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Mileage

04.02.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

Our club president distributed a friendly email blast to club members the other day. He wanted to report how he’s doing, mileage-wise, for the first quarter of the year.

“March racked up 859.3 miles and 40,991′ of climbing,” he wrote. “2,381 miles ridden year to date: That is 57 road rides, 12 gym ‘rides’ and a few swims and some weight lifting. Some day soon the benefits of all that exercise should start to pay off!”

Yipes! I know I don’t have anywhere near that many miles. In fact, a quick check shows I’m right. I’ve done a whopping 847 miles in the first three months of 2013.

Well, Joe is a special case. He works from his house, so he gets in a lot of weekday rides. An easy ride for him is about 25 miles. His weekend rides usually go over 50 miles, on both Saturday and Sunday. Of course, he’s going to rack up lots of miles.

It’s fun to find out what kind of totals my friends are achieving, even if I know I have no chance to approaching them. I don’t consider my cycling a competitive event. In fact, I know Joe doesn’t, either. He puts a lot of miles on the board because he rides a lot, not because he’s trying to out-ride everyone else in the club. But still, I can’t help but feel that I have to try harder when I look at numbers like those.

Actually, I feel that my mileage is down, because it’s only well below last year’s mark at this time. And that was because we had a mild January in 2012 and I rode over 400 miles in a month where I’m usually lucky to do 200. When I look back to 2011, I see I had done only 704 miles in the first quarter. 2010 was even less, with 681, and in 2009, I hadn’t even reached the 600 mile mark by the end of March.

So, I guess I’m doing okay, even if it feels like I’m not up to snuff yet. I’ll keep turning the pedals, but I won’t make an extra effort to turn a 19-mile ride into 20 miles, and so forth. If anything, I’ll build on the mileage I’ve already put down and try to improve my hill work and overall speed. I’m pretty content with where my biking is right now, for a guy of 62.

Oh, there’s only one thing: Joe is 62 as well.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // age, mileage

A Look Back at 2012

12.30.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

My wife and I decided a ride today was a must. She wanted the exercise, since she hadn’t been out for several days. I wanted to get in one last ride this year, since the forecast for the 31st calls for rain, and the combination of chilly and wet doesn’t appeal to me. So off we went.

It was only 40 degrees (4C) when we left home. That’s about the coldest temperature I care to ride in. What’s that old line — “There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes” — when it gets chilly around here, we don’t have much in the way of really warm cycling gear.

So we bundled up as best we could, and did some laps at the Veloway. It was nice to run into our friends, Rick and Penny, who were also cramming in one last ride. Rick figured 30 miles would bring him up to the same mileage he rode last year. After 15 miles today, I just wanted to go home and sit in front of the fire, but decided to do one more lap with the two of them, while Pat said she’d had enough, and headed for home alone.

I’m glad I got out today, even though I’m still cold as I write this. The ride gave me a chance to mull over the past year — what I accomplished, and where I came up short. On last year’s last post, I indicated some things I’d try to do this year, although I was careful not to consider them full-blown goals.

First, riding longer. I had mostly short rides in 2011, with just a few over 40 miles. I decided to correct that this year, and go for more long rides. One way to do that: train for centuries. I wanted to do at least two centuries this year. I did one, and concluded that rides of that length are no longer appealing to me.

Likewise, randonneuring. I thought about trying a brevet this year, but since I won’t be doing centuries, I certainly won’t be doing rides even longer than that.

I wanted to try out some new routes, since my riding had gotten predictable. I’m afraid it’s still predictable.

I also wanted to do more organized rides, simply because I like the atmosphere, and it’s one way to treat oneself to new routes. Didn’t happen. I did three organized rides this year.

Then there’s the weight thing. Luckily, I didn’t pledge to lose more weight this year, although I intended to see if I could maybe get it down a little (waffling enough?). I did finish this year at my lowest weight since I started riding. However, since I’m on of those guys who gains weight during winter, I’m still heavier than I am in mid-summer. Lots of room for improvement there.

One area where I did show marked improvement over previous years — total miles ridden. I finished the year with 4,519 miles — almost 500 more than my previous best. I probably won’t ride on the 31st, because of the afore-mentioned rain, so that’s my final total for the year. It’s also 2,000 miles more than my first full year of “serious” riding, back in 2008.

What does the coming year hold? I have no idea. If more miles come, they come — I won’t try to improve on this year. I’m going to try once again to ride more and different routes, just to add some spice to cycling. I’ll have to give some thought to organized rides — which ones to shoot for, what distances to ride. But I’m going to keep riding for the sheer enjoyment of it. See you on the road.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // long distance, mileage

New Personal Mileage Record

11.11.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

I reached 4,000 miles for the year last week.

It’s not the first time I’ve ridden that far — I finished 2010 with 4,100 miles. But it came more than a month sooner this year, and I’m guessing I’ll finish around 4,500 for the year this time around.

It sounds like a monumental achievement. It’s not. In fact, finishing the year with over 4,000 miles is relatively painless. Consider: There are 52 weeks in a year. If you ride 100 miles a week, you’ll have gone 5,200 miles in a year.

Now, living where I do, I have an advantage over many of this blog’s readers. Just this morning, for example, I rode in shorts and a short-sleeved jersey — no base layer, no arm warmers, none of that stuff. Temperatures were in the mid-70s (low 20sC) and the biggest problem I had to contend with was the stiff wind from the southeast. So I have a better shot at racking up 100-mile weeks throughout the year than most.

I don’t do it, of course. Stuff happens, like my ridiculous month of October this year. But even with a setback like that, I find that if I make an effort to stick to some sort of routine, I can get in the miles I need.

I try to ride Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Tuesday ride will likely be around 15 miles — just an hour on the bike after work. With the return to Standard time, that might be cut out soon. My Friday route is about 20 miles, Saturday 25-28, and Sunday 30-50. Add those all up, and it gives me about 100 miles, give or take. Realistically, it’s more like 85-90. Still, that’ll get you over 4,000 for the year.

I don’t set a mileage target at the beginning of the year. I just let the miles pile up as they will. This year, I dabbled with the idea of doing a metric century ride every month, not to add to my total mileage, but to increase my tolerance for longer distances. That lasted four months, then I lapsed back to a 30-45 miler for my long ride of the week.

I suspect next year’s riding will be a lot like this year’s. No big plans, just steady pedaling. And if I find I wind up with even more miles than this year, well, it’ll just be something that happens.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // mileage

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