Today I posted over 1000 miles for the year on my bike. This is a bit of a milestone for me. This is the fewest amount of days it has ever taken me to ride 1000 miles in a year to date. Here is the break down:

2009: 56 days
2008: 106 days
2007: 230 days
2006: 229 days
2005: I was 14 miles short of 1000 miles for the whole year

If you periodically check my blog you may be surprised to find I have actually posted. The major reason why I have ridden so far so quickly and the reason I have not posted in so long are pretty much the same. I am working out more than ever before this year. In short, lots of time for riding and little time for posting on my blog.

In December of last year I began working with a coach and training to improve my fitness for bike racing. I now follow structured workouts every day of the week and record my statistics in both my own training log as well my coach’s log.

In January I performed a test to measure my Lactate Threshold which helps me tailor my workouts each day based on effort. On March 7th of this year (in a few weeks) I will have additional tests done (VO2Max, Anaerobic Threshold and Resting Heart Rate) in a sports laboratory. These tests will also help me measure my fitness and further help us dial in the exact efforts each of my workouts should be through out the year.

A typical workout each day is an hour or two long. To fit this into my busy schedule, I wake up @ 4:30 am every day and exercise from 5 – 7am. Then I help get the kids to school and go to work. After work I come home, play with the kids, eat then put the kids to bed. I am ready for bed myself around 9pm. I’m no morning person – I considered myself an evening person, but it’s amazing how quickly I stopped being an evening person when I started getting up at 4:30 every day. So I guess now I’m neither a morning nor evening person. I guess that makes me a crazy person.

I have seen a big increase in my fitness so far and am really excited to see how I progress through out the year. I did my first race of the season this past weekend which I will post about next.