Tag Archives: mountain bike

To the Next Person Who Asks About My Shins

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My shins are a mess. I get it.

Last fall, I was in my high school best friend’s wedding, and before the ceremony I spent half an hour applying concealer to my legs, because, while I’m not embarrassed by my shins, it felt like the right thing to do since weddings are supposed to be about the happy couple and not “why does bridesmaid #3 look like she was recently attacked by a hippogriff.”

Outside of formal occasions, though, I don’t spend much time thinking about my scarred and battered shins because I spend a lot of time with mountain bikers so I forget that normal people actually don’t look like they’ve recently fended off a horde of machete wielding squirrels. These scars, these bumps, these bruises, the weird crunching feeling when I run my fingers up and down my shin bone — that’s just the way it is.

Using this photo in my post three weeks ago was actually the impetus for writing this one because YIKES.

But every now and then someone will bring them to my attention and it’s a little jarring. Maybe because it’s someone completely random commenting about my body (I’m looking at you, Houston TSA agent…), or maybe it’s just the look of pain and revulsion that often accompanies these encounters. Like, “does it hurt?” Last year, after racing the first Enduro World Series race of the year and crashing my face (and shins) off, I walked into a little grocery store in rural Tasmania and the teenage boy stocking milk looked at my legs and said “what happened to you? Are you okay?”

And I was like “uuuummm you mean this? I’ve just spent the last four years falling off my bike, it’s no biggie.”

Also, kind of none of your business? Also, I’m obviously fine enough to be walking in here and buying a gallon of milk, so, like, maybe back off? Also, you’re like 14? Also, maybe I’m over-reacting?

I never know how to handle these conversations. Maybe the person really is concerned about my well-being, in which case I guess I have an obligation to assure them that, no, my husband does not beat me around the shins (or anywhere else, for the record). Then again (and I think this is more likely) maybe they are just curious. Which is okay, I guess, I’m not ashamed of these legs. But what if I were? Would comments like this send me into a tailspin of self-loathing?

Ultimately, it just feels out-of-line to be fielding questions about my body from complete strangers, even if it is just my legs and even if they are a bit of a mess.

But I have to admit that all these people who ask questions about my shins have a point. It’s true — my legs are a mess. I have tan lines from being held together by Rocktape for the past three years, scars from all the times I was too stubborn to get stitches when I probably should have (but going to the ER is really inconvenient and sometimes gets in the way of dinner), smaller scars from a million run-ins with my pedals, one particularly deep dent from a MRSA infection, and at any given time usually at least one bruise from walking into a coffee table because while I might be a professional mountain biker, I am terrible at circumnavigating coffee tables.

If every scar is a story, my shins are a goddamn anthology, and you know what? I’m okay with that. I’m even kind of proud of it. So, to the next person who asks me about my shins, prepare yourself, because I’m going to tell you the whole book.

I’m going to tell you about how I picked up a MRSA infection five days before my first ever Enduro World Series race and how I had to go to the ER to get the abscess drained and how it was horrible, but I still raced anyway because I’m kind of an idiot. I’m going tell you about the time in 2014 when I crashed TWICE in the same damn corner, exactly the same way, two days apart and left brake-lever shaped bruises on my shins BOTH TIMES (see above photo). I’m going to tell you about Oklahoma in 2017 when I crashed and put a gigantic hole in my shin but didn’t notice until I took my knee pads off four hours later because, like, I guess I can’t feel my shins anymore? I didn’t get stitches for that one either because the closest ER was two hours away, so that hole, it’s still there. I’m going to tell you about all the rocks that have flown up and hit me in the shins, and all the coffee tables and bath tub edges I’ve walked into, and the time I tripped trying to get back into the van and mashed my shin on the running board. I’m going to tell you about all the other little scars of unknown origins but, well, probably I crashed my bike? I’m going to tell you about green briar and prickly pears and multi-floral rose and cholla and all the other plants that have reached up and left their mark on these legs.

I guess I’m going to tell you my whole life story, because it’s written on my legs. While I’m at it, I’ll tell you about all the other strong-ass, scarred up women I ride bikes with. “This is normal where I come from,” I’ll tell you.

So, to the next person who asks me about my shins, I hope you have time. It’s a long story and I’m going to tell you the whole damn thing, because, after all, you asked.

How I Use Mindfulness To Turn Around a Bad Bike Ride

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Real talk — when I first started mountain biking, it used to make me miserable, like, more often than not. This is because mountain biking is hard, and also because I wasn’t very confident in my own abilities, so perceived failures (OMG SOMEONE SAW ME FALL OVER) would take over my mind and ruin my ride. I wasn’t very good at intercepting these feelings, so usually when something set me off, I would spiral into a pit of doom that could take days to relieve.

Fully embracing the pit of doom.

While I am no means immune to getting grumpy on a bike ride, I can now usually (no one is perfect) turn it around, reset and enjoy the rest of my ride. And I almost never carry the negative feelings with me for days afterward. So, what changed? Well, many things, but one big change was that I started to work on mindfulness. Yes, I know it’s a buzzword and you hate me now, but it’s a buzzword for a reason. I’ve realized recently that, without consciously intending to, I now use some basic mindfulness techniques to turn around even the worst of bike rides. And you know what? It works.

Here are the two major ways I use mindfulness to turn around a bad ride:

I focus on the present moment.

When I’m having a terrible ride, it usually has nothing to do with the present, and everything to do with things that happened in the (albeit recent) past, and/or things I’m worried about happening in the (near) future. I crashed and now I’m upset about it. I’m worried that I’m going to be the last person up the hill. I’m afraid the climb will hurt my knee. I’m afraid I’m annoying the people I’m riding with by going so slow. I’m not sure I can make it the rest of the way. I’m afraid I went too hard on the first climb. Blah blah blah.

But what if I actually focused on the moment in these situations? What is actually happening to me in the present that is so terrible?

Well, nothing. Usually I’m riding my bike on a beautiful trail in a beautiful place. Sometimes I’m pushing my bike up a vertical rock face, or riding on a road for miles on end, both of which are less fun, but still, in the whole scheme of things they don’t really suck. I’m still on a bike (or at least next to one). Sometimes it’s raining, sometimes it’s cold, sometimes I’m tired, but you know what? Usually the present moment is just not so bad once you let go of past and future worries and expectations and just be.

Of course, this is terribly, terribly difficult. I don’t want to discount that. People spend years studying meditation in the hopes of accessing a few minutes of “just being.” My sister-in-law Kei (hi, Kei) has done multiple 10-day silent Vapassana meditation retreats, and she told me that by the end of 10 days she can sometimes empty her mind for 30 – 40 seconds. That’s 30 – 40 seconds out of TEN DAYS of literally doing nothing but meditating.

So yeah, when you’re having a terrible day on the bike, you’re probably not going to be able to immediately access a state of meditative nirvana. But the key point is that you can try, and while you may not empty your mind, you may find yourself no longer miserable. Focus on your breath. Focus on the trail that is immediately in front of you (not the scary features or massive climbs that are coming later). If you’re climbing, embrace and accept the suffering. Stop trying to distract yourself, and come back to your breath and your pedal stroke. We are always capable of one more rotation of the pedals — always.

And sometimes extreme suffering can be a bit of fast track to a meditative state. I’ve found myself able to access a state of empty mind (in a way that I never have been able to while actually meditating, mind you) on a few occasions while riding my bike. These are extreme occasions, and I think I’ve only gotten there out of extreme desperation. Which is to say, I had to access this state or there is no way I would have finished the race, gotten myself off the mountain before dark, or [insert dramatic scenario here]. These are the moments that I look back on and think “how the eff did I do that? how did I keep going?” The only answer is that I turned my brain off and I pedaled.

Of course, you can’t conjure up near-death circumstances every time you’re grumpy on a bike ride, but you can start by focusing on the present.

Smile, it’s not so bad!

I trust the moment.

I was reading a book of Zen wisdom recently (yes, yes, I know), and one line stuck out to me in particular: “the moment knows.” What does this mean exactly? I’m no Buddha, but I think the idea is that you should try to trust what you feel in the moment, regardless of your previous plans for this particular moment. Like, say you’re planning to broach a potentially litigious topic with your significant other at a certain time, but then when that time comes around your S/O hasn’t eaten in a while and is in a terrible mood — if you’re trusting the moment, you’ll wait. If you’re focused on your previous plans, you’ll just plow ahead and it most likely won’t go end well.

So how does this relate to being in a bad mood on the bike? Well, it’s just another way to release yourself from the burden of worrying about what is about to happen. For example, sometimes I worry that a long climb will hurt my knee. I start worrying about this at the beginning and I’m often SURE that I will not make it to the top without knee pain. But, sometimes, despite all my worrying, my knee is fine. So I’ve just wasted a lot of time worrying about something that never came to pass. If I trusted that “the moment knows” I could release myself from this cycle of useless worry. If my knee hurt, I would know, and I would do something about it. Otherwise, I don’t really need to think about it.

Another example is when I’m worrying about something that is coming later down the trail. Maybe it’s a drop that I’ve done a few times but it still sketches me out. Maybe someone warned me about some “gnarly rock thing” and now I’m waiting for it to jump out at me around the next corner. Sometimes I’ll compose action plans in my head.

“I’m going to do the thing.”
“I’m not going to do the thing. I’m just not feeling it.”
“No, I HAVE TO DO THE THING. I AM WORTHLESS IF I DO NOT DO THE THING.”
“Nope, not today, definitely not today.”
And so on.

This is a massive waste of mental energy, and it never makes me feel good about myself. Nor does it change the outcome. Usually, when I get to the “thing” in question, the moment knows. I either do it, or I don’t — all previous speculation is just background noise.

The same applies to worrying that you’ve gone out too hard, or that you won’t be able to finish the race/ride/whatever. The moment will know. If you really can’t finish (unlikely), you will deal with that in the moment. You will seek the help you need, or you will just keep pedaling. Trust the moment.

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These two techniques have saved me on multiple occasions, and I hope they can help you, too. Try them out, and let me know!

Why I’m Trying a Social Media Detox

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First of all, sorry for being so unforgivably trendy.

I mean, really, social media detoxes are all the rage on social media right now and they are unbearably, awfully twee. And, as far as I can tell, pretty ineffective, unless of course, you’re the person cashing in on the phenomena.

Like this — Look, you can pay these assholes thousands of dollars to take away your phone for three days, and also, presumably, teach you how to make flower crowns and appreciate what their website completely un-ironically terms “analog art.” But don’t worry, the price tag includes “juicing and superfood smoothies” and “clarity, vision and enhanced creativity.”

I’m not saying that spending time without your phone won’t result in enhanced creativity — it probably will. I’m just saying that you should never pay someone thousands of dollars for something you can simply achieve by powering off your feckin phone and having your s/o hide it in your least favorite pair of socks. I also find it a little ironic that one of the trendiest things to do on social media right now is to RAGE ABOUT HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS KILLING US ALL. (The second trendiest thing being raging about Instagram’s algorithm changes on Instagram, of course.)

I’m not immune to this trend, or to the so-called dark-side of social media. Here is a post I wrote for Carmichael Training systems about how social media might be ruining your bike ride. To paraphrase, IT’S KILLING US ALL. But, on another level, I truly love social media. It has given me an excellent platform to share my story. I’ve met new people with similar interests. I’ve made friends, I’ve kept up with old friends I most certainly would have lost touch with otherwise. I follow a lot of cute dogs, like this corgi who looks damn fine in goggles. And yeah, I’ve basically made a living off of it. So I have no intention of giving up social media, especially for a weekend of legos and laughter yoga.

I think my biggest problem with the concept of a “digital detox retreat” is that it’s just that, a retreat. It’s not real life. I spend enough time off the grid camping in a van to know that’s it’s not that hard to ignore your phone when you have no service, and when the alternative to scrolling mindlessly thought Twitter is sitting by the campfire enjoying a beer and then going to bed at 8pm. That is the life, no doubts about it.

But it’s not very sustainable — and my real life and my job require me to use the internet and social media, and I’m going to have to learn how to deal with that, preferably in a way that doesn’t require constant detoxing.

And for the most part, I’ve done that. I’ve developed a lot of coping mechanisms — I’ve turned off push notifications from Instgram, I deleted the facebook app from my phone, I had Macky install a variety of facebook blocking programs on my computer (once I figure out how to easily disable them, he has to find another). I unfollowed anyone who posts right-wing conspiracy theories or uses the term “fake news” unironically and also all the people who can’t distinguish between your/you’re and angle/angel or otherwise do things that irritate me in a wildly-out-of-proportion-with-the-offense kind of way. And, at long last, I’ve finally started to let go of the THIS PHOTO DIDN’T GET 500 LIKES panic and just post whatever the hell I want (within reason, of course). And while I occasionally experience a little FOMO or anxiety about what other people are doing, that has lessened significantly over the past few years, as I’ve gained more confidence in myself as a person and an athlete. That particular problem wasn’t Instagram — it was me.

No, currently, my main problem with social media is just that it’s a mindless time suck. I fill up my empty moments by scrolling through instagram. I procrastinate by finding random pseudo-intellectual articles on Facebook. I suddenly find myself reading the worst of the worst of clickbait articles — you know the ones that require you to click through 10,000 pages before you find out what happened and then inevitably the website freezes and you never find out whether or not the conjoined twins share a brain or what the iguana did that was so amazing and suddenly you break out of your trance and go WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE.

So, the problem isn’t negative emotions or thoughts, but rather lack of thoughts and emotions altogether. It’s the “micro-boredom” that Brendan Leonard from Semi-Rad talks about in this post. The more you use your phone to fill up those little moments of boredom, the more you get bored. It’s a vicious cycle, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it. My lack of intentionality, especially with the Instagram app on my phone, is pretty alarming. Sometimes I don’t even realize I picked up my phone. I stare at the same photos over and over again (since those are the only ones the new Instagram algorithm delivers to me #RAGE) without even really realizing I’ve seen them before. My brain is empty, absorbing nothing, and certainly not a poster-child for “clarity, vision and enhanced creativity.”

I don’t want to stop using social media. I just want to stop letting it seep in and fill up all those blank spaces with vapid nothing-ness.

I want to use it with purpose and intention and mindfulness. I want to be able to make decisions like “today I’m not going to look at my phone, because I want to focus on the here and now” without it being a big thing. I want to be able to step away from social media, without someone having to hide my phone in a stinky pair of socks.

The first step to doing that is to TAKE A BIG STEP BACK, because oh brother, we are in deep. Now seems like a good time to do that because A) it’s the holidays and nobody cares what random mountain bike athletes are doing at this time of year and B) I’m going to Thailand for Christmas without my bike and the hustle of trying to find daily content was going to be a pain in the ass anyway and C) I want to focus on experiencing Thailand WITHOUT my phone/work being a constant distraction and D) I’d like to go into the New Year with a healthier relationship with social media and my role as an influencer/athlete.

So I’m going dark. For at least a week. Possibly longer if I want to. This is my game, so my rules.

Of course, because I can’t leave well enough alone, I’ve scheduled a bunch of posts on my Facebook page, as well as a few blog posts. This is the first time I’ve attempted to put my blog on “autopilot” so hopefully it works out and Mailchimp doesn’t run amok with my subscriber list. Since there’s no decent way to schedule on Instagram, I’ll be de-activating the app on my phone and staying A-WAY. I’ll still be checking my email and Whats-App, just to make sure the sky isn’t falling, but other than that, NO SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ME.

Am I a little nervous that a week of no posts will tank my Instagram engagement levels to prehistoric lows? Yeah, sure, but I’m hoping this worry will evaporate when I’m sitting on a beach sipping coconut water out of an ACTUAL COCONUT. These are the things we miss out on when we’re slaves to an algorithm, people.

Have you ever tried a social media detox? Would you? Do you need it? How have you created a healthy relationship with social media?

Celebrate Your Small Wins

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Celebrate your small wins.

This is a pretty well-trodden subject in the inspiration/self-care blog world. “Set big goals, but celebrate the small wins, like getting out of bed every day and brushing your hair and not being the sort of person who clubs baby seals for fun.” Like most self-help tropes, this one makes me roll my eyes. While I understand the importance of self-care on a theoretical level (you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others), the movement’s online manifestation often comes off as a justification for spending $100 on hair product and drinking green juice instead of, like, getting shit done.

And to be honest, beneath the heavy layer of inspirational fluff on this blog, I am a pretty cynical person. I believe that some things, like getting out of bed every day and getting shitty race results and writing bad blog posts, don’t deserve to be celebrated. A big part of supposed self-care is that “as long as you’re doing your best, it’s okay” or “if all you can do on a certain day is drag yourself out of bed and do five minutes of yoga, then you have done your best.”

And look, I get it. Some days you just don’t have it. And I do believe that, at least in the context of bike racing, if you honestly give it everything you have, and you do your very best, and you’re still last, then who the f$ck cares? Celebrate that shit. But I also think that, much of the time, we aren’t really doing our best. We aren’t even close to tapping our potential. Instead, we’re using “well, I did my best” as a cop-out.

To really, truly, do the best that you can, to perform at the best of your abilities, to not be sabotaged by your mind, to not be distracted by thoughts of what you’re going to have for dinner, to be fully present — that is probably the hardest thing in the world. I can think of maybe one or two bike races where I have honestly done my best. And probably about 1000 shitty races I have explained away by saying some variation of “well, that was all I could do.”

The point of this is not to start an argument about what “doing your best” really means (that’s another post blog post entirely), but rather to demonstrate that, at the end of the day, I am really hard on myself. There is a dark side to knowing what you’re capable of — a razor-sharp awareness of when you’re not living up to that standard.

I started racing bikes with what were, one might argue, unreasonable expectations. My perspective was warped because most of my friends were professional racers and so when I achieved things that were 1/10th of what they were capable of, I didn’t celebrate these wins, I just took them as par for the course, if I noticed them at all. I can think of very few times over the past four years that I have celebrated a small win, or even a large one.

To be honest, it’s difficult for me to think of any wins at all.

Clearly, they’ve happened. In four years I’ve progressed from popping off a curb (with difficulty) to doing eight foot drops. I’ve gone from someone who was usually the slowest person at the bike park (and constantly watching for people to catch me from behind), to someone who is routinely held up by others. I’ve gone from sliding down the steepest trails at Angel Fire on my ass, to cleaning all of them on my trail bike.

And yet, despite all that, I can think of maybe three times I have stepped out of my “trying to be better” bubble and thought, wow, it’s really cool that I rode that. One of them was a few weeks ago in Angel Fire. It was a cool moment. I rode a section flawlessly that used to make cry. It was so perfect I couldn’t even find anything to kvetch about, which is a rarity. Usually, I feel like my accomplishments are more of a “day late dollar short” variety. I hit the drop in Glorieta that scared me the day AFTER the race. I rode a lot of sketchy things in Northstar but everyone else rode them better. I finally learned how to corner properly. I cleared the medium line at Valmont but my form was sketchy.

(Regarding that last one, I remember explaining to my skills coach Lee why it could be better and him saying “when you’re in a session with me, only I get to tell you when something is bad, and I’m telling you that was good, so stop thinking and do it again.” This is why coaches are great.)

Two weeks ago, Macky and I took some local 16-year-old rippers out for an informal clinic to help them hit drops safely. They’re good kids with good bike skills plus all the bravery that comes from being 16. It was cool to see them progress from pretty sketchy to perfectly controlled with just a little bit of guidance (a trajectory that arguably took me like three years). We ended the session at one of the larger drops in the area — a drop that they were extremely excited to hit and that I kind of dreaded because I had been eyeing it for over a year. Possibly you can see where this is going, but all three boys sailed off the drop with varying degrees of control and then whooped and hollered and high-fived each other and ran up to do it again, and again, and again. I hit the drop and…

Well, nothing.

No excitement, no whooping, not even a single thought given to the fact that last fall I hadn’t even thought to attempt this feature. Just a laundry list of everything that could be better… too slow, not enough pop, too rear-wheel heavy. I did it three more times and the list just got longer. I never hit it well — I felt tense and sketchy and off. I knew I could do better, I knew my fear and insecurity was making me ride it poorly and that frustrated me. At some point it dawned on my that I was missing the point — that I had finally hit this drop, finally accomplished this goal that I had written down in my goal notebook, and yet there was no joy. The moment I committed to the drop and safely landed on the ground, I revised the goal from “hitting the drop” to “hitting the drop perfectly,” gliding over the mental victory that was getting myself to commit to it in the first place. You’d think, given the extent to which my mental game has been holding me back, this would have been worth celebrating in its own right, even if I had landed straight on my face. And yet, my habits of critiquing and striving for perfection kicked in and well, all I can say is, I kind of didn’t notice that I had just achieved a goal.

I have yet to decide whether my perfectionism is what has made me a good athlete — or if it’s what has prevented me from being a great one. At times like this, I suspect it’s a little bit of both.

Here’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself — it’s okay to celebrate small wins, even if they are not perfect. It’s okay to celebrate accomplishing a goal, even if it doesn’t go down exactly like you envisioned it. It doesn’t make you less driven and it won’t make you less likely to be successful. It might even make you better. Celebrating a work in progress won’t make you less likely to achieve the finished product. Celebrating a step forward does not have to be the same as settling for mediocrity.

So, from here on out, I’m going to be celebrating my small wins. I’m going to celebrate doing the things that are hard for me, even if other people make these things look easy. I’m going to celebrate the shit out of doing my best — and when my best is out of reach, I’m going to celebrate the fact that my “bad day riding” is still light years ahead of my best from three years ago and that is reason enough to crack out the champagne.

This Is What Progression Looks Like

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A few weeks ago, I stood at the top of the infamous Graveyard section at Angel Fire Bike Park for what felt like the 100th time.

Ol’ Graveyard and I go way back. The first time I rode it was in 2013, in my first ever enduro race, when I took a wrong turn in my race run, failed to notice all the “extreme,” “experts only” and “FREERIDE” signs and bumbled halfway down it on my 120 mm xc bike. Then I walked/down-climbed the rest of the way in tears because for f&cks sake, if this was enduro, COUNT ME OUT.

Fast forward to 2015. My second attempt had several things going for it — 1) it was on purpose, 2) I had just gotten a downhill bike and 3) I was wayyyyy better at riding bikes than I had been in 2013. But still, no dice. While it was not nearly as traumatic as the first attempt I did manage to tip over at 0mph and scratch the stantions on my brand-new, sparkly DH bike so soooo much for that.

2016. I didn’t attempt Graveyard until the end of the season. Looking back, I can see that I was mentally fried. I needed the mental boost of riding a new section, of accomplishing something – ANYTHING – so I went to Graveyard, and well, maybe you can see where this is going, I failed. Over and over again. I didn’t crash but I would get to the same spot and I just wouldn’t be able to do the last committing move. I was going too slow. My brain was just refusing to let me commit. Graveyard was my barometer, my measuring stick, how I judged my progression — and by that gauge, I had failed. And because it meant so much, it was more than a failure, it was a mandate on my lack of my progress and my hopes and my dreams and kind of everything. It was a harbinger of how my off-season was going to go — a lot of standing at the top of features and crying and saying “I can’t.”

A lot happened between that failed attempt in 2016 and a few weeks ago. A rough season filled with crashes and illness and other disappointments drove all thoughts of Graveyard from my mind. It came up a few times — a friend telling me he would never ride it on a trailbike. Another friend (and a good rider) telling me he thought it was a stupid and dangerous trail. Slowly, it started to occur to me that not riding the hardest trail on the mountain, the trail that almost nobody bothers to ride, was maybe not as big of a deal as I had thought. I finished 2017 even more mentally destroyed than I had finished 2016, but then I did something different — instead of turning to the bike, and Graveyard, for confirmation that I had progressed, that I was good at riding bikes, that I wasn’t a failure, I stopped looking for that confirmation at all. I took a month away from the bike and any sort of training. I radically altered my coaching program and my plans for the off-season. I started seeing a sports psychologist. I slept a lot and I read mystery novels and I worked on our new van and I went for hikes and, basically, I stopped giving any f&cks about little 100 meter long trail called Graveyard.

In fact, I forgot it even existed until our second to last lap on closing day when I thought, hey, maybe I should go look at that trail again, because hey, why not.

And so, there I was, standing at the top of Graveyard for the 100th time, except this time I was thinking “why on earth was this ever difficult? It’s just a little pile of rocks.” And then I rode it perfectly a few times because hey, why not and then I went on with my day.

I am not a dramatically better rider now than I was a year ago. I wasn’t able to ride this trail because I acquired some new skill or did 100 push ups in the gym. I just stopped trying to force myself to progress. I stopped thinking that riding Graveyard meant anything more than riding just another run-of-the-mill rock garden.

We’ve been thinking about progression all wrong. Progression is not overcoming fear. Progression is not forcing yourself to do things that scare you. Progression is not standing at the top of a trail feature and banging your head on the ground trying to get yourself to do it. Progression is the opposite of all that. It is the total absence of fear. It is looking at a section that used to scare you and wondering “what was the problem?” It is someone asking you “what did you do on that steep, gnarly section?” and you thinking “what section?”

You can’t force this kind of progression. The harder you try to tear it out, the more elusive it will become. It’s like the creative muse in this quote from Stephan King’s On Writing:

[The muse is] a hardheaded guy who’s not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering…Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ’til noon,` or seven ’til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up.

Progression is the muse. You have to put in the work. You have to show up. And then, you have to be patient.

You can’t force progression. You can’t order the muse to show up and make it easy for you. You just have to be there, and be open — without judgement, without expectation, just OPEN. And if you can’t do that, you have to give yourself the space until you can.

Stop Pushing Boulders, Start Moving Mountains

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Photo: Noah Wetzel

You know when you read something and you’re like, “oh shit, that’s totally me”? Well, that was my reaction to this passage when I stumbled up on it during my morning reading. Immediate recognition. Yup, I’m the kid with the square pegs and the round holes. I’m the one pushing boulders up a hill. I have always struggled, especially with my athletic career, but really in general, with the fact that more effort does not always equal better outcomes. I want to be faster so I work harder, train more, log more hours on the bike. I want to be better at racing, so I do more races, because surely the problem is just lack of experience and the more the better?

And over the past few months, this habit of “more more more” has actually gotten worse (despite the fact that I’ve recognized it….). When I was forced off the bike in February due to some knee issues, I lost some really crucial training time. Instead of gradually working back into it, as soon as my knee was better I jumped right back into five hour rides prepping for the first two EWS races in New Zealand. My coach scheduled in a two hour ride — I rode for seven. When will I ever learn?

When we returned to the US, there was a massive snafu with our van being towed right before Sea Otter (you can watch our vlog about it here), all of which lost me some more valuable training time, which left me, guess what, frantically trying to make up for that by scheduling in extra workouts and “training through” the first Enduro Cup in Moab — training through being code for knowingly sabotaging my race by doing intervals two days before. Which might have been okay under other circumstances, that race not being a focus for me, but unfortunately I was already on a collision course for exhaustion. Fast forward three weeks, and I contracted a mystery virus that plagued me for two weeks and set off a bunch of mystery allergies that I’m still dealing with now.

I was pushing boulders. Pushing boulders is the opposite of “going with the flow.” Pushing boulders is all force and no right effort. Pushing boulders is exhausting and frustrating and ineffective, because you feel like you’re doing everything and yet, those damn mountains refuse to budge. I have been pushing boulders for a long time now.

It’s an interesting aspect of the human psyche — the fact that we seem to be hardwired to keep doing the same things, even when they don’t work. I see this all the time in others, although I’m usually the last to see it in myself. Change is difficult — especially real change. We’re quick to change the easy things. We try different workouts, different diets, different equipment, but when the problem is elsewhere — say, in our mindset or our lifestyle — we’re slow to address it. We simply swap one boulder for another, fill up the void with chatter and action, instead of, as Mumford suggests in the quote at the top of this page “getting silent.”

A lot of my issues over the past 18 months have stemmed from a total refusal to get silent. Overuse knee injuries, mental burnout, illness, crippling fears, incredibly stressful travel arrangements — all of these were avoidable to some extent or another, but truly fixing the situation would have meant sacrifices I didn’t want to make. Like less travel, less insane turnarounds, less expectations. These are not impossible sacrifices to make, although at certain points they certainly felt like it. As a good friend and fellow racer told me after last weekend’s race “maybe you just need to start saying no.”

It’s hard to say no to fun opportunities and races (hello, #firstworldproblems), but something I obviously need to get better about. This past week I made the decision to skip the third round of the National Enduro Series, as well as the opportunity to explore Montana and northern Idaho, two new places for me. This also meant sending Macky on a thirty hour driving mission by himself, which I still feel a little guilty about. But it was definitely some progress in the right direction.

Changing my mindset to be more in line with my goals will not be an overnight process, but I’m starting to recognize the incongruities and seeing where improvements could be made. And in the long run, I’m determined to stop pushing boulders so that one day, maybe, I can move mountains.

Ask Syd: Should MTB Coaches Have Race Experience?

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Hi Syd,

First- thank you for writing some awesome content that I find really, truly valuable! I saw your post on MTB project’s blog and literally each point I was like, “yep” “amen, sista!” “hell yes!”

I love mountain biking and I love the community that comes with it. I’ve recently been doing some more coaching/teaching for beginners/intermediate riders – and I’m planning on becoming a certified coach (to legitimize myself).

What I’m struggling with is the fact that many of the amazing women coaches I’ve met are also racers or have raced. So I immediately start to feel like I’m not worthy of coaching – because I’m not shreddin’ it in a race setting. So I guess I’d love your input on this.

Also, I should mention I’m not opposed to racing. I’ve never tried. – If I had to pick a type of race, it’d probably be Enduro. My fears aren’t necessarily performance based… I’m not a super competitive person by nature and I fear being race-focused that I might start to enjoy mountain biking less.

So if you have any tips on why and when you should try/start racing – that’d also be much appreciated.

Thanks again,

Jess

Racing (and nearly hitting a tree) in Moab. Photo: Noah Wetzel

This question from Jess came at really good time, as I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about WHY I race, and how important that really is to me. I figured I’d post my answer up as it might be helpful, interesting, or at least discussion-provoking. For the record, this is coming from my perspective as a racer, not a skills coach — so I’d be super interested in hearing from any coaches out there on whether or not you see racing (or having race experience) as essential to what you do.

Here’s my response:

Hey Jess,

Thanks for the message!

First off, I should just admit that I have a serious love/hate relationship with racing, which you probably know if you’ve read any of my blog posts. Racing has really, really pushed me as an athlete, especially in the mental arena — it’s also really broken me down and made me feel like shit about myself and made me not want to ride my bike. It’s hard to not seeing racing as a venue to “prove” yourself and I would caution you about going into racing with the idea of legitimizing yourself as a coach. This could be really frustrating — or who knows, maybe you’d do super well and it would be empowering. But it’s a risk. There are a lot of good riders out there who are, quite frankly, terrible racers (I know because I am one — I’m working on it, but still!), and not having race results doesn’t mean you can’t be an incredible coach. After all, if you’re coaching intermediate/beginner riders, most of them probably just want to feel more comfortable on the bike and be less scared and they really probably don’t need that much advice on racing.

All that said, I do think racing can be incredibly valuable and it WILL push your skill level and force you out of your comfort zone. Racing, especially enduro racing (okay, I’m biased), makes you a better all-round rider, because you’re forced to confront your weaknesses instead of just relying on your strengths. Like, if you don’t like riding in the mud, why go out on a slippery day unless you know that someday you might have to race in that and you better freaking prepare yourself? Some people have the intrinsic motivation to improve to a very high level just for the sake of improving, but in reality I think most of us will just avoid the stuff we don’t like unless we’re forced to confront it.

As for whether racing will make you enjoy mountain biking less, I think that depends a lot on how much importance you give racing (and results). For me, racing is rarely fun, and when I put too much pressure on myself to “just have fun” that is when I experience the most burnout because I’m like “omg why am I not having fun what’s wrong with me.” The more I see racing as a challenge, and something that will ultimately be very fulfilling if not exactly fun in the moment, the more I enjoy the experience as a whole, and the more I improve on the bike — which makes me love mountain biking more. That’s just what works for me, and maybe you will find racing itself fun, who knows. But if you don’t, you’re not weird or anything.

So in conclusion, I would say, yeah, you might as well try a race or two, because why not? Just go into with the mindset of “whatever I learn here will make me a better coach,” not “I have to get x result to be a good coach” because that is bound to fail, no matter how well you do. Even if you don’t get a good result or whatever, dealing with that disappointment or frustration will give you perspective to help your clients. And if you find out that you simply don’t WANT to race, that’s okay, too and probably a lot of people you will work with will feel that way too.

Of course, there will always be those people who only want to be coached by people with World Cup DH results or whatever, and frankly, those people are dumb, because just because someone can go fast doesn’t mean they can teach someone else to go fast. I have seen this firsthand — lots of fast people have bugger all idea how they do it, and good coaches can’t always put into practice what they see, but they SEE it, and they can help their clients see it, and that is about 1000x more valuable than somebody going “I dunno just don’t use ya brakes and go fast brah.”

Hope that helps and sorry for rambling!

Cheers,
Syd

Step Forward, Step Back

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Our first three weeks in Scotland felt like a dream. I was riding better than I ever have. I was hitting power numbers that I had never seen before. I was going to the gym, doing my intervals and putting in four or five hour rides on the best trails in the world. And I felt fantastic. The last time I was in Scotland, I spent most of my rides sliding down hills on my butt and trying to pretend I was not crying when I [finally] reunited with the group. This time, while I was hardly riding flawlessly, I wasn’t scared anymore.

And then the wheels started to fall off the bus. I got a cold. My knee started to hurt. I kept riding and my knee hurt more. Then finally, with five days left in our trip, I was forced to acknowledge the situation and stop riding.

Oh. This again. Seems familiar. Yes, I am definitely getting a whiff of deja-fucking-vu here.

My ability to make the same mistakes over and over again with my knee is truly remarkable. Every time, I manage to justify it to myself and rationalize it and I keep riding and hope the problem will go away. I’ve put in a lot of work over the past six months, and I’ve made a lot of progress with this injury and with my fitness, mobility and strength — this progress is thanks entirely to my coach Daniel and Dane at Revo PT and zero thanks whatsoever to my dumb ass.

So, there I was, stuck in Scotland and unable to ride my bike. FML. I realize, in the whole scheme of life hardships, this is pretty low down on the list of “bad things that can happen to a person.” I did get four weeks of amazing riding in, after all. That said, I managed to react as if I had been delivered a death sentence. I spent three days in bed, alternating sobbing about my knee with watching Samantha Bee episodes and sobbing about the fate of America. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO am i right. Basically I was the picture of resiliency and overcoming setbacks with grace. Yeah, just kidding, I was a fucking disaster.

So. Two steps forward. One step back. I know this is how it works. I get it. The path to success is not a straight-ass freeway lined with pansies. It’s a squiggly line that looks like it was drawn by a toddler, or in my case, a gerbil on methamphetamines. I get that, I really, really do. But, seriously, sweet jebuus, what does it take to catch a break around here?

Source: Demetri Martin

The worst thing about setbacks is that you don’t get to choose which ones you get. I’m decent at dealing with certain types of failure (getting rejected by a sponsor, getting last in a race, etc.), but I’m really, really bad at dealing with chronic, nagging injury. Every time my injury flares up, my patience for it, and my ability to deal with the situation is less than the time before. This particular instance seems to be shaping up to be fairly minor (fingers crossed!), but my reaction to it was worse than it’s ever been. I basically imploded into a soggy, sad wad of self pity. It was bad. So bad, in fact, that I’m only writing about it here in the hopes that the next time this happens, somewhere in my pathetic, miserable brain a voice will say “hey, maybe you shouldn’t act like such a twat, because your future self is going to put this all over the internet.”

I spent almost an entire week disengaging from this problem, feeling sorry for myself, and generally just wishing things were different. It was a stupid, cataclysmic reaction to a stupid, not-cataclysmic problem, but I’m putting things back together now, re-engaging, committing to showing up and doing what it takes to be stronger, fitter, faster.

The truth is I got a little complacent with my knee issues — I got to the point where I could ride my bike, survive long rides, train hard and do gym workouts. In the process, I kind of forgot that I still have a lot of mobility issues that aren’t going to go away on their on. It’s complicated, but basically my movement on the bike, or in the gym while I’m super focused, is pretty good — but for non-linear stuff, or even just, ya know, WALKING, I’m kind of in bad shape and have been for awhile. I told myself last May that I was going to fix all this, but really all I wanted to do was get back on my bike and race. Now, I’m forcing myself to take a longer term perspective and deal with some things BEFORE the situation gets as bad as it was last season. Hopefully. We’ll see how it goes.

The fun begins with a dry needling session at REVO in Boulder. Hurts so good.

While I really, really wish I could get six months of uninterrupted training, I am starting to accept that maybe this is just how it is, that maybe my body needs this rest, and my brain will be stronger for learning how to deal. It’s so tempting to fall into a spiral of “what if”s and “if only”s. I find myself constantly wondering how fast I would be if I hadn’t been dealing with this issue for nearly two years, what results I might have achieved if I didn’t have this problem, but these are the wrong questions — I need to start asking what I can achieve with this body, because it looks like it’s the only one I’m going to get.

Ask Syd: What Should I Expect at an EWS Race?

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Hi Syd :)

Thanks for keeping your wonderful blog. I am a rider from Egypt who has been dreaming big for years despite that I have been riding for only 4 yrs. I started racing local enduros only two years ago and tried an EWS [Enduro World Series] qualifing event last year which was not successful. The racing conditions were terrible with a thunderstorm and I think mentally I wasn’t ready for it. This year, it’s different. I have an amazing mtb coach and I’m working on skills and fitness. Doing at least 1 local race a month to get better. I live in Israel by the way which makes it easier! So the plan is to try more EWS qualifiers this year! To make things more exciting I won the EWS lottery for Madeira, Portugal in May :))

Here’s my question: I am focusing on skills, fitness, mental preparation and nutrition… but I need to believe from the bottom of my heart that I can make it in EWS Madeira? Any advice?

After blatantly disobeying Rule #2 on this list and going dust bowl swimming at 2016 EWS Round #1. Don’t be like me.

I decided to post my response to Yasmine, because I think there are a lot of people out there who are interested in trying an Enduro World Series race, or maybe just got into their first one via the lottery this year and are curious what to expect. While I don’t really consider myself to be an EWS racer, I have a raced a handful of the events and I certainly know what it feels like to be unprepared for the challenges of these races. (See here and here for tales of woe from my EWS exploits in 2015.)

Here’s my advice for taking on your first EWS race —

1. Don’t set expectations/goals for finishing in a certain position. The competition is incredibly fast and there’s really no way to know how you stack up until you try. So try to release yourself from any pressure on that front — once you’ve done at least one EWS you can set a goal of improving your position at the next one. Thinking about it any other way is just going to add extra stress. So wherever you finish, just think of it as a learning experience. Even though I’ve done 6 EWS races at this point, I still never set any goal position-wise — I just shoot to finish and stay calm, competent and upright for the entire race. I’ve been last, and I’ve been top-20. Shit happens at these races, and sometimes it’s out of your control.

2. If you are unable to ride something in practice, don’t ride it in the race. Running/sliding-on-your-butt is almost always faster than crashing. I have learned this lesson the hard way a few times. The trails change a LOT between practice and the race at an EWS, especially for the women as we race after all but the top 30 men. This means that some 400 racers shred up the trails before us. This makes everything harder, and it’s really important to remember that and not get discouraged if you are having more trouble during the race than you did in practice.

3. Accept that the pre-ride schedule might be very physically challenging and you might be tired before you even start the race. This is a hard one for me because when a race is important to me I want to show up refreshed and at my best. Unfortunately long practice days are part of EWS racing and everyone is in the same boat. Every race is different but for Chile last year we rode 30 miles both Thursday and Friday for practice, and then again Saturday and Sunday for the race. So, 60 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing before the race even started. I was EXHAUSTED. This can be demoralizing but remember, everyone is in the same situation and they’re all tired, too, even if they pretend they aren’t ;)

4. Try to keep in perspective that these races are hard AF. EWS races have been some of the hardest mountain bike events I have ever done. Actually, come to that, hardest sporting events of any sort I have ever done. Part of this is physical, with very long days out on the bike. Part of this is skills based, as sometimes the stages are as hard as world cup DH stages, but four times as long. Part of this is mental, as the whole scene is very amped up and can be stressful. So, it’s important to keep all that perspective. You will be racing against women/men who have done 7-8 of these races every year for the past three years, and some of them raced world cup DH for 10 years before that — these people will make things that are hard for you look easy. But they didn’t get to where they are overnight. Just by showing up and giving it a go, you are doing awesome. We all have to start somewhere.

Ultimately, what I tried to tell Yasmine is a lesson I wish I had learned way earlier than I did: these races are a very different experience to pretty much any other bike race, and your first attempt is not a measure of what you are capable of — it is simply a starting point. And an incredible experience racing your bike on some of the world’s best trails. So enjoy it. And remember that you’re lucky to be there.