2014: A Statistical Review

Statistically, 2014 was more than just a return to form for me after an abbreviated 2013. Getting through all of 2014 without illness or serious injury allowed me to reach a personal-best 5,236 miles, topping the 5,113 miles I rode in 2011. I rode on 184 days—second all-time to the 204 days on which I rode in 2012—and with our weather, that’s saying something. I pushed my single-day mileage record out to 114 and set new marks for August and October. Here’s the month-by-month breakdown:

000 January
031 February
300 March
519 April
650 May
659 June
825 July
809 August
593 September
534 October
197 November
119 December

In recent years, working from home has greatly expanded the number of days on which an outdoor ride is possible. I’m not wasting time by commuting to and from the office, so more hours of daylight are available to me. I am also more willing to ride in the cold than I used to be. Here are the dates of my last outdoor rides since 2003, the year before I really dedicated myself to cycling and started to count the miles:

2003 Nov 16
2004 Oct 29
2005 Nov 19
2006 Nov 23
2007 Nov 10
2008 Nov 02
2009 Nov 22
2010 Dec 31
2011 Dec 18
2012 Dec 14
2013 Dec 28
2014 Dec 26

My new BMC road bike became my workhorse this year, taking the No. 1 spot away from my Diamondback cyclocross bike.

Year     Diamondback     Raleigh       Trek           BMC
         (cyclocross)    (road)        (mountain)     (road)
2014     1358             105          529            3244
2013     2341            1270          489
2012     2889            1462          654

I competed in 13 cyclocross races and 4 mountain bike races. That’s up from just 9 races in 2013 but short of the 20 I did in 2012. Prior to this year I had never reached the podium in cyclocross; now I have done it 5 times.

In 2013 I spent 26.5 hours on the trainer. This year I spent just 23 hours on the trainer, and I would have spent zero hours if I didn’t feel like it contributed to my fitness objectives. For cross-training, I went hiking on 12 occasions, went snowshoeing 8 times, and did 135 upper body strength workouts.

In 2015 I want to reach 50,000 career miles. I will need 5,234 to get there, and that’s almost a repeat of the record-setting pace I kept this year. It won’t be easy; that makes it a good goal. Competition goals for 2015 are still coming into focus. I will write more about those as the various racing organizations finalize their schedules.