New Goals for 2025

With over half the year behind me, I decided to update my 2025 cycling mileage goal. At almost 700 miles ahead of pace, I’ve change my goal mileage from 5,000 to 6,000. With the new goal in place I’m 130 miles ahead of pace and will need to average around 115 miles per week on my bike to hit my target goal.

I’ve decided, though, not to set an official mileage goal for 2026, but rather focus on a nice assortment of shorter challenging interval workouts mixed in with my longer rides. And I’ll most likely change up the types of rides depending on the season and comfort level of outdoor riding.

 

Overview of the Week

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

 

Sunday

Road trip: Day 32: Drive from the farm to home sweet home

Gardening: 45 minutes

After visiting with my mom, we hit the road for our final leg of our 32-day roadtrip. Although we didn’t want to, we stopped at the grocery store near our home knowing our refrigerator would be bare. After mostly eating out for four weeks, I couldn’t wait to make a home cooked meal of salmon, roasted asparagus, and a mixed green salad.

After dinner and after it had cooled down a bit, I weeded. We got a lot of rain while we were gone and even if I hadn’t gotten a barrage of flash flood notices on my phone, I would have known it had rained far more than usual due the abundance of oversized weeds.

 

Monday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Walking: 3.05 miles
• Average pace: 15:27 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 152 feet
• Start time: 2:48 PM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 85° and cloudy
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

It felt so good to be back in my home gym after over four weeks of using either my bands or a hotel gym. I had been dreading coming back home to the swamp, but luck was with me and the humidity was only at 53% when I walked.

 

Tuesday

Cycling: 25 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.1 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: 0 feet
• Start time: 6:29 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 67° in the basement, 65° and sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Cycling: 35.46 miles
• Bike: Salsa Warbird
• Average speed: 13.3 MPH
• Surface: paved
• Elevation gain: 1,391 feet
• Start time: 9:23 AM
• Location: W&OD Trail Ashburn/Hamilton loop including Quail Creek and Irene
• Weather: 72° and sunny, climbing to 81°
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves

After completing a virtual client session and other multi-tasking items on my spin bike, I rode outside with my husband. I was looking forward to zipping along on my lighter and faster road bike after riding my gravel bike exclusively for a month. Unfortunately, I quickly realized my Di2 shifter battery was dead so had to turn around and switch to my gravel bike. Oh technology, you can be so annoying when you don’t work!

 

Wednesday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Walking: 2.05 miles
• Average pace: 15:30 minute/mile
• Elevation gain: 102 feet
• Start time: 5:00 PM
• Location: neighborhood circle
• Weather: 86° and mostly sunny
• What I wore: shorts, s/s shirt, and visor

After a long day of clients, teaching a monthly class, and running errands, I forced myself out for a walk, knowing if I put it off my walk the next day might be on the treadmill thanks to the horrible heat and humidity headed our way.

 

Thursday

Cycling: 32 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.1 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: 0 feet
• Start time: 6:48 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 68° in the basement, 70° and mostly sunny outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Cycling: 42.42 miles
• Bike: Specialized Roubaix Comp
• Average speed: 14.9 MPH
• Surface: paved
• Elevation gain: 1,276 feet
• Start time: 9:51 AM
• Location: W&OD Trail Sterling/Paeonian Springs loop
• Weather: 79° and sunny, climbing to 88°
• What I wore: bike shorts, s/s jersey, and fingerless gloves

One might ask why I chose to ride inside before heading out rather than switching the two to take advantage of the cooler morning air. I had invoices, flyers, and a newsletter ad to get out by 8 AM for a class I teach as a contract0r, and because I’m able to multitask on my spin bike with my MacBook propped on the handlebars, I opted to take care of that while spinning. When I finished that project I decided to stay on a little longer to RSVP for a couple of upcoming events, etc. I should clarify that I can do simple tasks on my laptop like inserting new dates on a flyer or in the newsletter, etc. I could never type an entire blog post while sitting there.

And let’s just say, what a difference a bike makes. Fully charged, I rode my road bike for the first time in six weeks and could feel the lightness and ease, and was able to ride almost a mile per hour faster than Tuesday’s 10-mile-shorter and cooler ride. I was all alone and able to make up my route on the fly and loved every bit of it.

 

Friday

Strength training: 1 hour of total body

Cycling: 50 miles
• Bike: Life Fitness Lifecycle GX Spin
• Average speed: 15.3 MPH
• Surface: N/A
• Elevation gain: 0 feet
• Start time: 5:36 AM
• Location: basement
• Weather: 67° in the basement, 72° and clear outside
• What I wore: bike shorts and sports bra

Balance and stretching: 45 minutes

Anticipating family fun on Saturday morning, I made sure to get in a long ride before leaving for the gym to teach my balance and stretching class, and I was lucky enough to be joined virtually by Kim for almost 2 hours – we had a lot to catch up on! The last time we had met for a cardio workout was in person in Des Moines five weeks earlier on the second day of my epic road trip.

Once home from teaching my balance and stretching class I fit in a strength training session, something I hadn’t expected to do until Saturday.

 

Saturday

Rest day!

I intentionally had no workouts planned for the day, but what I hadn’t planned was the amount of sleep I got (needed?). Overnight I’d gotten just over eight hours, but slept an additional three and a half hours during an afternoon nap! After burning the candle at both ends for the last five weeks, my body was no doubt telling me something!

 

Questions:
  • • Do afternoon naps leave you feeling invigorated or sluggish? ~ usually invigorated
  • • Do you do a mid-year goal assessment? ~ I normally don’t, but when I saw on Strava how far ahead of my goal I’d gotten, it seemed like a good idea to up the ante.
  • • Which workout did you enjoy most this past week? ~ Thursday’s doing-my-own-thing solo ride was just what I needed!

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!