Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Monthly distance challenge?

Out of curiosity, what's the larget monthly distance you've challenged yourself to ride not in preparation for any particular event or as a specific part of a larger training plan?

Sounds strange I know, but in other words I'm asking - ever woke up one day and just said "I'm going to ride X miles next month/starting tomorrow-the first of next month", AND if so, how far was that?

Or, as a variation, "I'm going to ride X miles a day EACH AND EVERY DAY for 30 days" not as part of normal commuting/training ride, etc.?

If this gets any responses, I will probably let ya'll in on the truly foolish idea that's been running through my normally-empty head lately (been off the bike since a mid-winter accident and just got back on last week).

The goals I've set were more or less based on what I was already doing. I haven't ever said "I'm riding 400 miles a month right now, so next month I'll ride 900!"

My mileage has increased recently, mainly due to doing more and longer rando events, but they're partly in preparation for a particular event, too. Last month, I had my first 1,000 mile month ever. I'm at 1,185 for April right now, with another week to go.

Amazing month! I've hit 1000k a few times, just by enjoying the bike, not through planning! :thumb:

My plans for "big miles" NEVER work out ... so it is a good thing I ride for the enjoyment.

I have exceeded 1000 miles in a month only once -- last October (was in good shape having just done the Blue Ridge Parkway in seven fun days, and was a bit irritated with the dynamics in my usual group - of which I'm the "leader", so I made a decision to do a number of rando rides and let the diametrically opposed "why don't we do ..." die down). Six 200k rides make a nice base from which to get to 1000 miles in a month -- six 200's is NOTHING compared to certain "crazies" in a certain rando group in Texas, but ... is enough to test oneself and learn certain things.

My big mileage months have never been planned in advance. I know that too many things can go wrong to mess up a goal like that. However, I have had lots of big mileage months, and they have all been "by accident".

My biggest mileage month was 1648 miles (2652 km) in October 2004. The was the first month of a 3-month cycling tour of Australia, and it ended with the Great Southern Randonnee 1200K.

My second biggest mileage month was 1583 miles (2547 km) in July 2002. I rode a 600K early in that month to qualify for the Rocky Mountain 1200, and then I rode the Rocky Mountain 1200 later in the month.

My third biggest mileage month was 1492 miles (2402 km) in August 2003. That was the PBP 2003 plus touring England and Wales.

But I've ridden 18 -- 1000+ mile months between 1997 and 2005 for various reasons, and none were specifically planned that way.


I'd like to do a 1000 mile month again ... maybe next summer ..........

I agree - big miles for a month need some luck as well as a full schedule.....

I've done a couple of 2,000+ -but that was over twenty years ago. I think i did 1550 in 2003.

closer look at my monthly (http://db.tt/XGBSuT8)

I've never thought about training as racking in the miles. I rack in the miles when I'm on cruise control. When I've trained for an event, I do maybe 500 miles per month at most vs 900when I'm just cruising. IME, I'm a stronger rider with about 500 monthly miles than with 900 mainly because I ride with more intensity and tougher terrain. I couldn't get in 900 miles per month this way so a high number of miles would be irrelevant to training IMO.

My max month was 960

Interesting responses. Most are focusing on the "total miles" aspect of the question posed as opposed to the variation, "I'm going to ride X miles a day EACH AND EVERY DAY for 30 days".

Consistency has been my biggest problem over the past 5 decades - if I can get into a routine and keep it up, I do pretty well at most things. Miss a day or two, however, and the long-term vision/drive tends to evaporate quickly in me.

Anyone care to address this aspect of the original post?

Interesting responses. Most are focusing on the "total miles" aspect of the question posed as opposed to the variation, "I'm going to ride X miles a day EACH AND EVERY DAY for 30 days".

Consistency has been my biggest problem over the past 5 decades - if I can get into a routine and keep it up, I do pretty well at most things. Miss a day or two, however, and the long-term vision/drive tends to evaporate quickly in me.

Anyone care to address this aspect of the original post?

Planning to ride a certain distance every day does not work for me for at least a couple reasons:

1. I work 5 days a week, so on those 5 days, I am limited in the distance I can ride. But I can ride a lot more on the weekend. If I picked 40 km as my "each and every day" amount, there would be week days where that would be an exhausting slog, and there would be weekend days where I would feel short changed if I had to limit my distance to 40 km.

2. Something always comes up. There might be something that requires me to work late, a sudden retirement dinner I need to attend, an enormous storm ... or a series of enormous storms, a medical issue, something else I need to deal with on some evening that prevents me from riding.

What works better for me is to break the distance I want to accomplish down into weeks. So if I'm after a 1000 km month (which is about my pace these days), I need to ride 250 km a week. I like to ride longer distances on weekends, so I might ride 180 km on the weekend over two rides, and then 25 km each night for 3 nights for a total of 75 km during the week. 180 + 75 = 255 km ... so I'm ahead of the game at the end of the first week, and I've had two days off in which to rest and do other things.

K. Decision made.

Ride 100km/day for 30 days.

Specific, measurable, accountable, distance is definitely achievable on a daily basis - the challenge is the day-to-day accomplishment without a break.

(I don't have any of the concerns Machka raises about "life intrusions" - being retired, my days are just that, days - not weekends or weekdays. I am single with no children so "family issues" are extremely limited. As for weather, it's not hurricane season yet; I intend to try a few 5-7 hour night rides; riding in a cooling rain should help with high temps at least for a bit.)

Last October I tried for 100 miles each ride.
Ended with 22 rides, 17 centuries, averaged 92 miles a ride.
Used regular food for energy.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/ScreenShot094.jpg

Nice. Encourages me that my self-challenge can be done. Thanks for posting.

I commute 5 days a week and am going to become more dilligent about my weekend saddle time so I would go with the x miles in a month. Weird stuff can happen that can take you off of your commute (wife and daughter going up north for an Ojibwe language bowl so guess who has to skip the commute and car the other kids to school?; you guessed it).

5 (days a week) x 20 (miles roundtrip) = 100 miles in commuting + 50 (estimate could be higher or lower but is the goal) miles on the weekend + 150 miles a week.

Now for May there is 4 weeks so I am going to shoot for the projected 600 mile month. I am actually going to try to eclipse it by adding in some evening miles with the kids.

Time can be such a luxury we don't appreciate. My son races BMX (we just got back from Kearney, NE last evening) and I already lost some commuting miles due to that, we have lots of racing planned blah, blah, blah...

Bottom line I am shooting for 600+ miles in the month of May; am already down a couple of days and will be down a couple more before it's over. We;ll see how it works out and set something a little more impressive for June.

Peace.
Ken

Last October I tried for 100 miles each ride.
Ended with 22 rides, 17 centuries, averaged 92 miles a ride.
Used regular food for energy.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh187/10wheels/ScreenShot094.jpg

what app did that calendar come from?

Over the winter I make it a point to ride 20 km a day regardless of conditions and bump that up to 40 km a day when the weather is more reasonable. I also work out of the city on a bi-weekly basis and on those days / weeks ride 100km a day and try and get in a metric or a century on the weekend.

Goal is to average 1000 km a month for every month with more riding throough spring and fall... by the time I get home today will have put on nearly 300km since Friday so this is a good start to May.

Challenge: 30 consecutive 100km days
Day 1 - 5/1/2011
Start time: 5:30am
Finish time: 11:17am
Time off bike: 32mins
Distance: 107km

Day 2 - 5/2/2011
Start time: 5:40am
Finish time: 11:20am
Time off bike: 27 mins
Distance: 106km

what app did that calendar come from?

http://www.bikejournal.com/home.asp

Day 3 - 5/3/2011
Start time: 6:00am
Finish time: 11:20am
Time off bike: 15 mins
Distance: 102km

Day 4 - 5/4/2011
Start time: 7:00am
Finish time: 12:52pm
Time off bike: 22 mins
Distance: 103km

My monthly goals are generally just relative: set a new record for that particular month. I've ridden on an annual North Dakota week-long ride (CANDISC) in August for many years, and with that front-end loading of 400-450 miles, it's become tradition to shoot for 1000 for that month.

Last year, August went well, averaging over 40 miles a day (I have a half century round trip commute and weather/health/schedule behaved), so I decided to see if I could extend 40 miles a day out to 50 days. That held, so 75, and then 100. That put it into Nov, but weather held just long enough to do it, and then we got a 9" snow storm followed by a subsequent lengthy stretch of "winter weather," which ended the streak.

Day 5 - 5/5/2011
Start time: 5:15am
Finish time: 11:45am
Time off bike: 45 mins
Distance: 113km
Notes: Major respiratory issue, 2 stops

Day 6 - 5/6/2011
Start time: 8:15am
Finish time: 14:07pm
Time off bike: 27 mins
Distance: 115km

Day 7 - 5/7/2011
Start time: 10:45am
Finish time: 17:07pm
Time off bike: 32 mins
Distance: 125km

One week/7 days down, 3 weeks/23 days to go.
Hopefully, my current respiratory/allergy "challenge" will clear up and I can start riding at a faster pace than just puttering along slowly.

Hopefully, my current respiratory/allergy "challenge" will clear up and I can start riding more than just puttering along slowly.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say that "something always comes up" if I try to plan to ride every day. If I make a monthly goal, I know that I can ride longer at times, and then at other times, I can take days off in order to recover from whatever it is that comes up.

Ref: "something always comes up" and "take days off in order to recover from whatever it is that comes up"
The 100km/day for 30 days straight idea is directly on point here --- to not "let anything come up" and to deal with what does come up as best I can. It's too easy FOR ME to wimp out.

It's been a bad Spring allergy-wise for me and for about half the time I'm awake each day pretty much any exertion has me gasping for air. Toss in a bout of bronchitis in March and simply breathing makes thinking about riding something that can "do me in" motivation-wise". I'm fighting the "it's going to hurt even at a slow pace" idea as much as anything here. So, I figure this is what works for me. YMMV

Day 8 - 5/8/2011
Start time: 5:30am
Finish time: 11:07am
Time off bike: 22 mins
Distance: 105km

Day 9 - 5/9/2011
Start time: 10:00am
Finish time: 15:47pm
Time off bike: 22 mins
Distance: 103km

Day 10 - 5/10/2011
Start time: 5:10am
Finish time: 10:47am
Time off bike: 10 mins
Distance: 103km

Milestone: 1000+km thus far though this is purely a result of persistence, not a goal in itself.

Day 11 - 5/11/2011
Start time: 5:12am
Finish time: 10:54am
Time off bike: 15 mins
Distance: 105km

Day 12 - 5/12/2011
Start time: 5:12am
Finish time: 10:34am
Time off bike: 18 mins
Distance: 115km

Looks like tomorrow will be the first non-body-related "challenge" in this challenge....rain is forecast.

Day 13 - 5/13/2011
Start time: 5:30am
Finish time: 11:47am
Time off bike: 22 mins
Distance: 105km

Patchy, nasty weather (for me) - on and off rain, gusty wind. Throw in an alligator on MRT/levee bank - interesting ride.

Last year, I challenged myself to ride 1000km/month every month. I did it for the first 11 months, but we got a blizzard on December 1st which dramatically cut down the first week, and I was travelling over Christmas which took out the last week. Ended up with 857km in December and 16623km for the year.

I have no kilometer/mileage goals this year. I just ride when I feel like it and see how it works out. I've done 5362km so far which is below the pace I set last year, but still ahead of 2009.

Day 14 - 5/14/2011
Start time: 7:30am
Finish time: 13:21pm
Time off bike: 25 mins
Distance: 107km

Re:Jeffpoulin's post: interesting effort and result. Congratulations.
I have no real goal/challenge for myself past May 30/31st right now, 30 days is about as far as I can "gurantee" sustained effort for some reason. I like to think I can do it longer-term but the reality is I'm a relatively short=term guy. ;-)

Day 15 - 5/15/2011
Start time: 6:30am
Finish time: 11:15am
Time off bike: 15 mins
Distance: 101km
Felt really good today.

Note: Halfway mark calendar-wise. Flaky knees holding up. Resiratory system is hating me routinely - added a face mask (covers mouth and nose) to rid myself of the worst of the airborne pollen that makes my life miserable; downside, it gets hot even early in the morning. Lessons learned areas: lighting attachment systems, high-humidity/low(medium) temp hydration requirements, alligator avoidance. Stil working on how to limit/prevent my eyes from reacting so strongly (mucous runs) to the pollen ("funny thing" is I used to not be so eye-reactive - I was raised here!).

Day 16 - 5/16/2011
Start time: 6:00am
Finish time: 11:51am
Time off bike: 12 mins
Distance: 101km

Started out fine but last 1/4 of the ride was literally gasping for air.

Day 17 - 5/17/2011
Start time: 6:30am
Finish time: 11:59am
Time off bike: 15 mins
Distance: 106km

Had to change route due to levee district beauraucracy over-concern on river levee conditions. This meant I got to "play in traffic" for 65 miles - nothing to do but keep head down and grind onward. Respiratory condition today: 4 on a scale of 1-10 (10 being Lance Armstrong lungs).

Day 18 - 5/18/2011
Start time: 8:10am
Finish time: 12:49pm
Time off bike: 21 mins
Distance: 103km

Good ride today - no respiratory restrictions (surprisingly) and legs felt aces... Avoided levee police and did that route rather than playing in traffic again.

Day 19 - 5/19/2011
Start time: 6:10am
Finish time: 10:49am
Time off bike: 11 mins
Distance: 105km

An "almost normal" ride today - that is, few respiratory issues and legs felt great. Speed obviously reflected that.

Are you really finishing your rides at almost midnight, or are all those pm finish times typos?

Are you really finishing your rides at almost midnight, or are all those pm finish times typos?

LOL.. typos.. copy and paste typos.. will correct them.. tks

Day 20 - 5/20/2011
Start time: 9:10am
Finish time: 13:21pm
Time off bike: 17 mins
Distance: 106km

Note: 2/3 thru this "challenge". 2000+km ridden. Time on bike/riding pace strictly related to respiratory issues, not muscles, bad knees/ankles or "sore butt". Little to no problem getting up and riding "the next day" - main issue out side of respiration is "inner mental dialogue" when breathing gets tough.

Are you doing the same route each day? If so (and I apologize for asking, but I'm genuinely curious), how do you keep from getting bored of it?

Re: jeffpoulin: I'm doing a late-afternoon/evening ride today where I DO intend to end around/before midnight, so I'll answer this before I head out.

I ride variations of the same route most days due to the geography of the Jefferson/Orleans Parish area where I live. The variations amount to 2-10mile differences depending on where I get on/off the levee, temporary/on-going road closures due to river/levee conditions, and how willing I am to ride in 4 lane/no shoulder traffic. I say "most days" because I've deliberately driven 15 miles to the other (eastern) side of New Orleans a couple times this month - then rode an out&back route on LA 90 between a parking lot in eastern New Orleans and Ft. Pike/the Louisiana-Mississippi state line.

How do I keep from getting bored? Good question for most people I guess, but for me, I've got 4 things going to stop that. 1. I'm fairly often "fighting for breath" as a result of bronchial/respiratory problems this Spring - that precludes any tendency towards boredom all by itself. Riding alone on very low-traffic roads requires me to pay a lot more attention to "body noises" than I did last summer - especially since it would take 30-45 minnutes for EMTs to reach me in some cases IF I was "together enough" to call for help in an emergency. Risk-taking has a "benefit" of heightened awareness to an extent (not the cycling; the added stress to a somewhat compromised respiratory system). 2. Riding on the levee provides an ever-changing view of river traffic - and lately, "river gawker pedestrian traffic". 3. Wildlife in lesser inhabited spots is continually varying, so there is "that". 4. Lastly, if I decide to concentrate on "training" (pedal rpm, heart rate, intervals, etc.) as opposed to base mile LSD pacing, boredom really doesn't enter the equation.

Seriously, boredom is more than merely a state of mind - it's attitude, mental/physical engagement in "the now" and consciousness of "goal attainment" (or lack of it) while you're doing something.

Oh, and I like "mental boredom" to an extent - where I'm not actively thinking about something, just mentally drifting. Happens alot on deserted roads/the levee.

Day 21 - 5/21/2011
Start time: 17:25pm
Finish time: 23:41pm
Time off bike: 21 mins
Distance: 101km

Change of pace ride - started before dusk and rode "into" the night, definite "head game" issue despite being quite famliar with the route. Lower humidity, extremely low pollen ->fewer respiratory issues for this ride than early morning rides. Will probably do it again next weekend.

Day 22 - 5/22/2011
Start time: 8:15am
Finish time: 13:14pm
Time off bike: 27 mins
Distance: 107km

Challenge for the day was "recovery" while riding sleep-eyed and with a runny nose/eyes. but I made it in fair shape at a halfway decent pace.. Time for a nap.

LOL.. typos.. copy and paste typos.. will correct them.. tks

Just a suggestion: If you are going to use military time, you don't need the am and pm, so it will help avoid those copy/paste errors.

Just a suggestion: If you are going to use military time, you don't need the am and pm, so it will help avoid those copy/paste errors.You're probably right.

I am going to make personal challenge for the month of June. With approximately 10 days spoke for with our other cycling endeavor (9 year old expert son races BMX) I have about 20 days (give or take to meet my goal. I have a solo century planned for one of my ride days so that leaves me 18 days (one day off fo sho with recovery) to tabulate.

100 miles with the century plus 18 days (give or take) to average maybe 30+ miles... I'll shoot for 600 miles in June. I haven't broken down the days where I'll be commuting + and the days where I'll be riding riding so 600 is probably a fair goal that'll keep me churning to reach. Good Luck to me.

Day 23 - 5/23/2011
Start time: 11:25am
Finish time: 5:14pm
Time off bike: 23 mins
Distance: 103km

First "summer" ride - that is, 90 degree temp, high humidity, midday heat reflection issues from the blacktop road. Once I got rolling, it wasn't too bad but started off the ride feeling like someone had beaten me with a stick from head to toe all night long. Lost 7.5 pounds from sweating - drank 2 gallons of water/Gatorade during/after the ride (shows how out of shape I am).

Day 24 - 5/24/2011
Start time: 8:30am
Finish time: 1:15pm
Time off bike: 25 mins
Distance: 103km

All I can say about this ride is it felt "tough" - even my right bicep hurt and under my right shoulder blade when I finished and I have no idea why. Like yesterday, sweated my butt off (7lbs "initial" loss again). Rehydrating now.


Added: Weather not lookin good for tomorrow afternoon and Thursday. Rain and probable headwinds on return leg of the primary route. Sigh.