Winter Routine

I broke through 200 winter training miles this morning.  I'd hit 95 just before the holidays (spread over 7 rides), and then almost doubled that over the two holiday weekends by riding 15 miles five times.  Between travel and messing up my back, January has been a low-mileage month, and I've only put 45 miles on since, for a grand total of 205.

Today, my average speed was 19.1, which is up from the 18.8 of two weeks ago, before I messed my back up.  Tomorrow's 15 miles will be logged in the next-smaller cog, and will get me to 220 miles.  With any luck, I'll start February strong with a two-ride weekend, which'll get me to 250 miles.  No more math -- promise.  Then I'm off to France for a week, I think, the second week in Feb.  But without a bike.

I'd hoped to log some additional training miles mid-week on a consistent basis (every Weds AM), but between catching up on work, Skyping with friends, being a dad and trying to build a new social life (with some success, I'd add), it's hard to find time to ride.  It makes me wonder how many miles I'll be able to log next summer.  I'm going to be training for the PMC, so I'll have to find some time somewhere!

The truth, though, is that indoor miles are tedious.  Even with my iPhone to listen to and maps and postcards on the wall opposite my riding stall to look at, it's hard not to get bored.  Rather than looking forward to a particular straight, climb or descent, the head game becomes one of "OK, that's 3 miles, just 4 more sets of those and I'm done", which itself gets boring too.  I also try to figure out on the fly the average song length in terms of miles.  So far it seems like about 1.3 miles, but some are more like 1 and others more like 2.  That's all math -- sorry.

I've made a sort of pact with myself not to spend much money on bikes this year, so I'm not even doing a lot of wrenching right now.  Juli's bike project is on sort of a hiatus for now, but I do need to spend some time fitting the rack and other accessories to it, soon.  I also need to buy myself some toe clips (both bikes) because having my feet flip forward off the pedals has long since gotten old.  And today I noticed today that my rear tire is wearing very quickly on the rollers.  The front seems OK, but I'm going to need a new rear tire for sure, come April.

April!  April is what's great about this boring winter routine.  Come April, when we get the first weekend warm enough to ride, I'll be in shape and so many of the other guys out there won't be.  Last year it was fun running the guy on the Cervelo down on my old Kestrel.  This year, it'll be on a late-'70's Motobecane.  And it may be late April by the time all this snow is gone.

Can't wait.  One month gone.  Only two or three more to go.  This winter routine is boring.

All for now,

J