The evening before I embarked on my first mountain biking lesson, I decided to go for a run to calm my nerves. Racing thoughts about what lay ahead were stuck on repeat: What if I get hurt? What if I get hurt and can’t run the race I’ve been training for? What if everyone is annoyed with how bad I am? What if I get in a situation I can’t get out of?
While I ran, I put on an audiobook so the thoughts wouldn’t continue to drone on to the tune of my footsteps. I had been listening to this particular book for several days and just happened to come to the conclusion on this three mile run.
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It was Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. (I’ll admit I’m very late to the Brene Brown craze, but I’m starting to see the hype.) The book was recommended to me after I made a career change and was looking for some solace that I’d made the right decision. I did not expect I’d be applying the lessons–or find comfort as a beginner mountain biker in Brown’s words.
But then Brown said this, elaborating on a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: “There really is ‘no effort without error and shortcoming’ and there really is no triumph without vulnerability.”
And I held on to that. Repeating it to myself all weekend.
I wondered if the very confident instructor I was working with, Meagen Dennis, ever had similar insecurities starting out. Based on the stories she told during the Norco Dirt Series Skills Camp, it sounded like she picked mountain biking up quickly.
Her response was blunt when I asked: “Mountain biking is fucking scary.”
As we talked on the tailgate of her truck at the end of the long weekend she told me that fear hasn’t gone away. “I had the fear on something smaller before. I still have the fear on something bigger now,” she says. “A lot of it is a mental game. And some of us are good at letting that go and some are not. I admit, I am not good at letting things out of my head.”
Dennis uses two mental performance tools when she bikes, two tools I’m very familiar with in my forays in other sports: mindfulness and positive self-talk. I’m not sure why I was so surprised to see them show up in the world of adventure sports.
There’s More to Mindfulness
It makes sense that mindfulness can help a mountain biker navigate tricky terrain because it is a practice that calls for being present and aware of what is happening with your body, your surroundings, and in your mind.
It can be practiced out and about in everyday life, or as a designated meditation practice.
One of the pillars of mindfulness is to avoid filtering your awareness with any sort of judgment. In this sense especially, Dennis believes a more mindful approach can be beneficial for beginners–especially women. “I think women are very self-deprecating in that we don’t think we can do as well as we really can.”
During my lesson with Dennis there were times I stopped myself from trying something on the trail that was within my wheelhouse because I was picturing a bad outcome in my head. I was consciously trying to find a balance between pushing myself and giving myself grace and patience, but I felt myself coming up short.
I recently came across a term for this called “the zipper effect,” merging self-compassion and mental toughness. Research shows that the two are not only compatible, but can both be attained through mindfulness.
In the book Mindfulness and Acceptance in Sport, published in 2019, the authors dive into the importance of acceptance in a mindful practice; understanding and “making room for the full range of thoughts, feelings and sensations, that are a natural part of life and sport–not only the positive ones.”
For Sonya Looney, pro cyclist and mental performance coach, mindfulness is at the core of her practice as a coach. “You need to have a calm center. You need to know yourself and to be able to respond, instead of react to things that are happening whenever you’re out riding your bike.”
I remember Dennis explaining to us during the camp, a clear distinction between road cycling–a background many of us shared–and mountain biking: You are driving the bike, not riding it. And to be in the driver seat of the bike, you have to have that awareness.
Whisper Sweet Nothings To Yourself, AKA Positive Self-Talk
Like Dennis mentioned, self-deprecation doesn’t serve us well on the trail. If you tell yourself you can’t do it, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
“Learning how to talk to yourself, whenever you’re going after a challenge is really powerful,” says Looney.
As Looney mentioned to me, there are two types of self-talk and each has its place in mountain biking.
Type 1: Motivational self-talk. Using words of affirmation to encourage and motivate yourself. “I can do this.” “I believe in myself.” “I’ve got this.”
Type 2: Instructional self-talk. Coaching yourself through the steps you need to take to accomplish the task at hand. Looney gives this example: “If you’re going into the corner, maybe you’re saying, ‘Brake before the corner. Get low. Look around. Look to where you want to go. Lean the bike.’”
I’m brought back to one moment out on the trail with my group of fellow beginners. We were riding down a moderate hill on a doubletrack network, mapping out our lines with Dennis leading the way, talking through things as they came up. We came up to a section with a tree root that led quickly into a left turning corner.
One of the pillars of mindfulness is to avoid filtering your awareness with any sort of judgment.
The first biker behind Dennis opted to go around the root, having taken an intense fall earlier that left us all a bit shaken. I figured we’d all follow suit on going around.
It wasn’t until I heard the rider in front of myself say quite loudly to herself, “OK. I can do this,” that I had considered this was an opportunity to opt-in and put some faith in myself. After watching her go through it with ease, I followed her lead.
“You know what? I can do this, too,” I said with a bit of gusto. Those are the moments, weeks later, that have stuck with me; the mindfulness wins.
It takes a bit of courage just to say those affirmations out loud, to put those words out into the universe and not expect some sort of cosmic irony to return to you.
“Don’t take yourself too seriously,” says Looney. “It’s so easy to get fixated on expectations on where you should be or fixated on your skill level and where you’re at.”
This is supposed to be fun after all. And I have to say, even though I haven’t lost the fear like I’d hoped, it’s still fun with it there. I’ve learned it’s not about losing the fear. It’s about wielding it. It’s not, take a deep breath and let go. It’s, take a deep breath, look ahead, and go.