The other day I went running with my dad, except he was on his mountain bike. I found myself chasing him down, especially on the climbs when his pace slowed enough for me to catch him. As I sprinted along at a clip significantly faster than my normal pace and began to wheeze, I kept thinking to myself, “Why am I doing this? What have I got to prove?” The guy is on a bike, for crying out loud. This isn’t a race. Or is it?
Competition is not something I wanted to bring with me to the mountains. The word itself conjures up images of soccer championships, lacrosse games and all those long hours I put into my gymnastics career.
My mom put me in gymnastics when I was 10 years old because I was a chubby kid. She handed me and my thick waistline over to the coaches at Gymnastics Training Center in Simsbury, Conn., who would end up doing a much job better judging me than she ever did. For the first few years it did the trick. I loved my gymnastics friends and I was good, especially at the floor exercise and on the uneven bars where strength and power had me spinning and flipping and twirling my way into competition.
Competing meant training. I had practice every night for three to four hours with five hours of conditioning on Saturdays that included an hour of ballet. We did chin-ups, sit-ups and sprints. We had to walk around the gym on our toes to strengthen our calves. We did five rows of five back handsprings and 10 standing back-flips in a row. When I wasn’t in the gym I was on my way to a contest.
I woke up one day and wondered if I really wanted to devote my life to the off chance I might get to stand on top of the podium once or twice. I realized I probably wasn’t going to the Olympics – by 14, I was already too old to have a shot.
Did I want to win? Or did I want a boyfriend? I was in eighth grade, for crying out loud. Boys were way more important.
From that point forward, I devoted myself to not competing. Sure, I did plenty of sports (most of which seemed relatively easy by comparison) but made a point of never taking any of them too seriously. I entertained my soccer team with my signature front handspring throw-ins. I screamed and giggled down slalom courses that were more like ice rinks, bracing myself against the long, downhill slide.
In the mountains, I forged a life from that philosophy.
For me, snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, trail running and cycling are all about being outside (and about feigning off that baby fat) and having fun. The victory comes with joy, the right-time-right-place magic of a powder day or a perfect stretch of singletrack or the view from a summit on a sunny day.
But not everyone is like that.
Some people have something to prove within themselves, even without clocks or judges or teams. I understand the desire to push limits, seek challenges and overcome fears. But I want to enjoy myself, not kill myself.
My dad is one of those people. He turns everything into a contest. He counts how many days he snowboards in a season, how many runs he does in a day. Heaven forbid my mom should pass him – he’ll beeline right for her and knock her down like she’s his kid sister instead of his wife.
I keep trying to explain to my dad that snowboarding is a “recreational” sport in which winning is about the joy of a perfect turn. But he doesn’t get it. I’ve had the same experience with friends who want to race to the summit on a hike or prove how fast they can go on their mountain bikes, leaving me to ride or hike alone rather than enjoy good company and share the experience of a perfect afternoon in the mountains.
But there I was, chasing down my dad on his bike. I was sure my lungs were bleeding as I sprinted up a particularly steep section of the trail, my eyes cast downward to avoid tripping rather than savoring the incredible views of the Yampa Valley.
I decided I would confront him about this ridiculous competition thing, just as soon as I beat him to the car.
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
