2013 is gone and I thought a bit of analysis of my cycling for the year was in order.
It was an up and down year – mostly because I place too much pressure on myself. If I wasn’t riding, I was feeling bad. If I was riding, I was feeling bad that I wasn’t riding further or harder. I think psychologists have a term for people like me!! 🙂
I attempted to use Strava to track my progress this year. I had a number of problems, particularly for the first half of the year. I would forget to record a ride, the app on my (older) phone would stop, or a ride would just disappear. This didn’t happen all the time but was certainly a factor. About mid-year, I upgrade to a newer phone and the Strava app seemed to stabilize. I suspect the phone but I am a software guy so I know how these things work – it may have been the app!
One thing that took a while to finally occur to me is that mountain bike rides are very different than road rides in terms of “training numbers”. I’ve had some really tough MTB rides that were only 5 miles long. That really sucks for the total miles number. Is what it is.
The first two-thirds of the year was on my MTB. I then purchased my Giant road bike and spent the vast majority of the remainder of the year on it with a few MTB rides mixed in.
Finally, we had a colder than normal fall which really put the damper on rides. Instead, I spent a fair amount of time on the trainer. I did not record these “rides”.
Ok, those are my excuses.
Strava reports that I rode a total of 138 hours and 1818 miles over the course of 2013.
I suspect I could easily add 20% to those numbers to cover all the issues I had. So, let’s say 165 hours and 2200 miles.
On the surface, that is pretty great and I get all puffy chested. Then the reality sets in.
Six miles per day, 42 miles per week. Less than 30 minutes per day, 3 hours per week.
Ya, not that great.
So, obviously, I need to crank it up this year.
A resolution?? Naw, just they way it will be – more riding!
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