Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
I'd been at it for a few years before I got a subscription to TrainingPeaks which charts everything for you, all you have to do is upload a device to it. I started training with just a HRM watch mounted on my bars and a chest strap. I'd say that was a must do. After a while one doesn't really need the HRM, because going by breathing works well enough, but it's still nice to have. Then I got a Garmin so I could record everything, like you're saying, and then I'd enter it in TrainingPeaks. That's maybe a bit much for someone just starting, but if one is motivated to take on this task and rebuild one's body, well it is an incentive to have spent the money on gear and tracking . . . and then not to use it? No, no, no.
I’ve been keeping a handwritten log since the late 80s. I still have them all. Although I do use a fitness app these days, I still do a handwritten log (just in case there’s a solar flare that blasts the internet and all magnetic media on Earth into oblivion). Around 2010, I decided to figure out my lifetime mileage from around 1981 when I became “a cyclist,” but not to include all the zooming around on a bike in the 60s and 70s as a kid. By the early 2000s I figured I had enough of a database in my logbooks, so I calculated my average annual mileage, and applied that distance to each year back to 1981 when I began cycling (I also did this for all my running and swimming). It’s not 100% accurate, but I think it’s pretty close. So, today, I know my lifetime mileage up to my most recent ride (or swim, or run). — Dan