July Recap!

July was an awesome month, in part for the following reasons:

• My wife got a bike and started riding with me
• I really put myself to the test on bike commuting
• I met three local bike bloggers (Warren, kG a.k.a. c'Dude and Jason) in person, all of which are cool people who I hope to meet again
• I went on two really awesome and fun night-time rides
• Phil got me a little bit of press in the Star.
  
• I know I'm forgetting at least one other cool thing :)

How I did this month:
I did great, compared to my goals and expectations. The data speaks for itself. Here's a refresher of my goals for July and how I stacked up against them:




Some Stats:






Goals for August:
I want to make sure I'm not over-training. Remember, I'm doing this for fun, not to hurt myself.

In order to achieve this goal, I'm going to start trying to remember to take my resting heart rate in the morning. This morning, it was 46 bpm. I'll start logging (and perhaps charting) it in my spreadsheets.

I already analyze my leg stiffness/soreness before riding and my fatigue after riding. A morning RHR baseline should help. Then, I need to act on the feedback I'm getting. If I start to notice a trend between mileage or exertion and my heart rate, stiffness and fatigue, I'll dial it back a notch, or maybe take a recovery day by using the bus for part or all of my commute. Likewise, if I see a plateau, maybe I'll crank up my routine a bit.

My goals for August need to be something I can actually measure and be held accountable for, so here they are:

1. Take my RHR at least 3 mornings per week
2. Recover if I notice an upward trend in my RHR or other over-training signs
3. Carefully push harder if I feel like I'm at a training plateau.
   

That's it. This has been a fun month. I don't need goals to keep me on my bike and keep me commuting to work. I don't expect I'll catch up with this month's miles any time soon, either, so I don't plan on pushing myself on miles this month. I'll keep pedaling, and I'll start keeping an eye on my body's signs of training fitness. Also, I'm not "training" for anything at all, nor am I "working out." I'm not looking to improve my speed or my strength. I'm not going to judge myself on how much weight I gain or lose.

I simply say training in the sense of my body's ability to keep up with the level of work I make it do. Over-trained is a condition that you can get yourself into without trying to "train". This is the first month I've had to really worry about overdoing it, and as Jon pointed out in my comments a week or so ago, there may be times where the best thing for me is to take it easy, even if it means ditching the bike for a day.

Random Tunage:
Photek - Mine to give
Madonna - The power of goodbye