Quest for 1,000 and Holiday Cheer

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By Brent:

Happy Holiday's everyone! I hope all is well and the cold isn't keeping you down to much.

As November turned into December I caught a nasty flu bug that really set me back and working out really didn't feel like the thing for me. I knew that I could hold off the holiday binge eating and that should be good enough. Well time kept passing and I kept not working out so finally on the 14th of December I finally mounted back onto the stationary bike and logged 8.3 miles. I did my monthly tally of what I had run and walked in November and honestly it wasn't bad, but the numbers didn't "wow" me. 107.48 miles biked and the ever impressive goose egg in the running category. All I could do now is total up my year and see if that makes me feel any better. As I did that I realized how close to the 1,000 mile marker I was. 900.07. Well now to settle at 9XX miles seemed like a real disappointment so I sat down to figure out with the days left what it would take to hit 1,000.

6.2 miles EVERYDAY. 6.2 was kind of a interesting number. 6.2 miles is known as a 10k in the running world. Why all of a sudden we decide to go metric, I will never understand, however, it is what it is. So after thinking 6.2 miles isn't that big a deal, then realizing that that has to happen EVERYDAY for 16 days, it starts seeming a bit worse. My game plan was trying to do no less than 5.0 miles on bad days, try for a longer (like 12.0 miles) 1 day a week and rest 1 day a week. If I had the ability to get out I wanted to add running back into the mix but with the bitter cold, I knew that was going to be few and far between.

At this point I am sitting right on target. I managed one (blistering) cold run. It was the kind where when you finally get back to the house after 4.91 miles you realize your breathe has turned your goatee into an ice sculpture. Everything else has been done on the bike. I have taken 3 days off total so far but after last nights 8.06 miles my grand total is now up to 976.36 miles moved. What this means is somehow I must have missed a day that I thought I had covered on a previous workout and now with 3 days to go I must average 7.88 miles each day. The good news is tonight is a "group ride" night at All About Cycling for an hour so I should be able to rack up some good mileage there, the bad news is I can feel the head cold rushing into me quickly.

Part of my motivation these last couple nights is my new toy. The Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer. I will be writing a review of it soon but I personally must tell you the 2 reviews that I used were by fellow bloggers, the always funny Fat Cyclist here, and the always overly informational DC Rainmaker here.

3 days to go! I'll post when I break 1,000 miles of moving. Current tally, 388.02 miles run, 588.34 miles biked. Man were cutting it close!