Tag: exercise

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Miles Biked (so far)…

I managed to bike over 500 miles in 2024 and I wrote a post about it. In that post I used screen shots from RunGap which is a great mobile app that imports data from the Apple Fitness stats captured by my watch and phone.

I don’t love the screen shot thing so I figured I should work on some code to make my own bar graphs. I used Matplotlib for Python to do the heavy lifting here. Matplotlib is complex and powerful so I really just started by ducking for python bar graph and found a few pages with examples and started there.

Also, I can’t decide if this post is about Bikes or Python, so it will be both.

After riding 600 miles in 2024 and seeing that I barely rode in four of those months (due to weather, travel, being sick, etc) I set a goal of 1,000 miles for 2025. This works out to about 84 miles each month, or just under 3 miles per day. I figured I could ride 5 miles most days, and double that on a weekend day. So even if I just rode weekends and got about 20 miles per weekend I’d be most of the way there.

I should mention that years ago I would have never imagined trying to bike 1,000 miles in a year. But I guess it’s not too different from walking. I think I did just a few rides in 2024 that were over 10 miles but that’s a regular thing for me now on weekend days.

Here’s my progress for 2025 so far – 569.58 miles. You’ll see April was a bit lower, which was due to work travel. I did also travel in May but I worked overtime to make up for it before and after my trip. I don’t have any other travel planned for this year, and hopefully I can avoid injuries and sickness. I should easily hit 600 before the end of the month, which is the halfway point for the year so… on track!

There’s a lot more data in RunGap, and I can access it via the SQLite database the app uses, so I may try to pull data directly from that, and maybe add in some graphs for other things, like hours biked, etc. And yes, many of the miles during the colder (or rainy) months were indoors on the trainer (Dana’s bike!) but I definitely prefer to get outside and ride when I can.

So here’s to more miles on the bike and more lines of code to create graphs!

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I would bike 500 miles…

Yeah, I would bike 500 miles… and I did! I started biking (outdoors) February 2024 and it is now November 1st 2024 and here’s a quick report. You may remember I used to walk a lot and I’ve done a bit of riding my bike indoors the past few years when I was recovering from injuries that prevented me from walking, but this year I got the bike fixed up and hit the road.

I’ve been using the Apple Fitness app on my phone & watch to track rides, but the stats are not easy to get to. Matt suggested RunGap which can import data from Apple Fitness and give a better view of the data.

Here’s the year 2024 filtered for Cycling and showing 506.30 miles. I actually hit 500 miles on October 31st, 2024, which was also Halloween. Spooky!

I can also see I spent 50 hours riding outside this year. I had attempted to get the 50 hours and the 500 miles on the same day, but weather and work commitments threw things off by a day.

My average speed so far this year is around 10 miles per hour. I’ve had rides recently that are 11 or 12 mph but I’m also fine with 10. I don’t have this craving for speed, but 12 is a good goal for me. I got into this cycling because I need regular exercise, and the walking got scuttled by injuries. So far I’ve avoided any biking injuries beyond some scrapes and chafes.

Breaking it down by month you’ll notice June and July had very little riding. Between work, travel, illness, and it being just too damn hot, I didn’t get out there much. October just got over the 90 miles mark, so 100 miles seems like a 2025 goal.

Yeah, I know, some people ride 100 miles in a day! I don’t think I ever want to do that. Again, this is a form of “casual daily exercise” for me. No races, no marathons, maybe some occasional group rides, but I’m here mainly to get my body moving.

I was certainly walking more than I am cycling, and that 8 hours a month should probably be 10 or more but there were some days I just did not feel well enough to get on the bike, and being alert and feeling okay are not things to compromise on when riding, so I skipped days here and there. Still, I look forward to what I can do in 2025!

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Walking in 2022

It’s been a while since an update. November 2021 to be exact. So how has it been going since then? Well… here’s a update.

Fall is the best time of the year. It’s cool out, not too hot, not too cold. It’s just right. Winter was, at times, brutal. I don’t have any December stats here, and that’s okay. They were probably close to November, but not quite as good. Holidays and what-not. January was also bad, but February was even worse. Now, at some point around that time I started doing indoor bike rides, so my steps are down even though my “active minutes” might have been fine.

Around April things started to drop down due to the return of plantar fasciitis. I saw my doctor for it at the end of April (as it was a daily pain thing that was getting pretty bad). I was advised to “take it a bit easier” so May was pretty light with much less walking. I also started doing some stretches and exercises, which helped a little bit, but not enough.

I eventually got a sleep support device (borrowed from my wonderful sister) and that has helped quite a bit. More than the stretching and exercises. I still get some pain occasionally, but it’s nowhere near as bad, and not even noticeable in the morning.

I’ve also been super-busy with work, so I’m not finding as much free time for walks, but I’m still doing at least one 30 minute walk nearly every day, and I’ll keep it up as long as I can.

Below is an individual look at each month of 2022, from January to June.

January 2022

February 2022

March 2022

April 2022

May 2022

June 2022

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November 2021 Walking Stats

All these stats and graphs are provided by a Fitbit Charge 3 that I wear every day. I just grabbed screen shots from the Fitbit web site.

As mentioned last month I’ve started walking more every day in order to get fit, stay healthy, and lose a bit of weight. For November 2021 I got up to 441,795 steps! That is 32,736 more steps than the previous month. I don’t expect that it will increase each month, but October was my first month, and I think I got much better at walking in month two. (I definitely started slow in October.)

The stat known as “Floors” are measured using an altimeter and for November it was 1098. Just 10 more than October. I really don’t take that many flights of “stairs” but I do walk up and down hills, so I think that’s part of it. (On a busy day of working at home I will easily go up and down two sets of stairs multiple times per day. At the office there are… zero stairs.)

Mileage! Yeah, 208.51 miles in November. Which is crazy. That’s up 15.81 miles from October. Again, the slow start in October probably accounts for the lower number. I definitely try to get more distance in on the weekends. Typically Saturday and Sunday morning I try to do an hour long walk in the morning. If I can do an evening walk that really helps, and if not, I at least still get in my minimum goal each day.

How about them calories? 108,967 for November. Only about a thousand more than the previous month which is seems like it should be more, but I guess I had more to burn off the first month. I lost about 10 pounds in October but only about 6 pounds in November. I suppose this makes sense, and I’m fine with it. I still have more pounds I’d like to lose, so I’ll keep trying to get my numbers up there as far as steps per day.

I did some traveling during November and it was difficult to get in the steps I wanted during travel days. I’ve got a few similar things happening in December, so we’ll see how that goes.

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Walktober Stats

All these stats and graphs are provided by a Fitbit Charge 3 that I wear every day. I just grabbed screen shots from the Fitbit web site.

Wow, check it out! Starting slowly and increasing over the month for a total of 409,059 steps in October 2021. That’s quite a “step up” from the numbers of previous months.

Totally floored by this number! We only have stairs at home, there are none at work, but I think a lot of these are from the inclines in the streets I walk. 1,088 floors? I’ll take it! (I’m still not sure exactly happened around October 16th & 17th but since that was a weekend I’m guessing I was pretty damn active those days.)

I’m going the distance. (Though I’m not going for speed.) I walked 192.7 miles in October. That is…insane! But hey, I’ve got more miles to go before I sleep.

Burned at the wire? No, but burned 107,844 calories. I’ve also been burning more calories than I take in each day, so that means weight loss, which is a good thing, because I (like many people) added some “Pandemic Pounds” I wouldn’t mind losing. For the month of October I shed about 10 pounds. I’ve got a bit more to go but it’s a good start. (I’ve also started eating a bit better, including smaller breakfasts and, alas… less burritos.)