Wrapping Up January 2025

Garmin Connect rewarded me with 15 badges and 25 points.

How was your January? If you made any resolutions for the new year, then how are those going? I didn’t make any resolutions—I never do—and yet I have developed healthy new habits and reinforced a few others that began to emerge organically back in December. This month I walked on the treadmill for at least 1 hour every day, finishing the first 31 days of 2025 with 34:25 of fitness walking and covering the equivalent of 104 miles. Along the way, I have become one of those 10,000 steps a day people: today was my 25th consecutive day above that popular threshold. On a typical day, most of my steps are coming from my treadmill walk, but I am consciously increasing my step count off the treadmill too. Working from home makes it too easy to sit for several hours at a time. That always has been bad for me, and it became very obviously bad after my hip replacement surgery. Since early December, I have been much more deliberate about getting up periodically to take a couple of laps of the house to avoid stiffness and soreness. These incidental steps add up more quickly than you might think, and they contributed significantly to some of the Garmin Connect badges I earned this month.

I made dietary changes in January too, but so far the combination of more walking and less junk food has not moved the bathroom scale. While that is disappointing, I don’t consider January to be a lost month. My treadmill workouts have returned to almost a pre-injury level of effort. Rehab has gone well. As February begins, I will mix things up to get off the current plateau and reach for something higher. I plan to incorporate high-incline treadmill workouts again. I got a taste of those in October, but only for a couple of weeks before the bike crash that sent me to the operating room. And, weather permitting, some outdoor walks would be good for me, particularly if I take my weighted rucksack.

I’m still taking a long view of cycling-specific training. I plan to resume turbo trainer workouts at the beginning of March and to continue with them until the end of April. I expect to spend the entire month of May in Pennsylvania, where I should be able to rack up several hundred miles of outdoor riding. If I race at all in 2025, then it probably won’t be until the cyclocross season begins. I won’t be fit when spring returns to Wisconsin—I may not be fit when summer returns—but I don’t need to be.

In January, I hosted the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Cycling Association and I completed some of the preliminaries for this year’s Cheesehead Roubaix, but mostly I worked, I walked, I watched hockey games on TV, and I read. A little ashamed to have read only 10 books last year, I have begun 2025 by reading 5 novels before February 1. I’m progressing nicely through No. 6 already, but don’t expect that pace to last the whole year!