Time to get back on track.

During a recent ride, I visited a familiar trail and decided that I was going to push hard on this ride to gauge any performance improvements and maybe set a new personal record (PR) or two in the process, on certain segments of the trail. I have ridden this particular trail many times over the past couple of years so I have a lot of historical performance data in my cycling computer, on Garmin Connect, and Strava. Knowing I would not be riding the entire trail, I pushed through most sections of the trail close to a max effort, burning legs, and heavy breathing.

When I downloaded the data from my cycling computer, I was shocked! I had not broken one single PR, not one! As a matter a fact, there were some segments of the trail that I didn’t even hit in the top three of my all-time efforts, what the heck is going on here? So I decided to dive into numbers a little deeper and noticed that I had set my best times back in March and April. I have been cycling consistently since then, trying to focus on my cadence, ensuring my heart rate is in the correct zone, and riding more frequent and longer rides, so theoretically I should have been getting stronger on the bike. Just out of curiosity, I decided to go jump on the scale and unfortunately found my answer, I had gained 10lbs since my March/April efforts and thus was trying to push that extra 10lbs to PRs on the bike.

How could this happen? First of all, I don’t live and die by the scale so I had not weighed myself in a while. I believe it all started when we went out of town for a little getaway prior to the 4^th of July. And as vacations go, I didn’t quite stick to my eating plan and was a little less active, even though we stayed on the go. When we returned home, I carried over my bad eating habits from vacation, and before I knew it, I had undone some really great work. It’s funny how it only takes a few weeks to undo several months of hard work.

Only one thing to do, get re-focused and back on track. This type of commitment requires a lifestyle change to ensure I stay on top of my diet, exercise, and ensuring that I get enough sleep, which all contribute to a fitter, healthier me. Time to get after it!