Thursday, September 1, 2011

August In Review

My softball team lost in the league championship game last night and finished the season with a 12-5 record.  We were a really good team that just couldn't clear the last hurdle.  I batted .520 (26-for-50) with 14 runs scored and 12 RBI in 15 games.  The end of the season means two things: it’s time to re-do my upper body strength training program after four months in “maintenance” mode, and it’s time to put Wednesdays back on the cycling calendar.

Year-to-date I have amassed 3,737 miles, putting me 189 miles ahead of my 2010 pace.  If I stay healthy and have a “normal” September and October, then this should be my first 5,000-mile year.  Even my non-cycling family members and friends will recognize that 5,000 miles—the equivalent of a round-trip between Pittsburgh PA and Seattle WA—is a long, long way to ride a bike.

August was a weird and wonderful month.  I rode 756 miles, a personal record surpassing the 714 miles I rode in August 2007.  But achieving that PR was incidental, something that just happened while I was busy accomplishing other things.  On Aug. 6th I rode my first century of 2011.  On the 20th I raced against the clock at the Kirke Vei Time Trial.  On the 27th I did a road bike metric century, then followed it on the 28th with a strong performance in the Reforestation Ramble mountain bike race.  Of the 756 total miles, 522 were on the Raleigh Competition, 209 were on the Giant FCR3 (Eisenbahn State Trail miles, mostly) and 25 were on a borrowed Trek Fuel.  August was a month of being a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none, but it sure was a good time.

No comments:

Post a Comment