I took Mandy to pre-ride The Canyons race course today. Let me preface this with I had a mild migraine when we left, was waiting for my medication to work, and was not feeling my best. When we got to the course we rode up the little paved hill, and I was very surprised to see Mandy scoot right up the hill. At the top she announced she did it in 2 and 1! Wow! I have become used to her walking hills and was very happy to see her make it up without any problems. I thought this was a good sign of how the pre-ride was going to go.
We got to the top of the hill, I zeroed out my computer and we started to ride the race. Now for those of you who have ridden the race course you know that the half lap has some descent climbing. As we started Mandy did pretty good, but it did not last for long, and soon she wanted to get off her bike and walk. It was not too steep, but Mandy was tired and it was hurting. I offered her words of encouragement, and this is where everything went wrong.
Mandy did not appreciate the encouragement or the "you can make it to the dip right up in the road". She became belligerent or may I say very independent minded and out right refused to ride. Now normally this would not be a problem, but it was 7:30 and the sun was going down and we had just started riding the course! I told her she needed to get on her bike or walk her bike, but we needed to go. She then informed me I could not make her go. Again I told her to go, and again she outright refused, but this time with some back talk involved. I don't know how it happened, but I actually remained fairly calm and told her no she had the choice to go or not to go, but there would be consequences if she did not follow my instructions. I then laid out the consequences for her choices. And to leave out a lot of detail let's just say by 1.29 miles Mandy had lost having hot cocoa at Starbuck, the allowance I owed her from the past 3 weeks and all of August's allowance. Goodness this girl is very strong willed! Luckily Mandy's strong will is also, what drives her to finish all of her mountain bike rides despite struggling towards the end of the season.
About mile 2 things started to get better for Mandy, and with that her willingness to cooperate changed. The frustration of climbing left and she was much more willing to learn how to let others pass and what to expect on the ride. Of course by this time I had decided she was not going to race Saturday. I definitely was not going to pay for someone to race when they did not like mountain biking.
Around mile 2.5 the course starts to go downhill and things got much better for Mandy. At this point she was very attentive. We went down and I had her follow me so she could match my lines and make sure she was safe on the course. We rode and I would describe what she could expect at various parts of the course, how she should ride it and the best line to take. She did great, and listened very well except for once. There is one part on the course you make a right hand turn and you are going down a bunch of rocks. I stopped Mandy and told her she needed to walk this part and then I rode down it. As I rode down she said "I thought we were walking this", and I told her she was walking it, but I was going to ride it. I stopped at the bottom and turned around to wait, and low and behold Mandy is coming down very carefully riding her bike! I can't say I was upset, because I wasn't I was actually proud to see her ride it so well. We continued down the hill to the bottom of the course, and by the time we got to the bottom Mandy had a big smile on her face and was loving the course.
I am glad she was happy by the end of the course, but I am still not convinced she should race Saturday. It took her an hour and thirty minutes to ride the course, and when we met some friends of hers that are in her division at the bottom of the course and I mentioned to their dad how long it took us to do the course, she was very embarrassed. We headed to the car, and Mandy told me how much fun she had going down hill on the course, and she wished she did not have to go up hill. Of course I explained that in order to go down she must go up. We had a good talk, Mandy apologized for her behavior and asked to please race on Saturday. We talked for quite a bit. I told her racing was supposed to be fun and if she wasn't having fun then I did not want her to race. I told her if she raced she had to race with it being okay to come in last, to have everyone pass her and possibly to lose her overall 3rd place division. At first we she wanted to race, but we went over everything again and I told her to think about it and get back to me tomorrow. So right now it may or may not be the end of the race season for Mandy.... I guess we'll find out tomorrow.
1 comment:
I go through a similar thing with Erich. It makes me crazy. He is very strong willed and worst of all much faster than me. So he will sometimes say "I am out of here I am going home" and then ride off. The last time I threaned to take away allowance, any form of fun and just about everything I could think of. Susan thinks this is the wrong thing to do but I feel like a 15 year old should be more responsible for the plans that have been made. I am glad to hear Mandy had fun at the end of the ride. Not racing may be the best thing. Though she should still probably come to the race to see how her friends do and the fun that they had. Or I could be totaly worng. I am about 50/50 on parenting.
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