Biking down Coyote Creek Trail

by Tom Johnson on Dec 10, 2017
categories: family • biking

It’s been far too long since I’ve made a personal entry in my family category. Like, years too long. I hope to course correct a bit more here and publish more often in this category.

I biked down the Coyote Creek trail today. Here’s the Google Maps ride route. Start at 6073 Silver Creek Valley Rd, San Jose, CA 95138, as this is a nice trailhead with free parking (or park at Hellyer park and pay, or park on nearby residential streets). Then go south along Coyote Creek trail toward Morgan Hill for 13 miles. The trail is almost entirely flat, paved, and without interruption from cross streets. At the end of the 13 miles is the Coyote Creek visitor’s center.

Here are a couple of pictures from the ride:

This ride made me realize how awesome it is to live in Santa Clara. There’s a long, protected greenbelt from south San Jose to Morgan Hill, implemented by city developers to ensure the city maintains a green, park-rich, environmentally beautiful area rather than just an ever-expanding urban sprawl. There’s so many natural resources within 20-30 minutes from our home, and I don’t often visit them out of both ignorance and laziness.

I’m biking again more because I can’t seem to shake a recurring calf strain, which I get every time I play basketball. After 4-5 pulled calf muscles across about a 5 month period, I decided I need to fully rest the muscle, probably at least 3-4 months. I probably have a lot of scar tissue with the muscle that makes it easier to tear.

As much as I love basketball, cycling isn’t a bad second sport. Cycling has some benefits that make it better than basketball in some ways. Cycling is low-impact, so you don’t wear out your knees or place other wear and tear on your body. You can listen to audio books while cycling, so you can build both your mind and body at the same time. Cycling includes a component of adventure and outdoors, so you get to see new areas and take in the beauty of the environment.

I’ve also been practicing softball with Lucy. Lucy will play in the Palgal (Police Activity League) league this year — her first time playing softball in any league. We bought a new bat and mitt today, and I pitched her lots of balls. She loves to bat. I need to develop my windmill fast-pitch throw for her to practice, but she already has pretty good reaction and swing. She is working on catching the ball better. She tends to try to catch underhanded, even when the ball is high. But she’s coordinated and learns quickly. I had a lot of fun playing soccer with Molly, and I think Lucy feels that her experience with a sport will be similar. I played a lot of sports as a kid, and I can’t imagine a life without a similar immersion in sports growing up.

Shannon has been working heads-down on her essay on Kierkegaard and Joseph Smith. It’s a 15 page paper for her class. Her Stanford program has really been a good fit for her, and she seems to gravitate toward the philosophical topics. I too find myself more and more interested in philosophy. I’m currently listening to The Great Ideas of Philosophy and loving it. Previous to this book, I listened to spy genre fiction that isn’t worth much other than immediate entertainment. In some ways, by listening to this genre, I feel like I’ve been in a long mental slumber for the past few years. Listening to philosophy makes me feel alive.

I’d like to focus more of my blog posts on more idea-driven topics — still related to tech comm, because that’s what I know best, but with more creativity and imagination.