I have two types of goals when I cycle. The first type of goal is one that I believe to be fairly easy to reach, and achieving these goals provide me with the sense of accomplishment that helps keep me on my bike. These are my primary goals. The second type of goal is a sort of pie-in-the-sky, lofty and usually kept track of in the subconscious. I call these secondary or tertiary goals.

For example, I have a primary goal of cycling 2500 miles in 2007. In June, I surpassed the 1250 mark and so I am happy to be on track to exceeding that goal.

I have a secondary goal of 3000 miles in 2007, which up until now has seemed way out of my league. However, I have been putting in some good miles in the last couple of months and that secondary goal now seems within reach, albeit with a lot of work in the second half of this year.

Enter the statistician. Below is a chart showing my goal miles (the straight, upward-sloping lines) and my actual miles (the green squiggly line). As you can see, I am ahead of pace toward 2500 miles (the red goal line) and I am rapidly approaching the 3000 mile pace.

Another secondary goal is to ride a full century: 100 miles in a single outing. Yesterday I completed a metric century (100 kilometers) with a 67 mile ride (107.9 km). I followed roughly the same route to La Jolla as I did last November, and I did comparatively much better. I shaved 20 minutes off my time and increased my average speed from 15.0 to 16.5. The brutal La Jolla approach to Mt. Soledad did not kill me and I was able to pull in a higher gear going up. I still had energy at the end for the Corral Canyon hill (1.8 miles of steady incline), which I had to avoid last time.

So. Hooray for me!