What I learned from cycling 12,000km on the Peloton in the last 12 months!
It felt like a silly challenge at the outset. But ended up keeping me focussed, determined and healthy. Physically & mentally!
So In December 2020, I hit over 1,000 Km for the month for the first time ever since having the Peloton and it felt great, a huge accomplishment. We were in lockdown and the Peloton had become like for many a great place and good healthy addiction. I guess it beats drink and snacks. (Although I had my fair share of snacks through the year!)
My 12 year old then said, Dad, bet you cant do it for the year! Darn it, I’m rubbish at saying No to challenges. I mean how hard can it be. Do 12,000 Km in a year!
12 months later, I can safely say - it was hard at times, quite hard indeed! but the sense of achievement in having completed it is amazing. Here’s some observations & learnings along the way 👇🏻👇🏻
It’s a long way on the Peloton alone. I was not allowed to count my outdoor miles (he is so mean!)
It created a wonderful habit & routine of cycling daily which I loved. I like habit. (Re reading atomic habits at present)
I managed to stay entirely injury free during the year!
I love the data the bike kicks out, but over time you can see I gave up on things like warm ups/cool downs and traded intensity for just slogging it out. Not always. But some days / weeks were harder than others. The data tells all of this
Planning was key. At the beginning of each month, I would divide the 1,000 Km’s by the number of days, and then during the month work out where I was in relation to this.
Most days I needed to do 45-60 mins of bike work. However some days I only managed 30 or 40. A week of this creates a deficit quite quickly.
Weekends were my catch ups, I could easily do 90 mins Sat & Sunday, if not more. These were great sweat it out sessions.
I managed to get back to the Gym too when that opened in April, so core work came along nicely too.
When I had low mileage weeks, I would often get to week 3 of 4 or the final week of the month and realise I had 200 to 300 Km left to do. These were tough moments. There were some days I was on the bike, rolling into midnight.
At times the family thought I was completely lost to the bike. There were moments I felt like this too, but I never fell out of love with it. And they also just let me get on with it, thank you!
I’d hate to count how many cycling kits I’ve gone through or the number of wash cycles constantly going.
I really wanted to break it into 12 x 1k months, but I had one huge event outdoors, 250km in September, the London Revolution Ultra which needed time, training and more - so took a little rest that month and made up for it across the other 11. Planning was key.
That said, the this challenge made outdoor riding much easier, especially long distances. I did the 250 Km relatively easily. I had invested the hours in the saddle.
In a surprise to no one, my hamstrings feel tighter, thats next years mission to sort out! I need to get more mobile and stretching & I started this am before my class with Yoga! Yes to goals!
I got to 12,000 exactly 1 day ahead of plan! I couldn’t stop smiling.
My Strava friends must hate me, there is a huge huge number of Peloton entries… sorry!
The support from my friends online, the #fitfam crew has been amazing, quite simply they have put up with me, encouraged me and always been supportive. It’s amazing to see when the down days appear, seeing someone else’s exercise or post is that one little bit of motivation you need to get going! Thank you team!
And NO, I’m not doing it for 2022, or doubling it son! I want to get back to intensity training, up my FTP again which has been steadily going up and crack some new PB’s which I have also managed to get a few new ones along the journey. I last tested in May, but I this month just beat that too, so I know I have improved!
Slow and steady really does win the race. I set the goal, created a plan and got it done. Feels flipping amazing!
The challenge by the numbers:
12,016 Km cycled
24,025 Mins on the bike (400 hours, nearly 17 full days!) invested
263,667 Calories burned
1,364, Total Activities completed
I also completed my running goal, having taken a year off this, although I will acknowledge I left that to the last minute.
Next years plan already set, let’s do this!
#peloton #cycling #strava #running #fitness #challenge
Cracking effort! With 1 day to play with - perfectly timed. Bravo!