I’m doing a new thing! I’m shifting my focus to mountain biking, now that my “rim to rim” hike is done and to that end, I registered for a mountain bike clinic! I’ve never taken a mountain bike clinic before and it seemed like a good time to do one, given what little there is to do this past year (thanks for nothing, global pandemic).

The clinic I’m taking is part of the “Slaydies” series through Adrenaline Coaching. Each series includes 4 classes; my series is the November one and meets each Tuesday afternoon for 2 hours at South Mountain. Class sizes are limited to 5 ladies. The first session was on Election Day and I was very glad to have the distraction! We focused on the correct position for descending (i.e. “active stance,” or “get as low as you can on the bike”) as well as braking on descents.

One of the best things about taking a clinic is getting feedback from a totally objective third-party, i.e. someone other than my SAT (self-appointed trainer/husband). For whatever reason, hearing my SAT tell me to “get lower” when I go down descents doesn’t seem to resonate as much with me compared to when Stefanie (clinic coach) tells me the same thing (maybe because Stefanie doesn’t live with me?).

In addition to verbal feedback, Stefanie assigned us “homework” based on her observations of our current skill level. My takeaways from week 1 are to practice getting as low as I can on the bike while going downhill. Here’s a picture showing what my body position looked like during my first attempt going down a chunky descent vs. the last attempt (we had 4-5 attempts):

I have a ways to go before I would consider my active stance “low enough.” 😉

At the end of the class, we had a quick debriefing session over sparkling water (thanks, Stefanie!) and mini banana muffins (thanks, Lauren!) during which we all shared what we learned.

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Before writing this blog post, I went for a ride to practice my active descending stance. I can tell that I was much more aware of my body position and could tell when I wasn’t as low in my stance vs. when I was low (or, what I consider “low” for now because I’m still trying to make the low stance second nature). Hooray for getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things!