keeping track

As cyclists, as runners, as people, I suppose, we keep track of things. So many miles recorded. Or, distance, anyway, I should say. Some of us keep track of other things, too. Number of rides in a month. Average heart rate trends. Minutes per mile. 

I tend to total up each week, and then each month, and then each year, and then start over. I've never totaled all the years. That would be a lot. I'm not sure it would really be useful information for me. A few decades? A few times around a globe. But not really around the world, around the Earth. Around town... 

I got to the end of last month a totaled it up, as I do, and then went straight on to the next month. I hardly even gave that yearly total a second thought. We kind of have a sense of that as we go along anyway. Each day's schedule becomes fairly predictable as it rolls into the week's which rolls along and along... Some shifting here and there but mostly staying the course. 

I wouldn't say it's pointless, though. Keeping track becomes part of the process. A daily connection, a checking in. Sometimes even a motivator in it's own right.

Of course, these days, there's Apps that will do it all for you. "They'll" even send you a message at the end of the year with all your stats all tallied and graphed. Some stats that you might not even have known were being tracked. Who needs a pencil and a log? What's a log? What's a WebLog... LOL. Wink, wink... Who knows anymore...

I like my App stats, though. And my App friends. And I'll keep them. But I think I'll keep my pencils, too. And the process. The sharpening of the pencil, even. Journaling the day in micro poems of distance or route or people along the way...

Sweeping the path, chopping the wood, carrying the water... moments into moments...