Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Hiking in the Adirondacks: cross-training?



Last Saturday, I went hiking in the Adirondacks - more precisely, near Keene NY, on the Nun-da-ga-o Ridge from Big Crow Mountain to Weston Mountain - in a group of 10. It was beautiful! I found myself asking why it's taken me 15 years of living in Montreal to try hiking in the 'dacks.

This is a blog about cycling, so what's the connection to hiking? Well, I thought that from all the cycling I do, I would have an easy time when it comes to hiking. What I forgot is that when you move from one sport to another, even if the two sports use "roughly" the same muscle group, there will always be some small muscle that one sport fails to use. In this case, it was the outside part of my calves, which seems to have something to do with supporting the load when stepping down (as opposed to pushing up). I guess that makes sense, because in cycling you're always working at either pressing the pedals away or pulling them up, but not with absorbing your own weight. And I suppose that's why my calves still ache, 3 days later, but only when I go down stairs.

The other little downer was that my big toes were very sore by the end of the day. (My hiking shoes are a little tight there.) When I got home and took off my shoes and socks, I saw that I had two giant blisters, one on each big toe. The swelling has gone down but the blister spots are still a bit tender.

But blisters and aching calves aside, this hike was definitely worth it! I want to do more hikes before too long.

I've posted my photos on my
Picasa pages.