Monday, February 9, 2009

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

One thing that needs to be done after a period of inactivity in any sport is mentally and physically prepping yourself to go full swing again. With running it would be talking walks interspersed with stints of running. For soccer it would be a few hours kicking the ball around and doing some practice drills with some friends. With motorcycling it can include parking lot practice to get some of the kinks worked out or taking some short rides on sedate and lightly traveled roads.

Now, short ride has a different definition for each rider. For some it would be a few minutes riding around the neighborhood, others would go meet some friends for dinner at a local restaurant, for my wife and I it meant riding down to the International Horse Park in Conyers and swinging by her barn so I could see where she rides horses. There and back could be a simple 40 mile loop, done in about an hour. Somehow we turned it into 60 miles and about two and a half hours.

We had started out going to a parking lot close to us to warm up, but we both were feeling a little uneasy with our practice and decided to just start out and go slowly. We could always turn around and go home if things felt out of whack. Turns out what we needed to feel comfortable again was to get out and just ride. Sometimes, the mental preparation you need is just going out and reminding yourself you can do it, after all.

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