Stretching Limits

I've been very fortunate to have events and people in my life that push to do new things or do old things at a new, better level. If I look at snowboarding, I think of the time Frank took to what at the time felt like a bottomless dropoff on a cliff in Tahoe in the middle of a snowstorm.

"Umm....you want me to board down that?"
"Yes, you can do it. I've seen you board. You'll be fine."

We dropped in and sure enough, I made it down. Yes, I did fall a few times on the way but that was more a case of me bailing rather than committing. It was my lack confidence that caused the falls rather than lack of ability.

I had a similar experience on the board with Julie as we dropped into a mogul field. Or the time S showed me how to boogie board in 6 foot surf off Big Beach in Maui. Ok, well, that almost killed me but I now have real knowledge of my limits in rough water. An example away from sports might be the time I was once working on a DVD authoring product. Senior management wanted us to add the ability to produce Blu-ray format discs. A couple of slight problems existed though...the Blu-ray spec had yet to be finalized and oh, yeah, there was no hardware, either burners or players, to test with. We managed to do it, though. And on schedule as well. I was skeptical at first but my team proved me wrong.

In all those instances, it was something I NEVER would have attempted had someone not encouraged me. And I'm not referring to situations where you go out with an expert and they goad you into something that's way over your head. It's more that they recognize something that you don't see in yourself or you do see but still are held back by fear.

And then there's mountain biking and my friend, Cathy. I'm not sure how much she realizes how much she's responsible for improving my ability on a bike and getting me to attempt things that really, I would have considered insane two years ago.

"Let's go ride Thursday night in the woods. You'll need lights." I say ok but in my head I think, "Holy crap! I'm going to die! But then I go and realize just how much kick ass fun it is.

"Teri - ride that log/rock!" or "The line is on the left, through the dirt in the crack, then stay right." or my personal favorite, "Momentum is your friend." She's a great, patient instructor and I've really improved riding with her. And I'm still amazed that there's one bridge I can ride that she has a mental block on. ;-)

So this week, she invited me to an epic ride to be followed by an epic feast. Three to four hour ride on the bike. Ok, I think I can probably do that provided we keep the pace sane. But then the forecast calls for temps in the twentys with wind - so it feels like it's about 10 degrees. Now typically, I think I would have wussed. Resorted to the rollers or perhaps even done a cx race. But I was committed, I was going to do it and I promised not to whine.

We met at her house, did the requisite clothing check (How many layers are you wearing? Are you wearing the big or little gloves? Skull cap or balaclava? Light jacket or the winter jacket?) then headed out. I had a complete and total blast. We didn't start really feeling a bit chilled until 2 hours into the ride. About 2.5 hours in as I struggled on what seemed a little hill, I finally announced I was done (but I didn't whine!) and had enough left for the 45 min ride home. Three hours, 26 miles or so, and then a change into dry warm clothes and a well deserved feast of Big Ass Lasagne.

So thanks, Cath, for making me stretch to new limits. And now I have no excuse for not riding outside this winter. There go my warm weekend afternoons on the couch in front of the fire. ;-)