Grit gets Gritty
The Routt County team loaded up the passenger van on Monday, October 3rd for a trip to experience uncharted trails on the backside of Emerald Mountain. The Routt team regularly enjoys and explores the trails on Emerald accessed from town, but no one of the team had made the 20-minute drive to Cow Creek trailhead. Anytime we gather as a team in a passenger van to head to a new trail, the excitement is palpable.
The ride started with our parking lot warmup and the The Cycle Effect team hitting the trail. The destination was Rotary Trail. This is a four mile loop trail with a pleasing and meandering climb finishing on a long and gradually flow-trail descent. Perfect for new riders!
Our team climbed the first hill with ease and we started our descent. At about mile two, our perfect fall evening turned without warning.
Hail exploded from the sky and within seconds the trails turned from dirt to slime to clay. The clay stuck to everything. Nothing was safe as shoes, wheels, chains, legs, and faces were covered with the sticky and heavy earth. Moments later, we found ourselves with nine athletes and nine bikes covered with the relentless muck the tires wouldn’t even roll. We have 1.73 miles to go.
As a coach, this was terrifying. I appeared like a duck on the surface of a pond to our participants, calm; but in reality I felt like the duck’s feet under the surface, frantic. What if we can’t make it here? What if the girls can’t push their bikes?
To my quick surprise, the participants started to laugh. They encouraged their teammates over the small climbs and helped each other with their bikes. They were covered with clay from head to toe. Each bike weighed about 75 pounds and the girls kept walking. It was hard to carry the bikes over head and attempt to keep footing on the slippery ground. The girls arrived safely to the van, exhausted.
I was certain we wouldn’t have any girls return for our next practice. However, that was not true. During the next practice, this is all the girls were able to talk about. They loved the “mud practice.”
Without TCE, our athletes would not be able to experience this type of challenge in life. A challenge that is hard to overcome but yet supervised and safe. If a 80 pound, 10 year old girl can push her bike out of a trail for 2 miles, that same girl can do anything else life tosses at her.
