Cross Training (goofing around doing things along with running)

Continuing my re-emerging love of cycling, I got together with Mike and Paul (brothers I rode the century with last week) and two of their friends for a mountain bike outing yesterday.  I started the day with a seven mile run then drove down to Golden to meet them.  Seems like everyone has nicer bikes than I do - go figure, since I bought mine off craigslist and they ordered their fancy-schmancy bikes through a bonified bike shop (their tires cost more than my bike).  I make up for it by being slow and squirrely.

My tech skills on the mtb are rusty (read: corroded like a lost ironside off the outer banks coast).  After warming up I kept getting this weird sensation where muscle memory would mesh with atrophied skill and I'd be flying straight at a tree/cliff and not have that intuitive feel to glide through the corner.  More than once it would be a lot of locked braking, eyes clinched shut, and praying that I could retain my front teeth.  I have to admit that I've learned a trick that I employed yesterday where I over-inflate the tires and increase the psi in both the fork and rear shock to the point where it's almost like a rigid bike.  The intent is to facilitate the re-learning of my bike handling by not relying on the bike to absorb my inadequacies.  I progressed over the three hour ride but am still a l-o-n-g way off from my peek racing and handling ability from five years ago.  I'll get there.

After the ride, we went out for beer, food, and laughs.  Good day all around.

I've also been keeping up with my speed walking with 18 miles this week.  I don't know what this does exactly but, in my odd mind, I feel that it helps my running (and increases my base building for mall walking competitions when I get old).

So, overall, I'm super excited to be back riding and can't wait to race the road and mtn bike soon.  I feel good, ready, and relaxed for San Diego 100.  Got my splits set up and most of my planning for the race done, so now I can review them over and over like my ocd running friends.