Adventures in hiking and riding!

Another great weekend in the books.  On Saturday I went with my brother and an old friend of his for a ride.  Even though my brother commutes on his bike and doesn’t own a car I hardly ever get to ride with him so this was very exciting!  It was also really nice to get to see him and his friend interact it reminds me that no matter how much he’s grown up there’s still a little bit of that goofy carefree kid somewhere in there.  It made me smile the whole time I was on the ride as I rode behind them and got to hear them talk. 

 So let me tell you a little something about commuting versus distance riding.  I commute 1-2 times a week on my bike during the summer and I thought I finally had this commuting thing down.  But the thing is I take my commuter bike which is clunkier and doesn’t make you clip in.  I also take back roads (non-congested) and/or bike path the whole way to work.  What this means is that I am forced to go slower and am not on the defensive for very much of my ride.  When I do my longer weekend rides I take my lovely tri bike (did I mention how much I love my bike!) which you do clip in to and is very light I can go fast!  When I ride this I usually am not in town I’m on a road with no stop lights and I can go for ever without having to clip out.  Well, when I rode with them this weekend we went from my brother’s house out, which meant lots of city riding.  Now my brother is both a pro and fearless when it comes to this so he was whizzing in and out of traffic using his hands to command which direction he was going.  I on the other hand was timid and doubting my moves which cause more confusion and probably put me in a little more danger.  Also add clipping in and out a gazillion times which let me tell you that and the brain power I was using made me TIRED before we even got to the hills we were going to ride!  J  I of course got a flat right at before having to head up a 6% grade hill which meant once I had the flat changed I had no momentum to get up the hill.  I’ve decided I need to buy new tires I think I’ve worn through these I can’t even remember if I’ve ever replaced them since I bought the bike, YIKES!  I also need to try and be more like my brother when riding in town!  I wasn’t able to keep up with these two guys but was thankful they let me tag along because I had fun.

Sunday I was up at the crack of dawn to join some friends for a hike up the La Luz trail.  I did a little bit of a run first just so I could say I ran then went back to meet up with them and hike the rest of the 9 miles with them.  I had never actually been all the way to the top and it was beautiful!  We took the tram back down.  It’s only my 2^nd time riding that even though I’ve lived here for over 8 years.  This was a tough hike and my legs were tired after but so much fun!  It was great seeing lots of people from my running club out there too they were running up the entire thing in preparation for the race that goes up that in August.  So I didn’t get a long run in this weekend but I figured that long of a hike should count for something?  What do you think?  I mean it does have about 3,775 feet of elevation gain!

Of course I had to end the weekend with some lovely ladies I had over for homemade empanadas and one of the brought over homemade strawberry short cake!

Happy Training!