Do SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU!!

I think it is important to be a lifelong learner, yes, that is garb from teaching philosophy class, but I believe it. I realize that in Teacher's college they meant, keep learning new teaching practices, things you can safely do in classrooms without helmets, however I prefer to continue my life long education OUTSIDE!!! Lastnight, I pulled into the parking lot of Bowmont park with my new bike (a Yeti hand me down from my sister,) on the back of my jetta, ready to ride with the Calgary "Spin Sisters" for the first time! I had been nervous all day about this ride. It would be my first ride of the season (Marty and I started getting interested in biking last August, after a visit to Aim and Shane's,) and my first ride on this "new to me" bike. I had emailed Shane (our family's bike expert) to see what I should wear. Silly, i know, should be a simple thing, shorts, T-shirt, shoes. But, although it is May, it is NOT warm here in Calgary, so I had to layer up. I had now idea how the bike world layers up. Was it cooler to wear my tights over or under my padded shorts? What about the knee warmers? Did they go over or under the tights? Are ya even supposed to wear undies under those diaper type shorts??? Shane wrote back explicit dressing instructions, so when I did appear at the parking lot to meet the other riders, with my undies under the bike shorts which I wore under the tights, which also covered the leg warmers, I kinda looked like I fit in. :) There were several girls in the parking lot pushing bikes, looking excited, nervous and cold! They divided us up according to our abilities. Scooters, very beginner, Cruisers, intermediate and Rockets, the fast ones! I somehow fell into the Cruiser group, which we further divided into, high cruisers and low cruisers. Me and the rest of the low cruisers headed out on the single track trails. I had no idea we had such rustic, cliff like trails in the middle of the city. We had only been biking for about 5 minutes when we came to a screeching halt! Our leader was at the bottom of a hill and the 5 of us followers were stopped, holding our bikes, peering down a steep downhill path, that had a curve in the middle of it! What? A turn in the middle of the downhill??? We were scared! That turn, intimidated us and not one of us was brave enough to attempt going down! Our leader, after much coaxing from the bottom of the hill, pushed her bike all the way back up. She mounted her bike again and called, "it's easy, watch!!" We watched in awe as she made the swift downhill, with the curve look effortless! Eventually, one by one, we rode our bikes and our brakes all the way down the path! It was incredible though, that despite our lack of speed and the smell of burning brakes, how excited each one of us was when we hit the bottom! The rest of the two hours went much the same. Every girl in the group gaining confidence as we tackled terrain that scared the shit out of us! The ride was scary enough to make us feel alive, but not scary enough to make us cry..! I read a sign at the top of a ski hill once that said "Do something every day that scares you." I think of that sign every time I feel adrenalin rushing through my veins and it inspires me. "Do something every day that scares you," check!