Sunday, February 20, 2011

Two days at Salem Creek Trail

I am so thankful for the nice weather.  I was able to get out both Saturday AND Sunday on Salem Creek Trail.  Very good friends came out on Friday night and after my Biol010 class on Saturday we all went for a bike ride on the trail.  We started from the Salem College parking lot and did about 14 miles.  The weather was nice, warm in the sun; chilly in the shade.

One neat thing is who we ran into on the trail.  First Chris (our friend from Asheville) recognized his high school physics professor.  This was the woman who's class inspired him to study physics and go on to get his master's degree in the subject.  After she passed he realized who had just passed him and decided to go "chase" her down to tell her about how her class changed his life.  How many of these people are there really?  We decided that of course she would be happy to hear this.  As a teacher it is always nice to hear about student success stories and how you might have influenced someone in a positive way.

Then we were passed by Charles, owner of Mock Orange Bikes.  I believe MOB is the local bike shop that helped Salem acquire the bikes they have for students.  Nick caught up to him and we proceeded to have a 5 strong bike brigade on the ride back to Salem. 

Half way thru the trail we are at the far end of Salem Lake and there is a small parking lot for bikers/walker/joggers to park.  For all those attendees at the Greenway trail public meetings who ask "Do people even use the greenways that are in existence?".... YES!  This parking lot was packed...people had even double parked others into spots and what is not shown is the large number of cars along this road. 

Today it was a little colder and I was a little sore so I took it easy and only did the paved part of the trail and did not go around Salem Lake.  I think this reduced my ride to less than 10 miles but it was still fun and I feel a bit of accomplishment for going on two good rides two days in a row.  I have promised myself to actually return to my spin classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and hopefully I can start riding again after class on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.  I have also promised myself to take control of my nutrition starting tomorrow, since I know I am intolerant to both wheat and dairy, I need to stop eating these things.

That is a nice transition into class tomorrow.  Mathew Gymer from Novant Health will be out to talk to the class about the health aspects of biking and how to get the most out of our biking experience this semester.  I am pretty excited for class tomorrow.

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