I met Don Leet just a few months ago. It is an amazing feeling when you meet someone who is willing to share their knowledge, wisdom, and life experience with you.
Every chance I have to spend time with him, I learn something; something about myself, about life, about taking chances, following your passions and working hard.

Don is an owner of Sunnyside Sports, a local bike and ski shop that prides itself on excellence and succeeds in this quest.
Don loves to ride bikes, especially cyclocross bikes. He hates to run, but does it because that is the only way to get over the barricades. He is determined to ride just about everything else.
Don loves his work, his shop, his employees, his bikes and his wife. Don is passionate about just about everything he does. He makes decisions based on his heart strings, his moral compass, and those people he cares about.
Don is real, honest, blunt, and doesn’t say things to make you feel good, unless they are true. He points out your faults and then helps you to correct them.
On the handle bars of his beautifully built Independent Fabrications cyclocross bike, he has written, under his clear handbar tape, “FUN, FAST, SAFE”.

Yesterday afternoon the Sunnyside Team had skills practice. A couple of barriers made of PVC pipe strategically placed around the perimeter of Hillside Park with four silly cyclists jumping over them must have been a sight for the neighborhood dog walkers. I need a lot of skills practice. My skills are weak and the only way to improve is to practice. Having Don there to critique our mounts, dismounts, carriers and over all riding is invaluable. In fact, I have to say Don is invaluable. Period.

Yoga. Good for the mind. Good for the body.

I tend to steer away from those things in life that I am not good at. This started at a young age when my younger sister soon became a better fiddle player than I. I quit playing the fiddle and took up the saxophone. With little practice, she out did me again. So I stopped playing music all together, she was talented, I was not, so I quit. I don’t like to quit, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and a pit my stomach. So, to avoid “quitting” I learned not to start; yet another dysfunctional behavioral pattern I developed in my teenage phase.

Over the past few years, it became clear that if I was to grow as a person, I had to change this mind set. I had to try new things, branch out, discover and explore, succeed and fail. Just suck it up, the first time you do anything, you are not going to be good at it – just accept it a move on. Since embarking on this new path, I can’t say I have had no hurdles, but I can attest to success amidst the tumbles.

I learned to mountain bike, telemark ski, skate ski, took Spanish class, met new friends, moved to a new town, still attempt to let Ben teach me guitar, and starting about 1 month ago, made the commitment to practice yoga.

I have been telling myself, since the yoga craze begun about 5 years ago, that I am no good at yoga….which is true, but when you never practice something, you can’t expect to me good at it. Change that, practice and see what happens, you might be surprised. I have taken my own advice and for the past 4 weeks, I have gone to my local yoga class, a low key unlikely group of athletes, of every size, shape, age, and ability level breathing heavily below dim lights and soothing music, and I love it.

For 1 hours, 60 minutes each week, I go to another place, a place without competition, judgment, winners or losers. Some poses I can pull off with grace, others, not so graceful, but it doesn’t matter, I am there, present and improving. My body is slowly becoming more flexible and I have a new motivation to stretch on a daily basis. My mind is also becoming more agile, fluid, open to new or alternative ideas, filled with positive energy and excitement for what is to come, what new pursuits I will undertake, what wandering and day dreams might be in store, what relationships I can work to develop.

I can not guarantee my new found enthusiasm for yoga will remain, but I ask myself to continue exploring the possibility and attending yoga each Wednesday evening. I am not good at yoga, but I enjoy it. I am good at yoga, but it is good for me. I am not good at yoga, I am getting better and perhaps after few months of practice I will proudly announce, I am good at yoga.

Off Season??

For the last dozen years my sport of choice has been running. I never really have an off-season. By definition, as a runner, I run, rain or shine, winter, spring, summer and fall. Sometimes I run further, faster, or more determined, but I run, almost everyday. When I decide to do a race, I usually just do it, marathons are different and take a little more directed training, but I love to feel like I could run a half-marathon tomorrow if I decided to. Running gives me confidence in every other aspect of my life; there is no off-season in that.
All that being said, I am wrestling with the reality that cyclocross season is coming to an end. I am not accustomed to the idea of seasons. I find it strange to have a season, a specific period of time in which you partake in a specific activity. And yet, it is comforting to know that I have the whole “off season” to train and look forward to next fall, letting my addiction feaster over the long cold winter, only to emerge even stronger in the spring.

The season of racing will soon be over, but the season for riding, the season for falling deeper in love with cycling, the season to nurture the addition that has over taken me the last few months is just beginning. I fell in love with running for a number of reasons; confidence, strength, endorphins, community, the feeling of accomplishment. These feeling are all present in my love affair with my bike, but over shadowing them all is that riding bikes is just plain fun.