Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Autumn soreness be gone!

I am currently going through the mildly annoying and slightly painful process of turning my very limited cycling legs into legs capable of doing things like mountain running, roller skiing, and weight lifting.

Cycling does very good things for general endurance and the specific strength of the pedaling motion. All the balancing muscles though go unused and the muscles loose their ability to do eccentric contractions. So, running down mountains and balancing on rollerskis put my legs in the hurt-box in a big way.

The last 2 days I've been hobbling down the stairs of the Skirack. People keep asking me if I'm injured. I'm not sure exactly how to answer them. At the moment I am basically incapacitated - however in a few days once the muscles have healed up - I'll be ready to go.

It is amazing how little it takes to put me in this condition directly after the cycling season. I went for a 40-45 minute classic rollerski Friday mid-day with Paul, Helen's brother. Very easy and controlled. Then, Friday late afternoon I did a hour to hour and a half mountain run/hike around Bolton Valley with my sister, Tremble, and some other cool kids. I got up Saturday morning and met Eli for a skate rollerski. We cruised at a medium pace for me - easy for him - and boom...It was all she wrote.

The air is starting to get getting colder, the leaves on the trees are falling, and it will be just another week or two before my legs have completed their annual migration.

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