I am an Athlete, I’ve been an athlete my whole life! From t-ball and little league as a young pup, to skateboarding and rollerblading in high school, to the competitive ski bum life, to being a young professional with a semi-competitive cycling addiction, I have experienced a lot. If there is one common thread I can identify throughout all these experiences, it’s how athletics are a lifestyle, an element embedded in the fabric of being, and how all that can be easily disrupted by the dreaded injury.
Broken bones, dislocated joints, torn ligaments, strains, sprains, lacerations, illness, and near death experiences… these are all incidental to the high risk taking athlete. ...and for what? It’s all for the thrill! It's called calculated risk and assumed risk where abilities are pushed to the maximum and the consequences of those risks are never fully understood. It’s the limbo between life and death where a thrill is experienced and an experience achieved. It’s a measure of control where crisis is averted and dose of reality when it’s not. It’s the experience within the experience that the athlete lives for, purely selfish and internal!
Athletes are made and broken by injury, I know, I’ve experienced it, which is where I draw the question; what comes first, the athlete or the injury? Just as injuries are devastating, they are also opportunities to grow and become stronger than before. I know from experience that injuries always take me to my very lowest point. I also know that from injuries I rebirth a stronger, smarter, better athlete than before. It’s being down, broken, and coming from behind that inspires the naturally competitive and driven athlete to succeed and win. It's where the athlete is most comfortable, it's where the athlete thrives! Although not every competition has a podium or finish line, I know that for ever time I’ve taken my HR to 190, thrown myself off a cliff, and gotten back up better and stronger than before, it was just the athlete in me training, training for the ultimate competition... LIFE!
…now go ride your bike!
