MTB with Protection!!!

I wore knee pads on this mountain bike ride to protect my terribly banged up knees that have NOW knocked me out of doing any marathon training. Thus... the reason I trekked out a 14.5 mile mountain bike ride at AEDC today with K and Jamie!!! I'll post more later on the ride... in the meantime - check out the pics!!!







Ok, so after I've just stuffed my face with a hawaiin ribeye and baked potato, I am back to posting! Jamie and I came to my house and showered and headed to Boskey's! Ah.... what a day! So, it all started with getting up at 8 & letting Hattie out. Then the bed just kept calling for me and I caved in. I mean - dove in! The next thing I know it's 10:50am! YAY! That was good sleep and I loved it and I don't care that I slept the day away....... I'm all for it! So I met Jamie and we headed to the base and met K. The weather was beautiful today! 58 degrees and SUNNY! We rode about 2.8 miles into the trail and Jamie comes walking towards us pushing her bike. She looks rough. Pale. Then she gets sick out on the trail! OMG... poor thing!!! We still have no idea why she was so sick, but she felt better about 10 minutes later and finished the first 8.1 mile loop! Can you say SOLDIER? So we sat around for a few minutes and I finally got K to take me on another loop. This time we did the tougher part of the trail by going right at the fork. This is more technical and way more climbing. I rode HARD!!! I tried to keep him in my sight but it is still slightly impossible. However, one time he stopped at the top of a climb to wait on me and said I was about 1 minute and 15 seconds behind him. Heck... compare that to last year - it was like... a 10 minute wait for him probably! So I am making some progress.

We finished this loop completing 6.4 miles for a total of 14.5 miles for the day averaging 8.0 mph. This second 6 mile loop beat me DOWN! I was fighting for a breath of air just 2 miles into it. My back was aching and I felt smoked from head to toe! I think this is the only way I'm gonna improve though - ride hard pretending to race... even though my pace is not quite up to a race pace. Great news - no crashes. 14.5 miles and not a single crash. There were a couple of near mishaps, but I fought through it! So, even though I didn't actually utilize the knee pads.... I have to admit I felt a bit better about them being on my brickle knees.

Isn't it funny how cycling doesn't irritate my knee at all and it never hurts but running a half mile buckles it under and it shuts down on me? Well... there may be some irritation. It's extremely stiff tonight and not wanting to bend or straighten.