← Blog/May 4, 2026 · 2 min read
19 Miles, Honest Numbers
Eighteen miles at 115 watts average. Not a hammer session. But it happened, and that matters more than the wattage right now.
The ride
This morning I got out for 19 miles. 84 minutes of moving time. 347 feet of elevation. Average power was 115W, average heart rate 110.
Those numbers are not impressive. I know that. My FTP right now is 216W, which means I was riding at roughly 53% of threshold. That is a recovery-pace ride, not a training ride in any serious sense of the word.
But here is the thing: I went.
What 115 watts tells you
FTP, or Functional Threshold Power, is the highest average wattage you can sustain for about an hour. Mine is 216W right now. Peak was 295W back in July 2022. W/kg, watts per kilogram of body weight, is how cyclists compare fitness across different body sizes. I am sitting at 2.27 W/kg today.
When you are averaging 115W on a casual morning ride, you are not building fitness in a meaningful way. What you are doing is keeping the habit alive. Moving the body. Reminding yourself that riding is still part of your week.
Some days that is enough.
The gap between elapsed and moving time
One thing I will flag: moving time was 84 minutes, elapsed time was 518 minutes. That is not a typo. I stopped for a while. Could have been work. Could have been life. Both, probably. I am not going to dress it up. The ride took most of the morning in wall-clock time, even if the legs were only turning for 84 of those minutes.
That is what training looks like when you are running an event, a startup, and a household. You find the window, you go, you come back, and sometimes the window has a lot of interruptions on either side of it.
Where this fits
We are about four months out from TheBayRide on August 29th. The full loop is 135 miles around the Bay. That is a long way from 19 miles at 115 watts. I am aware of the math.
But every year I do this, and every year the fitness comes back faster than I expect it to once I start being consistent. The first few weeks are humbling. This is one of those weeks.
The goal right now is not watts. The goal is showing up. The watts will follow.
Current numbers
- FTP: 216W
- Peak FTP: 295W (July 2022)
- W/kg: 2.27
- Weight: 209.8 lbs
- Today's avg power: 115W (53% of FTP)
- Today's avg HR: 110 bpm
More rides to come. I will keep posting the numbers, including the unimpressive ones.
Ride the Bay with us
The Bay Ride is a charity bike ride around the Bay Area. 135 miles all the way around, or a 35-mile option from SF to Oakland.
Register