Charmaine tried unsuccessfully to get me to agree to go for a bike ride this morning. I was tired and didn’t feel like going outside. But then Mark and Kristen called to see if we wanted to ride with them. It was once again a beautiful weekend in Utah with clean air (a very rare thing during the winter here), so how could I keep saying no? I’m glad I didn’t.

We started off heading west almost past my work, taking the overpass over the freeway to wind up being able to go south and hook up with the roads around Utah Lake. The lake is still mostly frozen over and the air coming off the lake is still very cold. I was wearing my long gloves and some leg warmers and I was very glad to have them along that stretch. Eventually we ended up heading south on Geneva Road past Utah Valley University and down to where Orem meets Provo.

We headed east up the hill into Provo then north along the road through the really nice houses just west of the Provo River. At Orem Center Street we jogged west to 10th East and headed up to Mark and Kristen’s house and dropped them off (they had ridden from their house to our apartment to pick us up when we started). After dropping them off we headed along the canal trail into Pleasant Grove then flew down the mountain on PG Center Street until we got back home.

Great day for a ride.

A few months ago I hurt myself while running. It turned out to be an injury to the Achilles tendon at the insertion (insertional achilles tendinopathy). It was difficult and painful to even walk normally for a long time, but it’s been feeling a lot better lately. It’s still very tight and I don’t dare run on it yet, but I need to do something outside. I stretch it several times each day to keep it from getting too tight. And today I got to warm it up by riding my bike.

I haven’t ridden my bike for a long time. It felt really good to get back out there, although I wasn’t quite ready for 2 hours in the saddle. I guess that will get better over time. Let’s just hope the air quality doesn’t dip back into that “dangerous” zone again this winter. Side note: Utah has some of the worst air quality in the entire country during winter. It’s really pathetic.

They have paved over the canal from Provo Canyon all the way to Thanksgiving Point and turned it into a great bike trail. Well, a lot of the trail is multi-use, but once you get up along SR-92 there are 2 trails; one for walking and one for biking. I was very impressed with the trail.

After getting to Thanksgiving Point we headed south to Utah Lake then east to Pleasant Grove and then back home. It was a great little loop. My only complaint is that there was almost no elevation change. Maybe we’ll add in a jump up through Alpine or Cedar Hills next time to keep things interesting.