The shortest month of the year, albeit one with a Leap Day, was not as prolific as January, but by all accounts, still successful for your favorite aging, tired, undertall bicyclist blogger. There are two major reasons for that: I continued riding my bike every single day, with an eye on making at least 100 miles per week, and also the addition of swimming. So let’s have a look under the er, bottom bracket, shall we?

As you can see from the above chart, I peaked in December and have reduced miles since. The big effort of 712 miles cycled wasn’t sustainable, especially with some cold weather, being a bit under the weather, and work. Plus going to the gym to swim reduces time I would otherwise spend on the bike. It’s all good though, because diversifying my workouts will only help, and the hot tub is a real boon to my constantly tired and sore muscles. So the total of 474 includes 422 cycling, 50 walking and 2.5 miles of swimming. I’m happy with it.

March 1-2 I rode 64 miles, so through the first two months of 2020 I was at 922 miles biked. I’m almost to 1,000, but to hit 5,500 for the year I’ll need to stick to this regimen of about 16 miles a day. Ideally I’d take at least two days off a week, making it 22 times 5. Some days I do very little, like one to five miles, so that’s as good as a rest day. Other days I do 30 or more, and that’s tough when there’s no rest day afterward. Hell, it’s all tough in different degrees, but I do it, somehow.

I’m also still doing a half hour walk, half an hour of yoga, and the aforementioned swimming about once a week, so I’m never really resting sufficiently. I kinda wanna see how far I can go with this daily riding. Maybe I’ll quit April 11, which would be a day after six months of no breaks. But probably not. What drives me to keep doing it — weight loss, muscle gain, recreation, being outside, transportation — are still all valid reasons. Something will eventually give; I’ll have to borrow a car for work, maybe I’ll have a crash or injury or, who knows, maybe I’ll get coronavirus, or some other illness. Life doesn’t care about our petty human goals.

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Though walking stayed the same, biking did decrease. Going by the daily average of 16 miles, I was only short of the goal by 46 miles. That’s easily recouped next month. My biggest gain was in swimming. As mentioned in previous posts, I joined a gym and began swimming again. In fact, for the first time since I was a boy in the scouts, I did a mile swim. How cool is that for a middle-aged fathlete? Very cool, if you ask me. Or as my brother would say in high school, where we required to take Latin: frigadus infans. It’s supposed to be like David Byrne’s opening lyric to the Talking Heads hit 80’s song, “Burning Down the House” — “Cool, baby.” But literally it translates to “cold baby,” which is a lot less hip. Hey, Latin’s dead, right?

Anyway, that’s the summary of February. A lot of work, but it paid off in statistics. The numbers keep me honest and striving to beat or at least match yesterday. As more job opportunities arise, I may have to curtail exercising and even blogging a bit. But hopefully not too much. Having access to a gym should help me at least work on my swimming. I may join in some yoga and other classes, do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) on stationary bikes, and possibly even some weights. The overall goal is to do my best — and forget the rest. And that’s about all any of us should expect of ourselves — and others.

How was your February biking, walking, swimming, or whatever activity you prefer?

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