The Altitude
Sioux City is at about 1500 feet above sea level. Kearney is a little less than 2500 feet above sea level. My apartment is almost exactly 6000 feet above sea level. The altitude is a fact of life for people in Colorado. It makes the weather quick and unpredicatble coming out of the mountains, and it make physical exertion difficult at best. I am far from acclimated to this altitude, yet I went mountain biking at around 7500 feet today near Palmer Lake. I went mountain biking with professional bikers who go to races and such. They had pity on me. They pushed a pretty good pace at the beginning on an uphill climb through a state park. I had to stop after about 10 minutes and catch my breath. After that the couple guys who were really hard core mountain bikers split off on their own, which I was very thankful for.
I have never been mountian biking before, and I borrowed a bike from the boyfriend of a gal at work. It was a pretty nice bike. Once I made the climb up the hill It was great fun. Hurtling around corners and between trees about 4 feet apart, going downhill, then up-hill for a little ways, then downhill a long ways again. I became much more confidant of the bike’s ability to bounce off rocks and tree roots and still keep me in one piece. I think I only really fell down once, but I wiped out and knocked the chain off it’s sprokets several times. Rule #1: Any front brake at all while going down hill is very dangerous. We of course stopped to let me catch my breath several times, when I started turning white they told me it was OK to take 5 minutes and sit down. It’s not like I am a physically fit person that just happens to be adjusting to the altitude. I am a chubby lazy computer geek that is doing his first real excercise in a long time and trying to acclimate himself to this altitude. It was a blast, and it would be a ton more fun if I had a little endurance. I hope I can go again soon.
The weirdest thing about this adventure was that it actually felt good to excercise, I pushed myself and had a good time doing it. Not boring or monotonous like running, it was exciting and really hard work. I know my body will be reminding me of my stupdity for the next day or so, but I honestly feel like I was actually able to get some excercise that was fun.
Now, there are two directions I can go from here, remember the great time that I had and never really commit to this as a hobby. Or, I could possibly actualy find myself doing this more often, there are plenty of trails near-by. My biggest obstacle right now is my bike, it’s a little on the old and broken side. Completely rigid frame with no shocks in front or back, the brakes are decent, but need to be adjusted to work properly, and my gears are definately not adjusted properly, I can’t get into first without rubbing the heck out of the derailer. It was a bike my parents gave to me probably in the eighth grade, and it probably came from a department store. I need to go into a bike shop and find out if it’s worth my money to upgrade this bike or if it would be better to just get an entirely new bike. Or, if it would be wiser to just not excercise at all and save my money for more important things, like a honeymoon, and food…