Ahh, the good old days. In another life (well, to be less dramatic, three years ago), my lovely adventurous friends forced me into trying wakeboarding. Being the overly confident skier I am (my parents had me skiing before I could walk) (on another note, what made me think skiing would be of any help here?), I didn't exactly think it would be much of a challenge for me. Ha ha ha. Wakeboarding, as it turns out, is a WHOLE another ballgame. What I quickly found out was that in order for me to wakeboard, I would need to learn how to stand up on the board in the first place. And I have to say, physics is not there to help you (being pulled by a force that is perpendicular to your natural trajectory sounds laborious, and it is!). But I eventually did learn. And then got addicted, and maybe even decent at it. So much so, that this was me, circa 2012 (read, not afraid of some air):
Then... Fast forward a few years of being too busy to tend to my sport, and here I was a few days ago, on a boat, hesitating. Why? I thought about that for a little while. What was I so scared of? Admittedly, there is no way to sugarcoat this - falling hurts. And when you wakeboard, there is no elegant way of tapping out. You fall. (Sometimes sports are such great metaphors for life, aren't they... :) But isn't it that falling is a part of life, but getting back up is living? I like that thought. So, I got on that wakeboard, and I fell, and I got back up, and it was great. And to my delight (truly, or otherwise I would have felt rather embarrassed), I was even able to stand up on my first try:
See that smile there? I had forgotten how much I loved this. So... Even though there was no jumping this time around (hey, give me some credit for being outside the wake!), I have a suspicion you may see a lot more images of me on a wakeboard this summer ;).
Happy beautiful and scorchingly hot Sunday!!
A few months back, a co-worker of mine convinced me to join my company's Spartan Race team. He didn't talk it up much: he mentioned it's a long-ish run with a few fun obstacles. You know, no big deal. Something someone who runs as much as me should complete more than easily (read, you don't really need to train for it). Ha ha ha.