I thought I'd share my experiances after last night's ride and see if any of the other Mud Hunnies have had similar enightenments.
I'm 32 and have been riding XC for 8 years and racing for 3 and last year I started racing DH. After moving up the ranks into the very competative sport women class 2 years ago I determined that I'm just not built for racing XC. Yes I can ride anything technical and am a good technical short/steep climber but when it comes to racing and training no matter how good my skills are my body just hates riding long distances or sustained climbing. By October I was just getting burned out from trying to ride too much and just not having enough fun.
After doing so well with DH last year I made the decision not to race XC (or train) this year and focus on DH and having fun on my XC rides again.
This is the second year I've been organizing and leading Tuesday night women's rides. Last year I always led the medium paced group of mostly sport paced women because I knew that I needed to get in a decent ride for training purposes. This year since my attitude has changed I have been leading the beginner/first timers rides every Tuesday and letting some of the other women take on the faster groups. Well I can't tell you how much satisfaction this has given me.
This past Tuesday one of the women who's been showing up every Tuesday(and raced on Sunday only to get lost and DNF) asked me to give her a private lesson. We went out last night and rode the course and I had a blast. I think I learned just as much as she did while trying to explain gearing/climbing/obstacles and bike maintenance. The first thing I had to do was let 20 psi out of her tires!!
It's like the pressure is off this year and I'm free just to have fun and not focus on how much mileage I'm getting in or how fast my pace is. Granted my cardio for DH is probably suffering but I'm willing to deal with that in order to have fun again and help out beginners.
Saturday is my first DH trip of the season and Sunday is the first weekend Ride Like a Girl. So I'm getting to enjoy both of my passions in one weekend!
Sorry for the long post but thanks for listening Mudhunnies!!
I'm 32 and have been riding XC for 8 years and racing for 3 and last year I started racing DH. After moving up the ranks into the very competative sport women class 2 years ago I determined that I'm just not built for racing XC. Yes I can ride anything technical and am a good technical short/steep climber but when it comes to racing and training no matter how good my skills are my body just hates riding long distances or sustained climbing. By October I was just getting burned out from trying to ride too much and just not having enough fun.
After doing so well with DH last year I made the decision not to race XC (or train) this year and focus on DH and having fun on my XC rides again.
This is the second year I've been organizing and leading Tuesday night women's rides. Last year I always led the medium paced group of mostly sport paced women because I knew that I needed to get in a decent ride for training purposes. This year since my attitude has changed I have been leading the beginner/first timers rides every Tuesday and letting some of the other women take on the faster groups. Well I can't tell you how much satisfaction this has given me.
This past Tuesday one of the women who's been showing up every Tuesday(and raced on Sunday only to get lost and DNF) asked me to give her a private lesson. We went out last night and rode the course and I had a blast. I think I learned just as much as she did while trying to explain gearing/climbing/obstacles and bike maintenance. The first thing I had to do was let 20 psi out of her tires!!
It's like the pressure is off this year and I'm free just to have fun and not focus on how much mileage I'm getting in or how fast my pace is. Granted my cardio for DH is probably suffering but I'm willing to deal with that in order to have fun again and help out beginners.
Saturday is my first DH trip of the season and Sunday is the first weekend Ride Like a Girl. So I'm getting to enjoy both of my passions in one weekend!
Sorry for the long post but thanks for listening Mudhunnies!!