Tag Archives: mountain bike blog

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.

Six Ways to Peel a Banana (Or A Rock Garden)

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Macky’s family is a big fan of the “six ways to peel a banana” game. Meaning, if you have a problem, you get together and brainstorm six courses of action. The six usually range from ludicrously impractical (hire a troupe of circus monkeys and have THEM peel the banana for you while you stand on your head and eat an ice cream sundae) to fatalistic (don’t bother peeling the banana, we’re all going to die anyway), but somewhere in the middle there is usually a solution that makes sense to everyone. And it’s a good reminder that you have a choice — you don’t have to peel the damn banana, anyway.

While I’m not a huge fan of this game for questions such as “what should we do today” (as everyone tends to bring their own six options and it devolves into “36 ways to make this more stressful than it needs to be” which is not nearly as useful), it is a great tool for big questions, or when you hit a crossroads in life, or when you’re sitting at the top of a nasty rock garden that you’re supposed to be racing tomorrow, going “wtf…”

The truth is, no matter how bad things are, no matter how big of a rough patch you are going through, you almost always have some options. Sometimes all the options are bad except for one less-bad one, which can make it feel like not having any options, but the truth it that those options are always there. You always have a choice. And sometimes just acknowledging all the options, with no judgement, is empowering. It’s a reminder that YOU are in control and that YOU are making the choices and that YOU have agency. And feeling like you are making a conscious choice is better than feeling like you are being forced into a path, even if the outcomes are the same.

And more often than not, you will realize there IS a better option, and thinking of six ways to get through a situation will help you from automatically reverting to the easiest options, which for me are often “go around the thing” or “sit down on the side of the trail and throw a hissy fit.”

So, here’s my six ways to peel a banana, based off a rock feature I really didn’t like at a race earlier this year:

1. Don’t do the race.

This is one of those that I often dismiss right off the bat, but the truth is it IS an option. Nobody is forcing me to race at gun point. Yes I have sponsors, but they don’t follow me to the start gate with a cattle prod and they wouldn’t cut my contracts for not doing one race. And even if they would, it would still be an option.


2. Commit to going around the section and practice the go-around to try to minimize the time lost.

Go-arounds are, like, the definition of having options. If there isn’t a go around, this option would be “commit to walking/running the section, and practice that.”

3. Go around the section now, but attempt it in the race.

Certainly an option, pppppprobably not a very good one but the point of this exercise is to be non-judgemental.

4. Throw a wobbler at the top of the section, chuck bike into bushes, scream and yell.

A surprisingly common choice among pro athletes.

5. Attempt the section, but do so half-assedly.

Thus insuring that you make it look extra difficult and get a boost of sympathy from your s/o. Added bonus of proving him/her wrong when they said “I’m sure you can do it.”

6. Get out of your head, take a few deep breaths and make a damn effort.

If it doesn’t work out, eat a snack and try again. If it still doesn’t work out, review options 1-5.

The reality is that when I spend the time to think through the options, when I consider what would be the most helpful and what makes the most sense, I almost always choose Options 2 or 6. I’ve never thought “hey, I think the best course of action right now is to roll around on the ground and scream at my bike.” The trouble comes when I feel trapped, when I feel like I “have to ride this thing,” when I feel like I don’t have any options at all.

So, the next time you’re standing at the top of a feature you don’t like, thinking “I either ride this or drop dead right now,” try peeling it six ways. I promise it helps.

(OH – and in case you wondering if there actually are six ways to peel a banana, according to this Youtube video, there are nine.)

I Have One Goal for 2018

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I have one goal for 2018.

Actually I have, like, 100, because I’m a New Year’s Resolution fiend and I don’t know when to quit.

So when I say I have one goal, I mean I have one serious goal that I want to share on this platform so that you guys can hold me accountable. It’s also kind of a keystone goal. It will require making and meeting a lot of small goals, all of which will make me a better athlete, both on and off the bike. Also, if I’m able to achieve it, it will mean I put in the proper, smart work. It will mean I listened to my body. It will mean I’m a far more well-rounded athlete than I was in 2017 — which is my “big picture” goal.

But here’s the thing — I didn’t want to post about this goal on the internet. Why? Well for a few reasons. One, it’s going to sound really lame. And two, worse, I’m not sure I can do it. But I’m pretty sure that the fact that I don’t want to post about it (or tell anyone about it) is just me trying to wiggle out of commitment. So here goes.

My one goal for 2018 is to be able to run three miles without hurting my knees.

Starting the New Year in Thailand with fresh perspective

It doesn’t sound ambitious, and frankly, I wish it wasn’t — but at the moment it kind of is. I haven’t run more than two miles since I quit running competitively seven years ago (due to a series of stress fractures in my foot). I never thought I was quitting running forever, but then I also didn’t think my foot pain would take three years to subside. But in the interim I fell in love with mountain biking, and I never really looked back. I was okay with not being competitive runner. I am still okay with that.

But I’m not okay with my total inability to run. I am not okay with the fact that my knees no longer seem to be able to take any impact. I am not okay with the fact that I’ve forgotten how to jump more than six inches off the ground. I am not okay with the fact that, despite being a professional athlete, I have pretty shitty athletic foundations (especially regarding running/jumping). I am not okay with any of that. And this year — I want to change these things. Even though doing so will be hard. Maybe because it will be so hard.

After my knee flared up again in November, I got on the phone with my PT Dane and tried to explain the extent to which I have avoided high impact activities since my foot issues in 2010, and how I’ve suddenly realized how little impact my knee can actually tolerate. “Somehow,” I said, “I’m better at taking impact with my face than I am with my knees.” I was kind of joking, but also kind of not. How is it that I can crash at 30mph straight onto my head and back and somehow be fine, yet if I jump down off a three foot ledge I will probably be limping around for the next two days? It doesn’t compute.

After this conversation, we devised a plan to change up my strength training to focus more on general athleticism. Core strength, jumping, lateral movement, with the eventual goals of making my knees more resilient and able to tolerate some trail running as cross training. This will be the long path to running, and also the long path to sorting out my knee, and perhaps, the VERY LONG path to improving my game on the bike. But at this point I feel like I’ve tried all the “easy fixes” and SPOILER ALERT ALL SHORTCUTS ARE LIES. Everything good takes time, and this is especially true for athletics.

To clarify, this isn’t really about running. This is about being a better, more well-rounded athlete, but at the moment running is my biggest obstacle in that because I can’t do it at all. I still want to be the best bike athlete that I can be, but I’ve reached the conclusion that it’s not my bike skills that are holding me back. It’s literally everything else. I’ve hit a plateau as a mountain biker. To be very blunt, I burned myself out by dedicating the past four years to a relentless “everything I do must directly correlate to making me better on a bike” mentality. That hasn’t been good for me, and it was unsustainable. So now I’m focusing on the big picture. I can’t go up, so I’m going to go sideways. I’m going to try something different, and this goal fulfills my dual aims of being a better athlete and also having something concrete to work towards (“get better results at enduro races” being a terribly vague goal, not to mention one that incorporates a lot of factors beyond my control).

To be completely honest, this goal scares me, and it scares me even more to post about it on the internet. For the past four-ish years, I have assumed running was impossible for me and I still have a lot of doubts that I will be able to make it a part of my athletic routine without triggering some infuriating injury. But the truth is that at this point I can no longer afford not to try. So here we are.

I’m going to post regular updates here on how this is going, and I hope you’ll stick around and keep me accountable. And if you’re wavering about whether to tell anyone about that scary, intimidating goal you have for 2018 — well take this as a sign from the universe.

Khao Sok National Park, Thailand

My Trick for Keeping My New Year’s Resolutions

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I love New Year’s Resolutions, because #GOALS, but why are they so damn hard?

To be fair, I don’t have trouble making them — I just have trouble narrowing them down and choosing practical ones and not trying to improve everything about myself in one go. And I definitely have trouble keeping them. I love new beginnings because I am a perfectionist at heart and by the time I get to December I feel… stale. My goals are stale. I want new ones! I want to be an entirely new person, and way more perfect and less volatile and just better in all ways. I want to start over and forget all the not so great things that happened this year. New year, new me, or something like that.

But, of course, this sort of thinking is crap, because inevitably I get two hours into the new year and mess it all up right away by not being perfect, surprise, surprise. And then I have to wait another 364 days to get that blank slate permission to start over.

Basically, New Year’s Resolutions are hard because they’re kind of a stupid concept. I mean, making a list once a year is just not how real growth and progression works. You can’t will yourself into being a better human being. And the kind of change that I’m usually seeking with my New Year’s Resolutions (stop being hangry at 4pm every damn day, write a book, stretch more) – it’s not the kind of shit that happens overnight or even in one year. It’s a process. And if you treat your goals like some kind of light switches (“Today I am no longer the kind of person who needs to stare at her phone every 10 seconds!”), you’re going to fail.

I’ve been putting “stretch everyday” on my New Year’s resolution list since, I dunno, two-thousand-f*&king-nine. Except back then it was, “do yoga,” HAHA AS IF. But you know what? Now I stretch like 98% of days. That’s partially because I have to, and partially because I’ve had eight years to think up different ways to trick myself into doing it.

And partially because of a trick I figured out in 2015. You ready for this? It’s bleeping huge.

YOU DON’T NEED THE NEW YEAR TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS. YOU CAN DO IT WHENEVER YOU WANT.

In 2015, I started writing monthly goals. I call them goals, but really they are more like resolutions or tasks. They are what my therapist would call “controllables” but I feel like I have to put that word in quotes because Microsoft Word is giving it a squiggle. They are things that I can do everyday or three times a week or whatever, that will put me closer to what I want to achieve. Macky and I both do this, often together, because HEY ACCOUNTABILITY IS A THING. (Are you the kind of person who never tells anyone your resolutions? If so, stop it, this was me for years and you don’t want to be me).

Essentially, I make New Year’s Resolutions every month. They are often the same month to month, but by revising and tweaking and more importantly ACTUALLY LOOKING AT THE LIST AT LEAST ONCE every month, I’ve found that stuff actually happens. I still write yearly goals (aka New Year’s Resolutions) but the monthly goals are the soldiers on the ground. They are the ones that get shit done. They are the building blocks that go back to the yearly goals. Without this foundation, New Year’s Resolutions are essentially impossible [at least in my experience].

Another bonus to this system is that there is less pressure when you’re setting monthly goals — you don’t HAVE to do this thing, whatever it may be, for a whole year. Maybe it makes sense to focus on one aspect of your life for a few months, and then move to another, depending on the season, or just because oh btw it’s impossible to focus on everything at once. Or maybe you want to try something really ambitious for a month, just to see what happens, but you don’t want it hanging over your head allllll year as that “new year’s resolutions you didn’t do.” With a monthly reset, you may even find out that some of your resolutions were stupid, or didn’t have the effects you were hoping, and then, you get to pick new, smarter ones and make actual, real tangible progress towards your goals. And you don’t have to wait a year to do so.

Oh, and if you’re like me and you still want that blank slate new year feeling? Well, good news, you get it every month.

Photo: Noah Wetzel

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Do you keep them? If so, what’s your secret?

10 New Year’s Resolutions For Mountain Bikers

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I resolve to never ever put my bike away like this again…

Just in case you don’t already have 10,000 New Year’s Resolutions, here are 10 more.

1. Learn a totally pointless trick.

Mountain biking is not only about going fast down sweet single track. It’s also about showing off. So spend a little time learning how to do one dumb thing really, really well.

2. Stop putting your bike away dirty.

I do this all the time but I really wish I didn’t. You’re probably just like me. Let’s say goodbye to dried mud and rusty chains in 2018.

3. Do at least one day of trail work.

Help build a trail, or clear out an existing trail after a storm. It will give you a solid appreciation for the work that goes into the trails you love to ride.

4. Finally figure out what all the knobs on your suspension do.

I mean, SRSLY BIKE INDUSTRY WHY SO MANY BUTTONS.

5. Tackle the feature that has been bothering you for years.

We all have one of these. Make 2018 the year you turn that scary rock garden into “just a little pile of rocks,” or the year your nightmare drop becomes “oh, THAT little thing pssssh.”

6. Laugh when you crash.

Unless you seriously hurt yourself. Then, it’s okay to cry. But most mountain biking crashes are just embarrassing. So, try to remember to laugh at yourself. We all fall over at 0mph sometimes. It’s cool. In fact, it’s better than cool, it’s freaking hilarious.

7. Spend more time on a pump track.

Pump tracks are the bomb dot com. They improve your skills. They make you STRONG. Do enough laps in a row and you’ll get an aerobic workout, too. Plus, pump tracks are just plain fun. There is literally no downside to this resolution.

8. Get a new rider stoked on mountain biking.

Take a total beginner out for a ride. Be encouraging and patient and remind them all the time that THIS SHIT IS HARD AND NONE OF US GOT IT ON THE FIRST TIME OR EVEN THE 100 BILLIONTH. Most of all, get them stoked on bikes and trails and being outside playing bikes on trails. Build our community, one person at a time.

9. Go for a ride with your local NICA team or youth riding program.

I promise you, you will learn something, even if it’s just another reminder of how “look where you want to go, NOT at the cactus” is the most important life advice ever.

10. Start putting your phone on silent when you ride.

And leave it your pack. Or better yet, leave it at home entirely. But if you want it for emergency purposes (not a bad idea), make sure it’s not going to interrupt you a billion times with totally non-emergent bleeps and bloops. Mountain biking (and maybe just life in general) is better when you’re thinking about what you’re doing, and not about how many likes your latest Instagram post is getting.

staring into 2018 like

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?

Knee Update + Some Words for Anyone Dealing With Chronic Injuries

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Pay attention. Keep paying attention.

That has been my mantra for the past few days…

When you’re struggling, PAY ATTENTION.

We all have different coping mechanisms when faced with injuries or a bad race or basically life not working out perfectly. Some people get angry. Some get mean. Others get depressed. Still others stick their heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening. No wait, those are ostriches.

Guys, I’m an ostrich. When things go to shit, I bury my head six inches deep and keep up a resounding chorus of LA LA LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA to keep the demons at bay. And then, when I finally get over myself and decide to face up to things — retroactively, of course — I write a dramatic blog post. (Do ostriches blog?)

It’s not the worst of coping mechanisms, but it’s still pretty bad. And this strategy has already failed me a few times with my current struggle — my knee. I know, I know. You’re really tired of hearing about my left knee. Believe me, I am also tired of hearing/thinking/talking/writing about my damn left knee.

That’s why this post isn’t entirely about that — it’s also about paying attention, even (ESPECIALLY) when paying attention sucks.

This is a metaphorical photo from last year, because rainbow.

Let me tell you a little story about last winter. I was in Scotland, having basically the best time ever. I was training a lot. Going to the gym. Writing regularly. Being really diligent with just about everything in my life. And then I blew up my knee with some dastardly combination of front squats and steep Scottish fire road climbs. It was not terribly surprising, nor was it the end of the world, although it rather felt like it at the time. But here’s the worst of it — I shut down. Completely. For like three weeks.

I was really upset, sure, and in a fair bit of pain (serious tendinitis is really underrated — I would rather break bones) but that’s no excuse. I just stopped doing EVERYTHING because it was too emotionally painful to think about my goals. I felt like I was going backwards and that my life was over and blah blah blah, so I spent my days reading novels and turning my brain completely off. I stopped communicating with my coach. I stopped writing on this blog. I buried my head in the proverbial sand, which in this case looked a lot more like $40 worth of mystery novels on Kindle.

I realized recently, now that I’m dealing with my knee again, that I have no records of that time. I have a vague idea of how long it took for the acute inflammation to die down, but I don’t really know for sure, because I didn’t deem that as important information to record. But damn, it would be really helpful to know right about now.

I have come a long way since last February. The 2016-17 off-season was a difficult one for me in a lot of ways, and most of my issues originated between my ears. I’m in a better place now, and I no longer see my knee pain as a harbinger of doom. While I’m fairly frustrated on a short-term level (as it’s ruining some fun plans for this week, for example), I’m not having an existential crisis, so that’s a step in the right direction. And, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve gotten better at acknowledging when a flare is coming on and taking steps to mitigate it — so I’m cautiously optimistic that I won’t be sidelined for quite as long this time.

But, despite all that, I’m still really struggling to pay attention, to not check out. There is still a part of me that feels like if I ignore the problem that it will go away. And then there’s the fatalistic part of me that feels like acknowledging the extent to which my knee is bothering me — recording pain levels in my training journal, emailing my poor physical therapist for like the 40th time this week — is giving it too much power. I know that’s a little ridiculous, but there it is.

Here’s the problem — as athletes (and as human beings), we do ourselves a disservice when we check out the moment things aren’t going our way. I’ve been guilty of this many, many times and the irony is that that checked-outed-ness (#sorrynotsorry) usually ends up making me more unhappy than whatever the bad situation was in the first place. Because there is really nothing I hate worse than that feeling of not progressing, not growing, not caring.

Not caring is a coping mechanism — a shield for when caring is painful — but ultimately it ends up being a double whammy of negativity because, for better or for worse, I do care, and no amount of pretending otherwise will change that.

Recently, when I’ve been frustrated or sad or angry about my knee, I’ve been forcing myself to acknowledge those emotions instead of blocking out everything, and to get to the root of WHY I am feeling that way, and how I can use that as fuel, instead of an excuse to give up. In truth, there are plenty of things I can do right now that don’t involve riding but that will still contribute to making me a better athlete — and a big one is to try to use this time to figure out as much as I can about what’s going on with my injury, as frustrating and discouraging as that process is. Reminding myself that this time is not wasted, but rather, a necessary, if inconvenient, part of my growth as an athlete, has helped immensely.

So, the next time you’re struggling with an injury, try reminding yourself to pay attention. Take notes on how you’re feeling, both mentally and physically. It will help you put things into perspective — and be a helpful resource for the next time you find yourself in a similar situation. Then you’ll be able to tell yourself “hey, I always get massively grumpy on the third day of sitting around resting and doing nothing, this too shall pass.” I promise you, just knowing that will help.

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.