The view I had as I got back in my car after an hour of mountain biking fun! It's January 21st and I live in Colorado, a place well known for snow, I guess I'll just have to wait till March when the inevitable blizzard hits. It was actually much warmer than this, but the thermometer gets confused by wind and it was very windy!
Recovery is an important thing when it comes to training and racing bikes. This is something that I have learned through both experience and through coaching that when you train hard you must train harder. I have come to believe over the past 4 years of racing and training that there are two very different types of rest, one is physical and the other is mental. Sometimes after a long and hard training or racing block both your physical body and your mind are in need of recuperation. Today that was the case for me, at least on the mental side. My body has been feeling very strong and well recovered thanks to the great coaching I have received this year, however, I have spent the past 2 straight weeks on the road bike a bit out of necessity and a bit out of choice (this past sunday was choice, an epic road ride with Jason could not be passed up!). However, upon waking up this morning and thinking about my afternoon recovery ride today I realized something that I really needed, amidst all of this wonderful weather we have been having in Colorado, (today makes the 3rd straight ride in bib shorts, short-sleeves, and no arm, knee, or leg warmers!), to hit the dirt. So I packed up my mountain bike, some shorts, tools, spare tires, bottles and bike and headed to Boulder for my one class of the day. Upon exiting class I hightailed it to an open space park called Marshall Mesa. Marshall Mesa, atleast I thought, was going to be smooth and easy but would give me my dirt fix for the day. Well In general I was wrong, there was some pretty cool riding there. However, I have to say the best trail I rode all day was the trail called Dowdy trail. Because I had come into it from the top of the Mesa I had the pleasure of starting it on an really fun descent that was both technical and smooth and fast! To sum up the day I rocked it on some singletrack being mindful to keep my heart rate low and consequently had a great time, now here are some photos!
This is the view from the top of Marshall Mesa (kind of, the top of the first bit of climbing):
After seeing this house and looking at the view (next photo) I couldn't help thinking, that whoever lives here is one lucky person/family!
This is the view that the above house appreciates, sadly the photo isn't good enough to really see how beautiful Eldorado Canyon really is (word is that they are doing an study to make the trail mountain bike accessible, creating another connection into the Meyers Homestead loop and another way to make epic mountain bike rides start in Boulder and work their way to Nederland!):
2 comments:
Hi Kat! This is Victoria! I like your blog! Every time you say you go ride in a park I just picture you doing intervals around some kids on a swingset, with people pushing baby carriages and stuff. Haha! Looks like the kind of park your riding in is MUCH more awesome!
Thanks Victoria! I think it would be pretty funny to do that, I actually did some cross practice in the city park by my house this fall and was practicing dismounting, running, and remounting as well as sand pit riding in the playgroud and all these moms looked at me like I was crazy, it was pretty cool!
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