Halftime 2015

Today's ride was a 34-mile solo effort on familiar roads.

Today is the 181st day of 2015. On 99 of those, I did bike rides. Today’s ride brought my year-to-date mileage total to 2,855. I am on pace to smash the personal best 5,236 I rode last year. In 2014 I rode 3,077 miles after June 30, and if this year is typical I again will ride more in the second half of the year than I did in the first.

This was a particularly good month. I rode 816 miles, beating the 772 miles I rode back in June 2007. (July 2011 remains my highest-ever monthly total: 1,020 miles.) But more importantly, I established a new fastest lap time at New Fane. I dedicated 5 days to mountain biking—good workouts, but few miles—and I took 4 rest days, so despite the high mileage total June was anything but a slavish pursuit of statistics.

As much as I have done, sometimes I feel like I haven’t done enough because I haven’t been racing. I shouldn’t feel that way, though. I competed in just 1 sanctioned race in the first half of a successful 2014 season, and that’s true again this year. My main competitive focus is cyclocross, which stretches from September through November. A couple of carefully selected events in July and August will contribute to my readiness for the really important dates on my calendar.