Awesomeness

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of mountain bike training with two of my friends.  Both are new to the sport.  One of them had been mountain biking once before and the other one, well it was her first time.  I warned them the week prior to the bike ride that if they saw anything they didn't want to go over they could just hop off their bikes and walk.  This was to be a no pressure ride...let's just have a good time.

Well, these girls got on the course and went completely mad!  They ripped up the hills and jumped over rocks and logs.  They even took this drop/berm here:

 (Do you see how steep that drop is?  It's about a five foot, mostly vertical drop!)

They didn't think anything of it.  They didn't know they were *supposed* to walk down that hill and over that berm.

It's all good though.  I was riding behind them and when I caught up to them, I made sure to show them how to get off their bikes and walk.  Do you know what these girls did?  They encouraged me to take the drop on the next lap.

Again we went around and I panicked.  "I'm supposed to walk down all the scary parts."  These women didn't let up.  They told me to back my bike up and try again.  They said I could do this.  I took another false start.  I pointed out the fallen tree that my head might hit when I took the berm (look again at the photo).  They assured me I would not hit the tree and mentioned how they had both already done it and neither of them had hit the tree.  These ladies were just not buying any of my reasoning and common sense.  I took a deep breath and backed my bike up again.  I pedaled up to the drop and...

I DID IT!  Full of adrenaline and excitement I screamed at my friends, "YOU'RE SO AWESOME!"  They screamed back, "YOU ARE AWESOME!"  Then I screamed, "YOU ARE AWESOME!"  This round of awesomeness went on for awhile and then we collapsed in a fit of giggles because we are all just so awesome.

My vision that day was stretched beyond what I ever thought possible.  I did things that day that made my heart soar and I finally felt like a 'real' mountain biker.