It shouldn't have been so hard

Mountain biking is one of my favorite activities. I started riding when I lived on Tiger Mountain, and behind our house (literally four houses away from one trailhead) were some of the best trails in the area. Of course like everything in life, you don't enjoy something as much until it is gone. I really started riding more after my family moved from that house and I had to drive to the trailhead. But away, I have always enjoyed mountain biking.

Over the last ten years the majority of riding I have been doing has been on weekends with Bruce, a friend from work. He lives about a five minute bike ride away from another great trail system. Not as nice as Tiger Mountain, but more accessible year round, and still plenty of fun. This year we went for a ride on New Years Day and I came up with the idea that we should set a goal to ride at least one time per calendar month. We laughed about this because we tend to ride more than that, but never the less, we set the goal.

It turned out to be really difficult. When you combine travel, family activities, bad weather, etc. time can disappear really quick. Throughout the year there were months where we rode on the last weekend, even in bad weather, just to not lose the goal. At the end of March (note: only the third month of the year), when we still hadn't ridden, we considered counting February 29th, leap year day (and Bruce's B-Day) since it normally would have been March, but we didn't and went for a ride in the pouring rain instead. Another month, I actually arrived home from Brazil on a Sunday afternoon, came home only to change, grab my bike and go for a ride, because it was the last weekend of that month, and we still hadn't ridden yet. There were better months too though, were we rode three out of the four weekends, but still looking at the entire year it was not as easy as seamed when the goal was set.

Yesterday we went for our December ride. I yelled "woo-who" went we first hit the trail. We completed the goal. Twelve months, at least one ride per month. I am sure that this seems silly to some, but I felt really good about accomplishing this, not because it was a major milestone, but because it really wasn't that easy, and without the goal, I probably would have ridden a lot less this year.

Next year my goal is to summit Mount Rainier. That probably will not be easy either...