Multiples of 3

Biking, more than most hobbies or activities, can make a person act in ways that are out of character to say the least. One cyclist tosses $500 business suits casually on the back of a chair or even the floor. But he carefully hangs his riding shorts and jerseys as soon as they come out of the wash. For me, it’s keeping track of things. Most of the time, I’m not good with numbers and don’t spend much time tracking anything, including at work. But when it comes to biking, I record my distance with two devices and on a calendar. A recent experience with a wellness competition showed just how closely I monitor my riding distances.

As a state employee, I participated in the fall Miles for Wellness Challenge, which involved tracking your steps and other exercises for a set period of time. You converted other kinds of exercise to steps and the teams and individuals who had the most steps won some fabulous prizes. The Office of State Human Resources sponsored the event and my team really enjoyed it. The challenge began for me when one of my colleagues sent me an email in September in all caps: THOMAS! YOU’VE GOT TO DO THIS! She went on to explain the contest, being sure that my biking would make me a real rainmaker. To convert biking miles, you divide the miles biked by 3 to get the miles walked, then multiply that by 2000 (steps per mile) to get a total figure for steps. For example, 21 miles on the bike would be 7 miles walked, which converted to 14,000 steps.   

I circled my street twice to get to 42 miles...yet
another multiple of 3.

My goal is to ride at least 200 miles per month. I tell myself that I measure my distance to track my progress toward that goal. It’s certainly not (ahem) about the sense of accomplishment, or, perish the thought, the desire to compare distances with your biker friends.  I use an app on my phone called Map My Ride, which records your speed, distance, calories burned, etc. It also keeps a record of your rides and compares your speed over the same distances and tells you how you’re doing compared to your other rides. The company makes other versions of the app for other exercises, like Map My Run, May My Walk, even Map My Walk My Dog. The funny thing is I don’t keep track of much else in my life, much to the consternation of some of those around me. I work with CPA-types who are smart, insightful and hard-working. Some of them measure everything. They can quote you their own blood pressure, the miles per gallon from their last car and the average amount of data they use each month on their cell phones. It makes them very good at their jobs, but I’ve never understood the measurement compulsion...until I started biking.

This ride to Clayton almost ended with a collision while I calculated
how to end on a multiple of 3.

I went for 32 miles on my first ride during the challenge. Because 32 doesn’t divide evenly by 3, I had to round up. That was too much math, so I decided to ride distances that were multiples of 3 for the rest of the challenge. That turned out to be easier than you think because when I’m riding, I check my speed and distance frequently. I’ve gotten to where I can pull out my phone and check the app without losing a bit of speed, dropping the phone (I’ve paid to replace one spider-webbed screen…never again) or staring at the phone too long so I lose track of where I am. On my next ride, I checked the app frequently as I was coming back home. I was at 40 miles when I made the turn back across the Neuse River to the Mingo Creek trail. It’s a little more than two miles from there to my house, so I quickly calculated how much extra riding it would take to get two more and finish at 45 miles instead of 43. On a short ride a few days later I was coming back home for what looked like 16 miles, so I took the first turn off the Mingo Creek trail instead of the second and finished at 15. These last minute checks were fairly routine during the challenge, except for two that took a little too long. One of those had me ride right into the railing of the Mingo Creek trail boardwalk. I got lucky that I didn’t get tangled up in the rails and pitched over the handlebars. I got away with only a slight scrape on my leg. The other one happened as I turned off the Neuse trail onto the bridge over the river. I checked my distance: I was at 45 miles. I made the mistake of staring at my phone as I calculated how much extra riding I’d need to reach 48. A high-pitched whistle made me look up, and there was another biker coming down the ramp. I had drifted over to the left and we were about to meet head on. The other guy had the look of a serious biker (really nice road bike, clip in pedals, high-end cycle clothing, etc.) and he was yelling at me. I’m glad I had my earphones in so I couldn’t make out what he said, because I’ m pretty sure he broke a few commandments. I pushed my handlebars to the right and we barely missed each other. All I could think to do was raise my hand and yell, “sorry, my fault.”  From that day until now, I’ve remembered to keep glancing at the trail as I check my speed and distance.

 I’m not the least bit surprised when I talk with my biker friends and we can quote our distances, some down to the tenth of a mile.  I also laugh to myself as I look back at the distances I've written down in my calendar, especially those from the wellness challenge and see all the multiples of three and think about the creative ways I reached them.