Falling Back

Lately it's been harder and harder to get out on the bike. For example, this week (so far) I have done 0 rides. Hopefully that will change tomorrow as I have a nice window in which to recreate in the morning. To compensate, I've been avoiding the elevator and taking the six flights of stairs between the lowest parking level and my office on the fourth floor. In fact, some days I take the stairs down to the garage and back up to my floor each time I leave the office to use the restroom. It's not much, but better than nothing.

As far as "real" exercise is concerned, I did manage to get out on a hike Monday evening. Together with a client who was in town from Doha, Qatar, I went up the Shoreline trail on the west side of City Creek. We didn't have time to go all the way to the radio towers, and besides, the view from the overlook is better anyway (in my opinion at least, though you can't really tell from this blurry picture courtesy of my phone):



I was surprised how steep the switchback climb turned out to be. I knew it was a lung buster on two wheels, but for some reason expected it to be easier on foot. Not so, and it was cool to see the lines I normally ride from a different perspective.
We started just before 6 PM so by the time we reached the top it was already quite dark. It didn't take long on the descent to switch on our headlamps and we enjoyed the hike down in the dark. Maybe I'm just a wimp, but hiking (or biking for that matter) at night isn't something I would do alone. However, with company it's super fun and I always come away asking myself why I don't do it more often. Given that the time changes this Sunday, which means it will get dark around 5:30 PM, I'm thinking that recreating in the dark will become more and more common.