which I didn't want to go out to ride in. Then we had some holiday things scheduled toward the end of the month, so it was a little harder to stay on track and get the miles.

I managed to ride a total of 19 days and 525.48 miles. The cx bike has been put to a lot of use as it's great for mashing over acorns, sticks and leaves that litter the roads this time of year. I used it on 13 rides and my road bike for just 6 rides. I don't see many other bikers outside now and only did 2 group rides this month. Jeff did 8 rides with me, but I had to do 11 solo efforts to get the miles I wanted.

Here's the inevitable chart. I know, not exciting blog fodder, but these little bars help keep me motivated, so you'll have to live with it!

October Wrap Up / 4,000 (and counting)

My year to date miles count is at 4,002.13. 4,000 miles was my mileage goal for the year and I’ve hit that milestone with 2 months to spare! Hmm, should I try for 5,000 this year? If the weather cooperates, I might do it. Last year’s totals (on my mtn bike) for November and December were 653.84 and 592.14 respectively, but it was a very mild year with little precipitation.

October was my best month so far this year. I rode 26 days and 659.80 miles total. I kept things interesting by alternating between my road and cx bikes. I did 10 solo rides, 16 rides with Jeff and 5 of those were group rides.

By now, you know I love charts! Here’s my current chart of mileage by month.

September Wrap Up

I guess September always feels like the shortest month of the year to me, but this one seemed shorter than ever! This time of year, I feel compelled to ride as often as possible before the weather turns cold. I rode 21 days in all and 646.29 miles. (If one was to factor in all the test riding I did on the new 'cross bike it would be more, but I only count actual 'rides'.)

Since it amuses me to make charts from my data, here’s a miles by month chart. Hopefully with the new 'cross bike there will be a bit more winter riding in January and February '08 so I won’t feel weak by the time March arrives. I’ll try to use the trainer too, especially when it’s really rainy, like in April. I don’t really expect to ever increase my August riding by much as that hot, humid weather is so hard to exercise in. I feel content if I do at least 300 miles in a month, but I'm happier when I do 400 or more ;-)