Benchmarking is something I had read about last spring and early summer when I was following Eric Harr's "Slice above a couch potato" training plan, but something I never really did. My goal was just to get through the prescribed minutes of workout in whichever discipline was on tap for the day. But benchmarking is one of my current goals - to have more of a way to measure my progress. So today I did my first benchmark bike ride. The weather was again beautiful (seriously, I would LOVE it if we had this weather every day). But there was a bit of a westerly wind (9 mph) that I did feel on half of what was mostly an east-west ride.
I rode in the industrial area near my house about 20 minutes after the shift change traffic (although found out that the prison shift change must be about 30 min later, but this didn't affect my benchmark route). According to Map My Ride - this is a 9.37 mi ride and I did it in 47 min for a 11.9 mph average. I peddled at more of a "warm up" speed the first couple of miles, then tried to push it for the middle part of the ride and then rode pretty easy to recover after coming up the big hill and on home. But my cool down was really a short walk and stretch afterwards.
Time to kick my kids off the couch and head outside to enjoy the last hour of daylight.
Ok, there is your benchmark, now keep training and in one month, do that same exact course again and see how you improved. Once a month Time Trial, usually on your recovery week, one the same course and distance, will help you track your cycling progress
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