Hitting the mark

Well, it's not exactly the mark I'd hoped for when I began this season, but I'll take what I can get. I cleared 3,000 miles on my log last night. Granted, I was on the trainer at the time, but as I said, whatever I can get. In reality, I was shooting for something closer to 4,000 miles this year considering I was over 3,000 in 2007 with only 8 months of riding on the books. 4 full months to hit another 800 miles should have been pretty easy, but alas, it wasn't to be.

I really didn't get any long mileage in on a regular basis and that really hurt. I think my average ride this year is probably around 20 miles where last year it was well over 30. I'm sure riding my mountain bike a lot more definitely put the average miles in a major state of decline as it's tougher to get 30 miles on a mountain bike doing singletrack than it is to head out for some nice paved road riding. Makes me wonder what 2009 will bring in terms of mileage. I'm thinking I'll focus even further on mountain biking so it's going to take some pretty serious efforts to maintain that many miles.

On the plus side, my focus is starting to get my motivation going as well. I turned in about 5 total hours on the bike last week and started things off with another 1.25 on the trainer last night. I also made it to the gym for the first time this morning. I won't lie. It was damn ugly in regards to the lack of strength I've got. I was doing some 1 legged pedalling exercises last night and really got a first hand glimpse at how weak my core is. Time to work on that. I really want to check out some yoga, so I'll have to see if I can make it to some classes at the gym. It appears they're mostly later in the evenings so that should work out decently for me.

I'll get to the holidays in another post.

Mileage update

Just a quick note to let you know that I made my first big rollover of the year on Monday's ride. I rolled 1000 miles for the year thus far. Considering I didn't start riding a road bike until early May last year, I am pretty excited about having that much mileage in all ready. I'm hoping to break 4000 miles this year as I ended last calendar year with 3200ish. I definitely need to start hitting the 4+ hour weekend rides now that the weather is starting to cooperate more. Those were the mainstay of my miles last year and probably will be this year as well.

One other thing of note, of all my mileage, I put less than 20 of those on indoors! I rode all winter long, which was huge for me. It was a lot of fun playing in the snow and cold this year with the right gear to keep me warm. If I decide to do more racing next year, I might have to up the indoor training a bit though. I'd really like to try a trainer as opposed to my rollers though. I know rollers are great for form, but I just couldn't stay on them longer than 20 minutes without getting numb nuts going on. Personally, I think I'd probably do better on riding a stationary trainer where I can zone out into my own little world and just put the hurt on.