Almost Perfect

At the end of each riding day, I think about what I could of done differently and what skills I could improve. The Sunday before last was an almost perfect riding day for me. The light barely peering through the darkness ending the night, I hear a few short beeps from my alarm clock and I abruptly awake. Running to my closet to throw on my many layers of riding gear, and tightly twisting my hair into braided pig tails ,we then load up the quads and head out to ride the trails of Walker Valley. This day for me I knew was going to be different, for Nick and invited several if his experienced friends along and I knew I had to ride more aggressively then I had been. The drive was a little less then an hour, but it gave me plenty of time to think of strategies. I thought to myself that "I am going to ride as hard as I can and if I tip over, Oh well." Tipping my quad over or crashing has so far been my biggest fear and has affected my riding abilities. My heart began to beat a little faster as we entered the parking lot and Nick started to unload my quad. Reaching down flipping the gas switch, turning the key and pushing in the start button, my quad was warmed up and ready to go. With my helmet strapped extra tight I set out behind five quads and three dirt bikes all Nicks friends. The first trail came up that leads to the others, it's not a difficult one, but it has a lot of twists and turns. As I make my way up to the top, I notice I am starting to lag behind as usual. I quickly began aggressively flying over tree ruts and rocks, while remaining constant speed. "Wow" I thought to myself, everyone is cheering for me and Nick was looking so impressed, so I kept it up all day even though I was scared inside. I was doing awesome, with keeping up with everyone then all of the sudden out of no where my right tire caught a rock, causing my quad to jerk to the left, rip the handle bars out of my hands and smacking me right into a tree stump. A near by voice shouted " Are you OK ?" Without hesitation I yelled back " Yeah I am OK," then I thought to myself " Am I OK?" It happened so fast I wasn't sure. I looked down and saw that the handle bars had jammed me in the ribs and my arm was momentarily stuck between my handle bars and the tree stump. Pausing for a few seconds I realized that I was going to be fine and decided to keep going. I was startled from the minor crash, but I was also relieved, for it helped me get over my fear of crashing, by reassuring me that crashing was not that bad. Soon after that my awesome day of riding continued, I even made it through a mud pit that know else did. At the end of the day everyone was complementing me on my riding and it was all I could talk about over the next week.