Last weekend, after 3 days of mountain biking, I discovered to secret to fun and sanity (and lack of tears). It is this: more riding, less racing.
Friday The Boy and I went to Hardwood to pre-ride the Canada Cup course. To say it did not go well would be an understatement. See, I get it all in my head that if it is in my race, I should be able to ride it. And then if it scares me or I don't think I can ride it, I put all kinds of pressure on myself and get frustrated that I can't/don't want to ride a particular feature. This sometimes results in tears, much to the surprise of The Boy (really, he should talk to DD about that... Friday was not the first, and will likely not be the last time, I cry during a pre-ride.).
So, mountain biking lovey feelings lagging a wee bit, I was not too sure how I felt about the rest of the weekend - two days of riding at Buckwallow, one of the more technical places in the area.
As it turned out, I had nothing to fear - those two days were awesome! I didn't ride everything, but I did challenge myself and learned to ride a few things that I distinctly recall scaring the crap out of when I raced there last year. The best part was that I didn't put any silly pressure on myself to ride everything, so I was relaxed and able to ride and learn stuff, and I didn't cry once. Not even on Sunday, when I clipped a tree and fell over and scraped my leg.
So let's review - riding is fun when there's no pressure. And I'm not thinking "oh crap I need to race on this, I must be able to ride this". And riding is less fun when there is pressure, which can also result in tears. So let's say it again: more riding, less racing.
(I'm really repeating it here to try and drill it into my own head... since I seem to have a hard time passing up on an opportunity to race, so I'm not sure how well I'll actually follow through on that 'more riding, less racing' thing.)
Pre-riding Hardwood again on Saturday to try and conquer a few more bits of that course, and then racing on Sunday. See, I'm already doing a poor job of racing less and riding more!
2 comments:
I hear ya - I'm definitely moving into the more riding, less racing direction meself. Just enjoy it better.
"Events" are still okay, but "races" just seem less fun. I hope the C-Cup went well!
i just wrote a whole post centered around the 2nd line of this post. and i also had a long talk with a girl in your cat about this "See, I get it all in my head that if it is in my race, I should be able to ride it."
it seems like we're all on (almost) the same page
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