A Little Mind Game Is A Terrible Thing to Waste

Standing at the top of a mountain, one foot attached to a snowboard, the second waiting to attach, I’m struck with something amazing. “I’m too old for this shit,” I think as I look down there and watch someone wipe out. Sure they get up and keep going but when I fall, it hurts. Maybe I’ve got a longer distance to fall that a child, I’ve got more padding around the assets so it shouldn’t hurt as bad, but it does. My mind and my body tell me, “we don’t want to do this, we remember all the aches and pains from last year, why do it again this year?” I look down again and like most things in my life, I have to talk myself into starting. In races, I tell myself at the starting line that I haven’t come this far in training to turn around and walk away no matter how tempting it may be. Plus I show up right before the gun goes off so there’s not so much time to THINK about what I’m getting myself into. On a snowboard it’s a little easier, the only way down is to go down. You can’t ride the lift back down, it’s down the mountain or sit up there and freeze. So I think, I could WALK down the mountain then go find the peppermint schnappes, but that same ego jumps in, “you can do this, you did it all last year, sure you sucked at it, but you did it. Now strap that foot in and go.” Most snowboarders don’t really care about strapping that foot in, but those of us just starting out get A LITTLE nervous about attaching both feet to a board with no way to get them out. So I strap in and down I go, no really, down I go. I fall down the first part of the hill on my face, the second part of the hill on my back but actually make it down. I hit the bottom, really, hit the bottom and look at the lift. “Don’t do it,” I hear that little voice in my head, “Go for it” says another voice but all my body says is “WHY?” as I head for the lift. I’m sore, I can’t turn my head to the right or lift my arms above my shoulder and I can’t show you my bruise. But my ego is still intact and I didn’t listen to that little voice and as I ride the lift again on day two, I’m determined to ride not slide down the mountain. Anything hard in life is always worth the effort once you achieve it, that feeling that is oh so sweet when you’re able to make it without wiping out is worth all the bumps and bruises on the way.