Back in early September, when Jon and I were planning Stage 2, he asked how many miles I had ridden to that point. I had just crossed 2,100, and he replied that, once we finished the ride to Tulsa, I should be able to “hit 3K with ease.” Until that moment, it had never occurred to me.
Since 2020, I’d been setting an annual goal for myself, based on the calendar year: take the last two digits, multiply by 100, and that’s the goal. My goal for 2020 was 2,000 miles; I rode 2,077. In 2021, I rode 2,134. In 2022, I went over the handlebars in Wisconsin and lost almost the entire month of August and only managed one ride in September; I rode only 1,653. With two legs of Route 66 and the Erie Canal this year, I felt certain that my calendar-based goal of 2,300 miles would be a slam-dunk, but I never considered a threshold beyond that.
But Jon was correct: once we got to Tulsa on September 24th, I was sitting just shy of 2,600 miles with roughly six weeks of decent riding weather left. I did a couple of 50-milers on the weekends, but mostly just went out on the nearby trail and knocked out 15- or 20-milers. On Sunday afternoon, a 23-mile ride put me over the top: 3,002 miles.
Of course, I’m now going to need to change my formula for goal-setting; 2,400 miles in 2024 would be a step backward. Maybe a shift to metric: 5,000 km would be a little over 3,100 miles. Or maybe I use the last digit of the year and multiply by 1,000, so 4K miles in 2024. We’ll see. (And, yes, I recognize that I can’t keep increasing my goals year-after-year, but–for now–I have to try.)
I did one other calculation in September. I figured out how to import all of my rides from 2017-2019, before I started using Ride With GPS. (I had been using Map My Ride.) Turns out, I’ve ridden quite a distance since I started recording on 7/17/17 (and my start date is a palindrome, too!)
Those 12,749 miles put me more than halfway around the world at the equator. I think I’ve found a new goal: the other half.
Rideworthy 