Commute Miles Still Count

The day after always comes

Yesterday was a lot. Multiple workouts, including a weights session that left my legs feeling like concrete. I knew going into today that any riding would be recovery at best.

Then I had a BPAC meeting to get to.

BPAC is the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee. Local government stuff. Important to show up for, especially when you're running an event that puts hundreds of cyclists on Bay Area roads.

I had two options: drive, or ride.

I rode.

The numbers

• Distance: 9.33 miles
• Moving time: 44 minutes
• Elevation: 101 ft
• Avg watts: 77W
• Avg speed: 12.8 mph

77 watts is low. For context, my current FTP (functional threshold power, the wattage I can sustain for roughly an hour) is 216W. So 77W is well below 40% of that. This was not training. This was transportation.

Why I'm logging it anyway

Because it counts.

Not every ride is a structured interval session. Not every ride moves the fitness needle. Some rides are just how you get somewhere. Commute miles are real miles. They add up. And on a day when your legs are shot, a slow spin to a meeting is genuinely the right call.

Active recovery has actual value. Light movement increases blood flow to muscles that got worked the day before. It's not a workout, but it's not nothing.

The bigger picture

TheBayRide is 135 miles around the Bay. The people who finish it well aren't just the ones who crushed their interval sessions. They're the ones who stayed consistent. Who rode when it wasn't glamorous. Who didn't skip the commute just because their legs were tired.

I've been doing this for 11 years. Some of my best training weeks have included rides exactly like this one, tucked between the hard days.

Today wasn't impressive. It wasn't supposed to be. It was just showing up.

August 29th is coming. The miles are adding up.

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