Day 21/63 – Workout Log – Mountain Biking
This is only a week late, ha. Give me a break – I’ve been home pretty much all week miserably sick. I was really looking forward to training this week too.
Anyway – I think part of the reason I got sick was because I went mountain biking last Sunday for the first time and over-exerted myself. I’ve been riding my bike around my area a bit. Nothing serious at all and I think the longest ride I went for was a measely 12km. On Sunday I drove up to Albion Hills Conservation Area with some of the Slip n Slide crew that I snowboard with. I’ve wanted to try trail riding for a while so I decided to just go for it and give it a shot.
Albion Hills Trails
Knowing that it was my first time mountain biking, they decided to take me on a 15km ride of mostly single track trails. Not exactly a gentle introduction eh? I had no idea what I was doing with my gearing and ended up having to walk my bike up some of the steep parts, but I started to figure it out by the end of the day. We rode for just over 4 hours and I found it really tough. I had a really good time though and I am definitely going to do a lot more riding from now on.
The feeling of riding through the woods was really peaceful. The scenery was great and the adrenaline rushes I got while shooting downhill on a twisty trail and dodging trees and stumps was almost as good as snowboarding. The first few km were the hardest I think – getting used to how the gears work on less than gradual uphill/downhill changes and how much effort needs to be put in to pedaling. Towards the end I really started to run out of energy but knowing we were so close to finishing I was able to keep it going.
Nice Scenery at Albion Hills
I can’t wait to go again. I’ll be better prepared next time too. I’m going to get some gloves to save my hands from being blistered and bring along some snacks to keep my energy up. My bike is a $99 piece of crap with no suspension but I’m going to ride it until it breaks to make sure I’m really into this before I think about upgrading.
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