July in Review: Lots of Biking!!

July looked like this:

SWIM: 12,527 yards (odd number from doing some swims in a channel while "up north")
BIKE: 370.26 miles (SUPER BIG!!!)
RUN: 103.36 miles
STRENGTH: 48 hours and 31 mins

Biking was HUGE!! I had a bike PR (post-IM training) in July 2023 with 323 miles, and I KILLED that with 370 miles last month! This happened because I had a big week "up north" where I had an extra ride the week of the 8th, and then another week with an extra ride 2 weeks later because of a weekend 1 mile race where I didn't want to stress my body out too much with a long run the next morning (so I rode instead on the 22nd).

(Also, biking was big because it was my first month in the last 12 months with no "trainer time" - it was all outside racking up actual "miles." HAPPY to be off the trainer!)

I was over 100 miles of running for the 3rd time this year, so that's great! (And the 5th time over the last 12 months.) That's a little surprisingly high because I had a short race that made me skip a long run, but the way the days aligned in July still left me with 4 long runs, also while starting and ending the month with runs. I generally don't try to hit certain distance numbers (as I mentioned in Monday's post) so my numbers just land where they land.

I had some good strength training weeks (4 of those weeks had around 12 hours each), but the overall number is lower than recent months because of the week "up north" where I did a lot less strength work.

Also, I got all the "badges" in my Garmin app for only the 2nd or 3rd time ever (I think). I often get the "normal" badges, but I've had to work to get the "cycling climb" when that one comes around, and I don't always hit the "tour" badges which are for cycling distances over a month or half a month:

(Screenshot from the last day of July.)


And I got the 10,000 feet of cycling climbing with 9 days to go with some
rides on FLAT trails up north. Just shows HOW much cycling I was doing.

p.s. I just got back from a long ride today. If I look at my last 31 days of biking and make up my own month from July 11 through Aug 10, I'd have 399.99 miles! That's my biggest 30 or 31 day total in a LOOONG time! Had I known this a few hours ago, I maaaaybe would have biked another 0.02 miles to make it over 400 miles in the last 31 days. ;)