holdin' on

I can count on two hands, and maybe one foot, how many times I wake up nervous or am nervous at some point over the course of any given year. Our Annual Meeting for work in front of 50 shareholders always raises the hair on my neck, and part of the reason I race bikes is just so that I keep myself in that scared place every month or two. It’s good for me, or I get soft and complacent. The great businessman Harvey McKay said in his book Swimming with the Sharks: “It’s better to wake up scared than content”. I don’t think I could handle nervous/scared every day, but one thing I do know……… is the elation of getting past the point of nervousness/fear – it feels reallllly good and makes me crave more.

Last night surprised me a bit. I dropped my little big girl off at soccer practice, and went with AA to go hammer singletrack for an hour – making sure to get back for her scrimmage against the U10 boys team. The singletrack was outstanding, but the game….it blew me away. I sat comfortably watching for the first 5 minutes, then found myself standing and yelling out words of encouragement, followed by that feeling of watching your favorite pro team coming down the field in the 4th quarter to possibly win the game – the team that you’ve followed since you were old enough to understand the game. These girls were up 2-1 on the boys with 3 minutes left and I thought “holy shit, these girls can WIN this!” They did. The last 3 minutes were torture, and lasted what felt like 30. Lyza had some great moments, and some frustrating moments, but she was so jacked up from the win I practically had to tie her down to her bed at 9pm to go to sleep. She crashed 2 minutes after she hit the mattress.

Back to the singletrack – we hammered along the base of Mt. Elden on a very technical trail called forces of nature. It’ll keep you honest the second you get cocky. I was leading around a corner that was hard to see with tall grasses still hiding the back side, and had to pull a back and front brake lockup surf-move sideways right into a 2 foot tall wall of rock that I had no time to get my front wheel over….fortunately coming to a complete stop before going Superman OTB. AA came up and said ‘you didn’t miss that, did you?! Gotta love your MTB buddies, they make sure you know your place in this world.

Anyway - after the game, one of the other parents told me how they are on the edge of their seat for the games, and how they lose sleep over tournaments. Its 7:17pm and Lyza hasn’t even been home since 8am to work on homework or just to get some downtime. 3 nights a week. Is this the way it’s going to be until she goes to college? Damn – time to hang on for the ride.