We spent the weekend in St. George, Utah with some friends. We road our bikes out along Old Highway 91 over Utah Pass and back. That’s a great ride. The climb isn’t too steep and it has a lot of flat spots that let your legs recharge before the next piece of hill is ready for climbing.

https://app.strava.com/activities/46477303

We swam in the pool and played pool games like 500, etc. We went hiking in a couple slot canyons. We even did an easter egg hunt for the kids up in Snow Canyon. But I let them talk me into doing something stupid: Mountain Biking.

I don’t really enjoy mountain biking, but I wanted to spend more time with the group, so I agreed to borrow a bike and ride the very easy Bearclaw Poppy trail. I borrowed a bike, since I don’t own a mountain bike. This is where things went wrong. Not owning a mountain bike means the bike is not my size and not close to being fit to me. The shocks were tuned for someone much smaller than me. But the worst part is that I do not have any mountain biking shoes. I didn’t have any shoes at all and chose to ride the 10 miles wearing only my flip-flops. Sure, I could have spent 20 minutes to trade out the pedals from my real bike with the pedals on the mountain bike and then I would have been able to use my real biking shoes… but I’m far too lazy for that. Instead, I decided it would be OK to ride the trail in my flip-flops.

Several people stopped me along the way (it’s a very popular trail) to tell me what a big mistake I was making. Sometimes just to make a point of calling out my stupidity to their children, but other times out of genuine concern for my well being. These people were not wrong. It really was a mistake.

As I rode along, the seat of the bike kept getting shorter and shorter until I almost couldn’t make the pedals go around because of the angle of my legs. My feet routinely slipped off the tiny clip-in pedals and hit the ground, sometimes getting run-over by the crank shaft in the process. By the end of the ride I had a few nice slices removed from the backs of my ankles and heels. The experience in no way helped convince me that mountain biking is fun or worth doing.

So now I can’t run or bike for a while. I probably can’t do much swimming (especially nothing that involves wearing fins). I can’t even put on a pair of socks without feeling pain. So I wear my flip-flops around the house, to work, to the store, etc. Hopefully my ankles and heels will feel better soon so I can do something again.