I can offer no better excuse to why I have not posted here in a while, other than my bike has been idle way too much. Most of my summer has slipped by without all the big rides and races about which I blog. What I thought was a little mental burn out, turned out to be a bit more physical. After dragging on every ride and struggling to finish even a short ride, friends convinced me to see a doctor. I ended up having low iron levels, a drop that occurred in several months since my last blood work at my annual check up in May.
I mention this because sometime as athletes, we do not always step back and see ourselves objectively. We tend to have higher expectations for ourselves and don’t always see the whole picture. We also tend get impatient with results when training or healing. Being aware of that, I kept telling myself to be patient. After two months I was worse than when I started. I needed to be told to go to the doctor. When I look back now, I can’t believe I did no go sooner.
Taking time off the bike is not what I would have chosen, but it gave me an excuse to focus elsewhere. In addition to working on some home renovations, I was engaged in a female recruitment committee for the NJ National Interscholastic Cycling Assoc. (NICA). 2017 will be their first year and I have been tasked with creating a promotional video to try and recruit some girls.
I needed to do some soul searching and try to remember what it was like to be a girl in high school. This also happened to simultaneously be happening at the time of my 40th high school reunion, which I did not attend. When a classmate forwarded pictures from my reunion, I could not believe it was my high school class. Everyone looked old. After looking harder at myself, I realized that I looked just as old, it was just that I perceived myself as much younger than I actually was. I can honestly say that in some ways, mountain biking makes me feel younger today than I was in high school. Is mountain biking the fountain of youth? I’m not sure. I will leave that discussion for another day.
I also thought about what mountain biking adds to my life, and what would I have done if mountain biking was around when I was a teenager? As cool as it sounds to me now, I probably would have been way too wimpy to ride a mountain bike back then, but I am sure many other kids would have jumped on it and loved it. With mountain biking offering an outdoor physical activity in nature, it is an ideal activity to make available to future generations.
I have been super stoked to work side by side with some inspiring people from our mountain bike community these past few months. I don’t need to race or even be on a bike myself, to be a part of the stoke. I say this as to invite anyone else to help get kids outside and on their bikes for life. This post is dedicated to all the passionate people who take time to share this awesome sport of mountain biking with other people. It is one of the most rewarding gifts you can give to another person that can last a lifetime. Get out and ride a mountain bike and take a friend with you! Thanks Art for taking me that first time!
