Cycling, Camping, and Positivity

If you ask any of my past or present teammates or coaches they will probably tell you that I am a nightmare to road bike with.  If I'm not shaking and crying I'm biking by myself at the back with a never ending stream of curse words running through my head while I constantly imagine the worst case scenario.  For example:

That car on the side of the road is probably just waiting for us to bike by to kidnap us or run us over

If the wind blew me off the side of that cliff I'd probably break my legs and drown

So you can imagine that I was less than thrilled when I found out that we would be going camping for altitude training and that our sole physical activity would be cycling.  When the travel day came around I sucked it up, loaded my bike into the truck and vowed not to cry.  I also told myself I was going to try my hardest to be more positive which for me meant saying things like "At least it's not that windy today" and "Looks like there isn't much traffic" while I was really thinking "Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic" and "Oh my God that camper van is totally going to hit us, this is the end."  I think that by being (slightly, I still complained more than I should have) more positive I was able to almost trick myself into believing that everything was going to be OK and eliminate any panic attacks (although I was wearing a heart rate monitor and my heart was racing before starting the first bike).

Cycling may not be my favourite thing in the world but I have to admit that some of the sights we saw in Jasper while biking were almost as pretty as I was terrified.

Pretty mountains and glaciers and stuff

It was also refreshing to spend some time with teammates outside of the oval and to change up the training a bit.  It was less nice that it rained and that I came home with a cold (in continuation of the most unhealthy summer of my life) but all in all it was a good team bonding experience and I managed to make it through five and a half hours of cycling without shedding a single tear which is probably a personal record.  I'm going to try to take some of my newfound positivity and apply it to the slight rough patch I seem to be going through on ice because no one likes to be around the grumpy girl who might burst into tears at any moment.

My poor biking partner who had to put up with my craziness, thanks Jordan!