It’s been a year and change since I started getting regular practice on a unicycle. I’m challenging myself over the next year to get (and keep track of) at least 500 hours of practice. This may not sound like a lot but I have a full-time job and various other obligations so we’ll see how I do.
Awesome ideal! I’ll try to do that too! 
I’ll write all year long for how long I go for a ride 
I think that’s wonderful. that’s 9 hours 50 minutes a week, so I think that’s a good goal for a busy guy. I have been keeping track of reps, which is similar, and have found it very helpful.
By the way, you said “of practice” so leisure riding doesn’t count!!
I’m still figuring out the best way to do it. For now I’ll just post in this thread every week or so.
Reps don’t work well for me because I make really slow progress. I’ve been working on one footed backwards riding for months and months!
I count everything as practice: muni, uni bball, giraffe, and practicing flatland or freestyle tricks.
Man you inspire me! I will note all the time I spent riding My uni and in the end of 2011 I will compare with my progress hahaha Thanks man!
Hi Waalrus,
that will keep you VERY busy. Be careful of injuries, ie; don’t go upping you mileage too quickly. The usual advice is no more than 10% a week but I would say a 10% increase in miles/time a month is better. And of course if you have any ‘little niggles’ definitely take a few days off or more until you are 100% again.
For what its worth, here are my stats for the year, running and riding. I only keep them for fun. The uni hours include time I spend practicing at the gym, which I do once a week just to keep in touch with my friend (there’s a slight language issue involved). Do the same for my guitar practicing too, but guitar playing is just plain hard work in comparison (and I’m only a beginner amateur
Cheers all
Training hours 2010
Running Uni
January 14hours 18mins gym learning
February 14hours 40mins gym learning
March 15hours 11mins gym learning
April 33hours 35mins 8hours 42mins
May 27hours 13mins 8hours 20mins
June 11hours 21mins 5hours 15mins
July 28hours 51mins 8hours 5mins
August 27hours 4mins 6hours 20mins
September 27hours 36mins 11hours 5mins
October 25hours 39mins 10hours 0mins
November 15hours 8mins 8hours 25mins
December 14hours 14mins 4hours 20mins
Year Total 254hours 50mins 70hours 32minutes
So much for the editing function…
There are supposed to be 2 columns, first for running and second for uni riding. Not that it was important anyway.
Cheers
Cool idea, I’m gonna join in too. I better go start my time.
Go Waaalrus!
Thanks to everyone providing feedback on this!
Thanks for sharing your stats! How were you keeping track of this? I was wondering if there was some kind of online app that would make this easier, something that tracks time and activity (and possibly location). Maybe one of the exercise trackers would work.
I try to be aware of any minor injuries. If I tweak my knee or ankle then I’ll hold off on practicing hopping for a day or so. I’m clumsy and uncoordinated so it takes me a long time to learn anything, but I’m also fairly resistant to injury and I’m really good at falling so that makes up for it a little bit.
Thanks! Haven’t seen you around the forums in a while but maybe I’m not looking in the right places. Hope everything’s going well and you got in some holiday parades!
I use MapMyRide.com coupled with a GPS app on my phone (but you don’t need this - you can just use the website on its own). It also does Facebook integration if that’s what you’re into.
Incidentally, it can even provide an estimate of the number of calories used on a ride. It doesn’t have unicycling as an activity but you can create your own, I did and based it on the “hard cycling” setting.
“Thanks for sharing your stats! How were you keeping track of this?”
Um, check what the time is when I leave and what it is when I get back.
Thanks for the tip on mapmyride! This looks like a great app to track both practice sessions and muni rides. I’ve used Google My Tracks for the latter but usually only record one track for each trail that I do (not each time that I ride).
500 DOES sound alot - about 30% of a working year.
I did around 700 hours last year on the unicycle, but that is commuting - somewhat less intense than practice. And those hours are substantially taken offset by my otherwise travelling time anyway.
So, at a guess, I would have had to give up a lot less than 500 hours of my time.
I should really follow your lead and work on some basic and not so basic skills.
I decided to send me an email after every day of ride or so and keep responding to the same email while counting my hours. I’m at 6 hours right now, but it’ll go up way faster this summer!
Great! I’m finding SmellyGeekBoy's MapMyRide.com tip useful although I haven’t figured out how to add in unicycling (in its various forms) as a choice to select. I’ve had weather and some personal issues but am at 5 hours 40 minutes so far.
The first week of the year started off with rain where I live, including both weekend days, but I still managed to get in a good amount of unicycling (mostly uni bball). I’d like to get more general practice this week.
1/1-1/7: 12 hrs (9 uni bball, 3 practice)
I’ve done only 9 hours this week, I dont really like winter and I personaly think that I didn’t ride enough, I was a little bit more busy than usual. I’ll see how it goes once the school starts again though, I start on monday but I should logicaly ride more than this week!
Also, I’m going for a long ride today in the snow
I’m only at 4 hours. Its been rainy and cold here and I don’t have a covered area to practice other than a weight room at my apartments and I don’t want to ruin my apartments floors so I have to be careful and rarely use it.