rambly bloggies

My pool day did not go as planned.


Closed for health reasons? Ew! I can only imagine what icky substance lurks in our pool.


Remember in February when there was snow on the hills?

Tuesday night was the Velo Girls beginner mountain bike ride. We had the best fun riding the secret singletrack at Lake Almaden. We named it "Lizard Trail" in honor of the lizards that would dash across the trail right in front of our tires. Luckily we didn't have to deal with any lizard roadkill.

The trail was a little more technical than I remembered, but these were some tough girls, and they were willing to try anything, so we went over a few logs (yes your bike will roll right over it), tackled a semi steep hill into a curve, and even sessioned the baby jump way in the back of the trail.

I love riding with the beginner girls. They are so enthusiastic, and proud of themselves when they pull off something they didn't think they could do. I don't know if I'm a good teacher or not; there are so many things to tell them about mountain biking. I'm trying not to talk too much, or fill their heads with stuff that they won't remember, but I'd like them to know the skills that make it easier to ride. And it makes me so happy to see them conquer their fears, and roll down the hill, or go over the log.

What I'm not used to is being the example. I'm the first to go down the hill, or over the log, or to tackle the rocky singletrack. And they watch. They watch very closely. I learned this lesson this past ride when we came to the stairs. We were at the end of the singletrack, and there was a flight of stairs going down to the parking lot. And they wanted to know if it was possible to ride down them. So I did.



You know, I have yet to really impress anybody with my mountain biking skills. The people I ride with(one in particular) are so good, they take their hands off their bike handles as they jump doubles. They manual, they bunnyhop, they jump. At best I can barely keep up, and it's a good day when I don't fall off my bike. So riding down stairs? Eh. Whatever.

But the beginners were impressed. And that made me feel really good. Especially when I think back to my first flight of three stairs I went down, and how nervous I was, and how all my friend had to say was "do it again, and this time don't squeal." It was nice to hear "wow, that was so cool" especially after my disasterous ride at Skeggs. My bruised ego felt just a little better. Maybe, with practice, I can do this thing called mountain biking?

So I really like my beginners. I hope they get as much out of our rides as I do.


I ran this morning. I love running. Nothing more profound to say than that. I just love to run.
And I enjoyed it so much, I'm going to do it again tomorrow.