March round-up

We are now a quarter of the way through the year. I'm aiming to ride 3,759 miles by the end of December, and so far I've covered 757 miles, or 20%. I'm about a week and a half behind where I would like to be.

That's not ideal, but it could be worse. Recent weather hasn't been great for riding, and yet I've managed to pull up from being three weeks behind plan at the start of March. Things are not as busy as usual at work, and the clocks have gone forward so there is time in the evenings for some longer rides during the week. As long as the weather improves, I should be able to catch up with the plan in April (touch wood).

Mildly interesting things are happening with the Eddington number. The dotted dark line in the chart shows that I've done quite a lot of rides under 12 miles this year, and 7 rides of more than 60 miles, but not very many in between.

I'd reached an Eddington number of 41 at the start of the year, but despite seven long rides, this has only moved to 43 in the last three months. The trouble is that in the past I'd left a big gap between the 55 rides of  40+ miles that I'd done, and the 40 rides that I'd done at 45+ miles. So it is taking a lot of rides over 45 miles to shift the Eddington number. Things should move a bit more easily climbing from between an E-number of 45 and 50, then I will hit another cliff.

Progress on riding to my list of churches is looking a bit better. Of the fifteen that I'm trying to reach this year, I've already crossed off 12, leaving 3 to go. I've already ridden to the four most distant on my list. As a result some of the recent trips have been a bit too demanding for comfort, but the next few outings will be a bit easier.

The hope for April is that the numbers will be boosted by better weather and more regular rides, Bluntly, more riding, and less fiddling with spreadsheets.