Last Day of the Month Desperation Push

For the third month in a row I started to mildly panic because my total mileage numbers were down in a month-to-month comparison with the previous year. I know it's just a game and that mileage totals is not a complete measure of success in training. However I'm not one to shy away from such mental games.

I knew that I had to ride 30 miles to match last June's total, so I explored a familiar route with some new variations, namely Lounsberry Rd., Burns Rd. and Creamery Rd. in Brooktondale. It's a very pretty stretch with broad vistas of Ellis Hollow and Buffalo Hill. What a gorgeous day, though the winds offered quite a challenge on a low-energy day.

I managed to eke out just over 37 miles, surpassing last year's June total, though I doubt I'll be able to match last July's total of around 900 miles.

Some stats for the year:
Total mileage through the end of June: 2520 miles
Average miles per week since January: 100 miles
Average miles per week since May: 166 miles

2K Goal Met

It sure felt good to make my goal of 2,000 miles before summer vacation. Last night I chose a longer solo ride over racing—riding alone felt like the right decision, given my state of mind and my desire to make an arbitrary goal. Conditions were rainy and blustery, but the rain was intermittent, so it wasn't miserable at all. Once again, I chose the lovely lightly trafficked rural roads of Lansing, Locke and Genoa with a small extension to the previous ride in this direction.

In addition to topping 2K, I'm just under 115,000 vertical feet of climbing for the year, which I think is the more valuable stat. While I haven't set a goal for the year, I'm hoping that I'll be closing in on 4,500 miles by November.

Topping Off A Great Month

Without a doubt, this May has been my most memorable month of cycling, with my first two bike races under my belt, 700+ miles accrued and over 42,000 vertical ft. climbed. What a whirlwind of activity and apprenticeship, as I have learned so much from the likes of Cookies Ernie Bayles and Bill Erickson, to name only a few. I've also learned quite a bit about mystery noises and have received great assistance from Keith Thompson, Glenn Swan, and the good folks at Cayuga Ski & Cyclery.

Today I topped off this memorable month with a ride up Ringwood via Lansing, an old favorite. The weather was once again perfect, and I had a time deadline that was excellent pressure to ramp up my average speed on the return trip. Above are the metrics for today's ride—this is a terrific feature provided by RidewithGPS that allows you to study how much time you ride at specific speeds, and how fast on average you ride at specific grades. I guess I have to gather up this data from the same loop over a period of time to see how my performance improves.

I believe that the explosion of web tools to help you analyze your rides can really make a difference in improving your training and adds to your cycling enjoyment. Without these tools, cycloblogging would be far less interesting.

Here is my log for the month of May. My goal is to exceed 2,000 miles before the end of June, but I'll likely be around 2,200 miles before July 1.