I never quite got around to updating my blog with my summer rides, until now. I think my negligence in this area reflects the changes I’ve made in my riding style. I still track my mileage on the bike, but I no longer have mileage goals at all. And without mileage goals, I just don’t check and update my riding log as often, and so fall behind on my blog too. On my good riding weeks, I do three bike rides totaling around 100 miles, but I let a lot more things reduce that mileage than I used to, concessions to age, I guess.
For example, where I used to just ride through illnesses, and put in extra makeup mileage after injuries, or anything else that forced me off the bike for a while, I don’t do either of those these days. I do rest and recovery when I think that will help, and I don’t worry about making up lost miles. I also allow other activity to substitute for bike rides. That’s mostly fossil hunting this year. I’ve found that my typical fossil hunt, consisting of a long hike down a creek or river bed and climbing in and out of it, to be its own aerobic exercise, often comparable to what I would put in on a bike ride. So when I take a fossil hunting day, I let that substitute for one of my rides that week. That explains why my September mileage is low this year. I had some fun fossil hunting trips that month. I should probably post about them on this blog too.
Summer mileage:
July – 458 miles
August – 408 miles
September – 291 miles
My total mileage for the year as of the end of September is 3,268 miles. That’s 800 miles more than up to the same point last year, so I’m calling it a good year so far. I’ll end up with nowhere near the kind of mileage I used to ride in my most serious cycling years, but still a good year for where I am now, a 73 year old man who’s certainly had his share of health problems, but is still more fit than most my age. At this point, I’ll take it.