A Bit (lot) of Pride

Isn't pride one of the seven deadly sins? I swear it is, but my religious knowledge isn't exactly up to snuff as I essentially got kicked out of bible school when I was younger. Yeah, that's right, I got kicked out of church school and for what? Because I had swim meets to attend which clashed with my "religious edumacation" and they didn't like that. "Mr. and Mrs. Knapp," read the letter, "your daughter has missed X number of classes in the past 3 months. If she misses another one, she will no longer be allowed to attend our religious education program." It was a real tough decision, but as I dove into the water on my first race that weekend, all I could think of was...well, nothing to do with bible school. And it's been that way ever since. My pride got me kicked out of church school. How appropriate.

And since then, my pride has taken me elsewhere...to places both good and bad. But today, I am happy to say, I have found that bit of pride that I thought I had lost when my swimming career ended...or rather when my swimming career took it's downward turn into the oblivion of defunct athletic careers. Today, totally on my own, I completed a three hour, hill-laden ride that would have put me into an early grave only a week ago. It started with Hackethorn (forgive my spelling) which begins at a decently steep incline (I realized just how steep the hill actually is when I came down it later on). After 10-15 minutes of climbing (I should have timed myself but I didn't) it meshes into Dyers Pass which continues to climb steadily (with small bursts of steep increments littered throughout) until it reaches the intersection where the restaurant dubbed "The Sign of the Kiwi" sits near. Upon reaching the top one has three choices...to take the left and continue on up a rather steep incline. This road eventually connects with Summit Road (which I mentioned in an earlier entry). Or, one could take the right and continue on up a slight incline to tackle the "Long Bays" route; nearly 80k or so of hills that leads one down into Littleton. The final option was to go straight and begin the quick descent down towards Littleton, skipping the lenghthy process of going all along the top of the entire Port Hills "mountain" range. By coach's orders I opted for the straight route in order to stay nearer civilization (if I got a flat doing Long Bays I would be screwed).

So I let myself fly down into town and during my descent wind up behind another woman going EXTREMELY slow down the hill. Although my ability to bomb down hills is improving each day, I still do not have the guts to pass someone on a winding road, so I slow up and wait until a safer bit of road to pass her. I find myself surprisingly understanding, however, since I know what it's like to fear the uncontrolable sensation it is to speed down a hill. I continue on, encountering small bits of rolling hills and tackle them like they were made by ants. Entering Littleton I find my way to Sumner Road (or whatever it's called). And, after nearly colliding with some absurdly oblivious tourists who must have had some weird radioactive attraction to me or my bike or both (funny how when people look directly at you coming towards them on a bike, they just stop and stare like a deer in headlights), I began my climb up the back side of the Port Hills. Now, for the record, this climb was nothing short of brutal the last time I did it--reason being: because we had done long bays. Regardless, I trounced this hill and upon reaching the top (the same intersection where I experienced the Blue Van morons only days earlier) I found myself masochistically ready to turn left and continue on up Summit Road.

Ride up Summit is kind of like taking a hot bath, only not. I say this because, it starts out somewhat painful...the water is always a bit too hot to jump right into...but Summit is always a bit painful because of the hills the preceed it. However, once one gets used to it, it's really quite pleasant. The scenary is beautiful, the road is nice and gradual and there is just enough breeze to keep one cool. Continuing on up Summit, minus the fat tourists, I find myself faced with another decision.

Craig had told me that if I felt too exhausted to continue that I could just come down Mt. Pleasant and do some workout on the flats. I'm a girl who likes a challenge and rare is the occasion that I will choose the less difficult option. So because I felt good (and knew I'd feel even better if I continued climbing) I chose to bypass the Mountain of Pleasantry and continue rocking up Summit. Now somewhere in here I expect that Summit changes to another road...where it happens I don't know. I do know that there were some pretty tough climbs along the way, considering that I had been climbing for probably an hour and a bit already that day. Turning up my iPod, I lowered my head to the wind and managed to climb every bit of hill in my second chain ring. For the first time in ages I gritted my teeth, sneered at the challenge and thought of the devastation I could place on an opponent when the time came for me to race. Could it be? Was I blood thirsty again? It's about damn time.

So continuing along this road eventually takes one back to "The Sign of the Kiwi" (don't you just hear some god-like voice from the heavens saying that? "THE SIGN OF THE KIWI" dun, dun, dun. Ok, nevermind. But then I got to bomb down Dyers. Here I worked a bit on leaning into the turns and forced myself to refrain from fearing the whole 'downhill' thang. If I want to be good, I've got to be able to go down the hills as well as I can go up them. When Dyers turned back to Hackethorn (or whatever it's called) I finally realized how steep that road truly is. I was catching up to cars and riding on their bumpers (probably a dumb idea bc if they stopped I would have most likely died) but man, it's a DOOOOZY.

The rest of the ride consisted of an hour of flats, hard-out if at all possible and then coming home to collapse (for like five minutes before I had to go out and lifeguard a private pool party).

What does this all have to do with the deadly sin of pride? Well that's just it....I'm damn proud of myself. I have not felt this confident, this strong, this happy on my bike yet. And I'm not ashamed to say that I'm proud. So, to all the church people out there, let me put it mildly: Thank you for kicking me out of church school so many years ago. In doing so, you've allowed me to become proud, stay proud and enjoy everything that's involved with it. I only hope you can help other athletes by kicking them out of church school for pursuing their passions at an early age.

Hope you all enjoyed this rambling tale of bikes, pride, and how I think church school is dumb.

-NMK