I've been a runner for the majority of my life. Aside from the wonderful mental clarity I get from a really good cardio-intensive run, I love the simplicity of the sport. No matter where I am, as long as I have my running shoes (and a fairly supportive undergarment), I can run and workout. It's a beautiful thing.
Last summer, my husband encouraged me to "diversify" my workouts. He said, "You are not getting any younger and your back is not going to put up with you marathoning year after year and neither I, nor the children, will want to live with you if you cannot workout and blah, blah, blah." (Ok he didn't really say the last part but it was implied and is probably a legitimate concern.) And after six+ months spent in a perpetual pain and running injury spiral, I begrudgingly admitted he might be right. So he got me a starter mountain bike and encouraged me to ride. I found out quite quickly that I really love climbing hills (Feel the burn baby! The burn is good!), but was absolutely terrified of riding down the same hills I had just climbed. I mean, irrationally white-knuckled-ride-the-brakes-petrified. I learned that I am most definitely an endurance junkie and not an adrenaline junkie.
I have tried to be good and get out on the bike here and there but admittedly, I still try to avoid it and rationalize the reasons why I should just run instead. Fast forward to this past weekend... Some dear friends invited my husband and I up to their beautiful home in Vail for a day spent together hanging out and mountain biking. My husband is a very good rider, so the plan was for he and his buddy to go on a hard-core 6 hour climb while my friend and I were going to go on a more mellow ride. She is also fairly new to mountain biking but is still light years ahead of me and my downhill neurosis. My friend was very encouraging and reassuring and told me we were going to do a mellow climb up to Beavercreek Resort, then take our bikes on the gondola and ride the rest of the way to the top of the mountain and bike the entire way down. Aside from my involuntary panic of riding all the way down the mountain, it was a good plan and the weather was picture perfect.
We set off on our ride and all was well. We arrived at Beavercreek and got off our bikes and navigated our way to the escalators. Beavercreek's motto is "not exactly roughing it." One of the ways they do this is by escalator, which gives their guests the luxury of not having to climb a bunch of steps with all of their gear. My friend asked me if I had ever been on an escalator with my bike before and I told her I had not. She warned me that it could be tricky and told me how to do it, and then proceeded to gracefully ride up with her bike. "Easy enough!" I thought. I pushed my bike toward the escalator and put the front wheel on first and turned it so it would rest on the step, then stepped on with the rest of the bike. For one blissful split second I thought I had successfully accomplished the Bike-on-Escalator maneuver but it quickly became apparent I had not. The front of the bike continued to ride up, but my back wheels continued to spin and pull the bike downward. Brilliantly, I tried to hold on to the front of the bike hoping it would move me and the rest of the bike up with it even though gravity (and common sense) dictated otherwise. I ended up falling down the escalator tangled in my bike. My friend was horrified. I was embarrassed beyond measure. She helped me up and I was relieved to see there were no other witnesses to my epic elevator fail. Worried, my friend said "How about we just take the stairs instead?" I gladly agreed. I wanted to get away from the scene of my most recent gracelessness as quickly as possible.
I ended up with two fairly deep gashes in my leg and some sizable bruises. Since bruises and cuts make you "legit", ordinarily I would have been proud to call them mountain biking injuries had they actually occurred ON the mountain bike and not underneath it on an escalator.
PS: After getting patched up by the Lift Operators we were able to have a very lovely remainder of our ride and an even nicer dinner that evening. All's well that ends well (provided you stay off the escalators).