Port Angeles And Broken Bones

I'm typing this with one hand, and I've been rewriting this particular story for almost a month. At first I had entitled it "the good the bad and the ugly" and was going to be about the highs and lows of racing in Port Angeles. I rewrote that several times, but the longer I sat with it, the more it felt superficial. The good part was pretty accurate, the riding in Port Angeles was awesome, and even though I crashed and broke myself, it was one of the best racing weekends I've had yet. I was surrounded by (and riding with!!) my riding idols. Tracey, Rachel, Jill, Melissa, holy crap I even had the same time as Katrina Strand in our seeding run. The riding was ridiculously fun and this was a really affirming weekend for me. Yes, I can be as good as these girls, yes I do belong in the pro class. I'm FAST. I felt fast too. I felt smooth. I was loving my new bike. Railing corners and flying over rough roots and bumps. Thrilling.


The next parts were supposed to be the bad and the ugly. The crappiness that was breaking my hand in 2 places. But I have come to the conclusion that while yes, having a broken hand sucks, and crashing yet again in my race run was both disappointing and a little bit humiliating, the bad and the ugly have turned out to be kinda good. It's made me realize that I have a problem with my mental game, and given me the time to really work on it. Instead of taking this experience and feeling crappy about myself and getting angry and frustrated like I usually do, I've decided I need to use these 4 weeks off the bike to get started on fixing whatever keeps causing me to crash. Now that I know I'm capable of competing at this level, it must be something besides me sucking that is holding me back from performing when it counts. The weekend (before the crash) proved to me that maybe I don't suck. In fact, maybe I'm a little bit awesome in my own way. The month off the bike has given me time to work on reinforcing that thought and building my mental strength.

The other cool thing about an injury, is that I am more motivated than ever to get on my bike. I want to ride!! Trainers are boring, give me my bike back! I'm ready to come back and take the mountain biking world by storm!!

A setback s just a setup for a comeback. 1 more week. I can almost taste the dirt.