Tag Archives: Mountain bike

05262019 – Bike and Kayak

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The Mountain Bike trails opened up yesterday afternoon and I wanted to get some dirt action before the rain on Monday. I also didn’t want to tear up my legs for Murph either so I did the North Loop twice at an easy-ish pace.  The Luce Line is still flooded between Wirth Parkway and the entrance, but I found a nice work around that followed the railroad tracks. I found a trail heading back into the woods and was getting ready to turn on it when a dude came running out and he confirmed it would drop me into the loop. It was in great shape, except one section that was closed due to flooding still, but it had a nice work around.  I did about 6.5 miles and it felt good.

Son had been asking to go kayaking with me so the two kids and I ended up going to Hyland park and kayaking on the lake.  It was fun and sunny – I got burnt. I didn’t record the paddle as it was mostly leisurely.  It was a lot of fun though!! Three kayaks is a lot of logistics, but the kids were great helpers!

04272019 – Bike and CrossFit

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Some of the Mountain Bike trails are slowly opening up. At one point we had snow in the forecast, it had been changed to rain in the late morning. I decided to get the Mountain Bike out and do some of the trails – the one open trail is an Expert. I did it once, but walked a lot of it. No point in trying it.  I rode the Karate Monkey section. It was nice to be out riding the trails.  There was one muddy section and the section by the creek was a little wetter than tacky.  Then I rode hard on the paved trails to the SW section of trails.  This is the Quaking Bog area. Its got a lot of hill and flow sections.  I struggle with confidence on some of the flow stuff but it was still fun to be seeing dirt and mixing up the training.  I definitely felt the heavy squatting yesterday!  After finishing this section I took off on the pavement again and did the Karate Monkey section one more time!  

Finished 8 miles in 57:53. 

Then just over 2 hours until CrossFit!!

We did another nice long warm-up and then started working on Power Snatching to a heavy set of 2. I actually did an overall PR for these! I had about 2 minutes left in the 12 minute time cap and was at 95 pounds. I added the 2.5# plates and a pair of 0.5# plates to bump it over my 100# PR. I could probably have done a little more, but felt better doing the 6# leap instead of a 10# one.

Then another short burner. 2 Rounds for Time (12 minute cap) of

10 Dumbbell (25#) Right arm cleans

10 Dumbbell Overhead Squats Right arm

5 Pull-ups

10 Dumbbell (25#) Left arm cleans

10 Dumbbell Overhead Squats Left arm

5 Pull-ups

This was a good one, we drilled the cleans as full depth so that’s what we tried to do with them. I think the 25# might have been a little light, but the 35# would have been too much. I finished in 7:06.

This afternoon we biked as a neighborhood group down to the Trailhead for their Spring Block Party. We had a lot of fun goofing around and enjoying what turned out to be a beautiful day!



11032018 – Mountain Bike

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I had a hankering to get out on two wheels and with rain in the forecast I knew this would be the last chance for a bit to hit the trails.  I’m sure glad I did. I started with the Area 36 trails.  As I noted last week on my ride, I haven’t ridden much lately so I wasn’t planning to do anything crazy or super hard.  I felt like I was in a good groove and only needed to dismount once or twice which is an improvement!

After the Area 36 trails I headed to the Back 40.  As I tried to enter them I was stopped by this deer. She was in the middle of the trail trapped by me and the fence on two sides.  As I stood there waiting for her to move, the Buck came walking out further up the trail (can you spot them both?) It was a pretty cool break in the ride.  They both moved along and so did I.

Nothing else exciting happened in this section, I just kept cruising along enjoying the solitude of the morning ride and the brisk fall weather (upper 30’s). Everything is still pretty right now with all the colors on the ground and some still in the trees.  As the leaves have fallen we get some cool views now too. After finishing this loop I headed on South and did the skinny section north of 55. I struggled in my usual spots, but kept on going. I didn’t see another rider until I started climbing into the Glenwood section (between Glenwood and 55). I felt the climbs and tried to enjoy the flowy downhill.  I still struggle with relaxing into it and letting go.  I continued my southward journey and did the Bog trails.  There are some tough climbs and easy downhills in this one.  I did okay except the one major downhill.  I tried harder to relax into the rest of the flows and did pretty well.  I started home and back climbed up the Glenwood section.  I was able to manage the flow sections back out of here fine!  They aren’t as steep and fast.  About halfway into the skinny section I ran into the turkeys (see main image).  They didn’t want to move so I had to help them a little bit. I almost made it through the uphill + turn rock garden here! And then I just hit the paved trails all the way home.

It was 10.45 miles in 1:26.  Not too shabby. But wait…

I had 26 achievements and 10 of them were segment PR’s.  Pretty sweet for a no-frills ride!! Can’t wait to get out there again.

08192018 – Mountain Bike

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I would have been okay with not doing anything today.  But when Todd mentioned maybe going riding at Wirth, I decided that could be a fun option! So we went out and hit almost all of the trails at Wirth including two new to me sections!  It was mid-80’s, humid, and still smoky from Canadian fires.  The trails were super dry with lots of dust to coat both us and the bikes!

We started with the Karate Monkey trails, the harder section of new event trails made by the Loppet.  They have some tight flow sections and hairpin turns without banks so it isn’t an easy trail.  Plus a tough uphill climb to start.  The last section is relatively easy and is right next to the creek for a nice ride.

We decided to go to the Bog trails and work our way back up towards the Back 40 and Area 36.  We rode the Southbound sections and then turned around and headed back hitting all the areas but the Expert Brownie Loop.  It was fun to have somebody to help push me along more than my usual casual pace. Some of the harder elements of the Bog trails require me to get off my bike and I could probably do some of them if I practiced more and got out of my head and fear.

In the Back 40 we took a new trail that had some interesting asphalt and debris sections. It also had some tight squeezes and was a little technical.  Things were going well until I crossed the bridge section a little too fast and my back tire slipped on the edge.  Somehow my bike actually stayed on, but my balance shifted too fast and I fell off.  So I had one leg still on the bike and one standing on the ground.  Fortunately the bridge is only a few inches off the ground!! Shortly after that I saw a doe and fawn on the trail so in my mind that made up for falling.  The ground had finally dried up enough for the short duck pond section to be re-opened.  It seemed shorter than I remembered, but it had been closed for about a year, so who knows.

After finishing the Back 40 we refilled water at the Trailhead and hit the Area 36 trails.  There is some tough climbing and some fun pump sections and we had a good time here.  Todd did The Tube and I opted to skip it this time around. We finished up and headed home.  After hosing down our bikes we relaxed and realized we both got a ton of Strava segment PR’s.

It was a great ride and I’m glad it worked out to do it.

12.3 miles!

07092018 – CrossFit & Biking

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I got up and headed to Solcana to begin our new 9 week cycle.  Monday will be Sumo Deadlift Day! I have only done them one other time, but have seen the coaches talk about them with other athletes as a way of adapting the Deadlift.

We had a pretty long warm-up before the 3×7 Sumo Deadlift.  The idea was 65% of a traditional deadlift as a starting point. I opted to do my sets with 135# on the bar.  That felt heavy, but not super heavy. It is definitely a different movement than the traditional deadlift and I felt it more in my quads than hamstrings.

The MetCon was a doozy.  The Platinum was Chelsea, instead of Chelsea’s EMOM, I opted for 10 Rounds of Cindy with a 15 minute time cap.  I didn’t make it very far.  Cindy is three movements: 5 pull-ups, 10 pushups and 15 air squats.  That seems relatively easy, right? When you look at needing to do that 10 times it becomes more of a challenge! Given the time cap I didn’t make it through.  I did almost all of the pull-ups as kipping, but only completed 1 round of the push-ups from the floor.  I knew that there would be no way I’d complete all the push-ups so instead of going to failure I switched.  The pull-ups were obviously getting harder and a few times I finished my last 2 or 3 as jumping pull-ups on a shorter bar, but that only happened a couple of times. My counter said that I only completed 6 rounds and 16 reps in 15 minutes.

That was a solid day at the gym!  A few hours later I had a meeting in a part of town that would be easier to bike to than to find parking at.  So I biked 3 miles there and then took a longer and more fun route home and hit 2 sections of Wirth Mountain Bike trails with my Motobecane.  The Motobecane is technically a CX bike and I’ve used it a few times on the Glenwood sections of the trail and that hasn’t been a problem.  The other section I tried was the Bog section and for the most part that was ok.  I had some trouble on a few of the steeper uphills and I didn’t feel super comfortable on some of the steeper flowy downhills.  I probably won’t do that section again, or at least not at the end of a ride!  That was 7.58 miles.

So a total of 10.5 miles of biking after a CrossFit workout.