Mountain Biking!

Over the last few weeks I've been really getting in to mountain biking. There's a bike park in Auckland (well, it's more the "greater Auckland area" and about a 140km round trip from home) that has around 60 or 70 trails, and I've been there every weekend for the last few. I really enjoy the combination of exercise plus the quite intense adrenaline rush of fast downhills, jumps and such, plus it's much more social than running or road cycling - probably helped by the fact that a lot more of my mates do it, probably because they look at it as "fun" rather than training or exercise.

A jump at Woodhill, from Google image search

 The trails at Woodhill forest are a great set up - they have a series of map stations with several different trails providing the routes between each. Most of the trails have jumps and/or wooden structures on them, with each rated by difficulty and usually with a bypass to avoid it if needed. The trails are mostly sand-based, which means they don't get too boggy when it's wet, although you do still get some decent mud puddles on the busier trails.

Another Woodhill shot from Google images

 I've seen small increases in my skill, and disproportionately large increases in confidence - which is great, each time I go I'm tackling harder jumps and structures, going at increasingly absurd speeds on the descents, and finding my limits (i.e. falling off) more regularly. No real injuries other than the odd scrape or bruise yet, hopefully I can keep it that way

River crossing at the Hunua Ranges mountain bike trails (Google images again)

Yesterday we went out to the mountain bike trails in the Hunua Ranges, just south of Auckland. The trails there are quite different to Woodhill - largely dirt or clay with gravel laid down, a lot tighter and narrower, not as highly maintained, no man-made structures or jumps, and generally a lot fewer trails (maybe 5 or so?). It was still great fun, it was pretty wet so we all ended up incredibly muddy and quite saturated; the river was high which meant carrying the bikes through nearly waist-deep water at times. I would say I still prefer the trails at Woodhill, but Hunua does make a nice change (and being only a 100km round trip it's moderately more convenient)

I think mountain biking is likely to become a staple of my winter training diet. Especially during bad weather, it's much more enticing than getting on my road bike to dice with cars on Auckland's roads, and I do like to get a bit battered, bruised and muddy every now and then :)

Vibram Five Fingers
I wanted to add a brief note about my VFFs. I've been steadily increasing my running in them, last week I did 3 runs of 6.5, 7 and 10.5 kms in them, and I'm really enjoying it. Last night I did the 10.5km in pouring rain and it was great fun - the lack of cushioning and increased feel underfoot really makes you feel more connected to the experience than running in normal running shoes. I now don't even think about my stride or landing in them, I just run and it all comes very naturally. My calves still get quite sore by the end of a long run, but they're fine the next day and feel fully recovered 2 days later. I think I'm going to sign up for the next race in the Xterra trail run series and do it in these.

 Song of the Day
Oops, forgot again. Keeping with my current tradition of posting a pretty diverse range of music, here's some dubstep -  one of my secret, dirty pleasures. Last night's run I was listening to a bunch of Skrillex, streamed from my laptop to my phone thanks to Audiogalaxy (awesome program), here's one of his tracks called Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites