Even though I’m a Liberal Arts guy, I’m a collector at heart and stats fill that inner need to acquire new information all the time. I’ve been a subscriber to a service called VeloViewer for many years, which is a website that ingests all your Strava workout data and lets you slice and dice it in lots of interesting ways.

Recently I was reflecting on my 2024 year in running and biking and something was nagging me. In retrospect I feel like I didn’t work as hard as I could have last year, and I was curious if my stats would bear that out. I fired up VeloViewer and decided to do a deep dive starting with total distance (bike/run/everything).

Year	Distance (miles)
2024	2517
2023	2735
2022	2872
2021	2981
2020	3350
2019	2851
2018	2337
2017	1364
2016	1845
2015	1629

Sure enough, my total mileage did drop last year, down around 7.8% from the previous year. It was my lowest year since pre-pandemic, but from a raw percentage perspective it wasn’t abysmal. It was a moderate slide from the year before, but what struck me was the continued decline from my high in 2020. So perhaps there was something there in terms of letting myself ease down more than I had realized.

Let’s dive in a different direction next… total moving time.

Year	Total Moving Time (hours)
2024	467
2023	437
2022	463
2021	484
2020	465
2019	477
2018	424
2017	228
2016	311
2015	259

This one sheds some interesting light on things. Even though my mileage dropped 7.8% my total elapsed time increased roughly 7%. That meant that I was taking longer to go less distance. Now we’re getting somewhere interesting. In fact, 2024 was my third highest moving time year ever, which means that last year something disconnected between the speed I was going and the distance I was covering.

I wondered if there was maybe something that could show me that relationship in a meaningful way. Enter the “Relative Effort” statistic from Strava. Because Strava knows how far you went, how fast you went, and your heart rate (and potentially power output) it can come up with a number that provides a consistent metric across all activities. From their description:

If you and a friend both ran your hardest 10K effort, your Relative Efforts would be similar even if your finishing times are different. Similarly, if you rode a bike as hard as you could for the same amount of time, your Relative Effort would be comparable.

Does the metric itself have a specific meaning? Probably not, but because it’s tracked consistently, it can be a useful metric for year over year analysis. When I pulled up my Relative Effort states an interesting picture started to emerge.

Year	Relative Effort
2024	17901
2023	24238
2022	24278
2021	25715
2020	24198
2019	29245
2018	29996
2017	17308
2016	13733
2015	5881 (didn’t have HR monitor most of this year)

And there it is. Last year my Relative Effort tanked 26%. That right there is the measure that answers the question, “Was I working hard?” Obviously I wasn’t measuring up to what I had been achieving in the previous years. The second half of that question though is, “Was I working as hard as I could have been?” That’s the question that becomes much harder to answer, and becomes the focal point for introspection.

Certainly last year had its ups and downs, and stressors. We moved towards the end of the year, and my big race didn’t end up going quite according to plan. Plus, every year is yet another year of age on this body. Turning 50 certainly doesn’t make things easier physically.

But seeing that number associated with the word “effort” has me thinking. Was I really living up to what I could do? How often did I sabotage myself by not pushing myself to work more towards my potential and less towards just getting mileage done? Could I have gotten myself moving just a bit more? What in my commitment level fell down?

Spending time navel gazing while writing a blog entry isn’t terribly productive, but all of this has given me a lot to think about as I get going in 2025. I made the specific decision to not sign up for a massive ultra this year, so I’ve got time to think about all of these things without impacting a specific training plan. I’ll still do events, but I’m not going to overcommit.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with doing the base level and just maintaining basic fitness, but the question that only I can answer is “Is that what you want yourself to be about?” I’m interested to see how I decide to answer that question…