2019 had lots of setbacks and challenges for me, and it’s
important to me to both acknowledge and learn from them.
I fell short of my mileage goals again this year. Part of that may be that I had set the bar
too high at 5,000 miles, but I also like setting goals that are a stretch for
me. Falling short was mostly due to 4
factors: having a two year old in the
house, remodeling / moving, weather, and a persistent hip / hamstring issue. While the toddler is pretty self-explanatory in
terms of limiting time on the bike, the other factors combined to make the year
less than ideal from a cycling perspective.
In February we had a very unusual for Seattle weather where there was
snow on the ground for most of February.
This resulted in not getting a winter base of training that increased
steadily into the spring and summer.
I was also remodeling our home during the late spring, doing
much of the painting myself, and finally moved in during the early summer. The painting, moving, organizing, and
arranging also took a toll, using energy that I could have used riding
more. By June, we were finally moved in,
and this saw my mileage increase rapidly, as I had been aching to get more time
on the bike up until then. At first, it
felt great to be getting the miles in finally; however, by about mid July, I
started having tightness in my hamstrings that wasn’t just temporary soreness. So I missed some of the best riding times of
the year in August and September while alternately trying to rest my legs and
get out there again. Finally, in
October, I began seeing a PT and bike fitter, who showed me that my glutes
weren’t activating fully. He prescribed
me some exercises and refitted my #1 bike, but also suggested that one of the
reasons was a lack of cross training.
Thinking back, in prior years, I had done different activities, such as
hiking, cross country skiing, basketball, and tennis which balanced out the
time riding. Since having my daughter, I
had come to concentrate only on cycling to the exclusion of these other
balancing activities.
There are some great lessons in here for my overall health
going forward, and I will follow up with another post later this week on my
2020 goals which will include these lessons learned.
