Our spring retreats were just the beginning of our participants’ journey with us. We’ve been sharing moments of growth, encouragement and camaraderie with each other since our retreats wrapped up. Our post-retreat support community has been pretty remarkable and we decided we can’t keep all this goodness to ourselves - we gotta share it!
Since creating space for women to tell their story is a core part of our community, today we’re thrilled to roll out our storytelling series. This is an opportunity to dive in a little deeper with our participants as they generously share their stories with each of you.
⭐ Participant Name: Erin
🏠 Home Sweet Home: Grand Junction, CO
🏕️ Retreat: April 2022
❇️ What brings you joy off the bike? Being outside with my family and dogs, studying pandemics and the science behind them.
🔥 What’s your secret recipe to being strong on the bike? Hot yoga, not drinking alcohol or caffeine and eating mainly plant based have been game changers for me!
🟠 Where were you at prior to our Retreat? Since I’m naturally risk avoidant, when I saw an obstacle (especially uphill) I was getting inside my mind and telling myself it wasn’t worth trying because there’s a decent chance that I was going to get hurt. I had a fixed mindset about my riding and was setting limits for myself by saying “I will never ride that.”
I was also nervous about meeting new people and spending 4 days straight with them!
❤️ Favorite Retreat Moments: I have so many!
✨ Listening to Leslie describe her hard moment on the trail on Friday but moving on from it and recognizing that she got her mojo back and didn't remember what the heck her problem had been.
✨ When I cleared that big rock on Horsethief and just feeling complete and total domination.
✨ Watching Kathy roll down those stairs!
✨ Listening to Jean when she spoke so eloquently about hearing us talk around the fire and getting to see your dream come true.
✨ Realizing that when I opened up and told Brooke that I wanted to ride behind her it helped her confidence.
🧠 Mindset Tools you’re using now: Visualization of the trail feature which includes playing in my mind what I will look and feel like riding it and then how it will feel to claim the prize. Power poses when I study an obstacle to find the line and get ready to ride it.
⭐ Post-Retreat Highlights: Showing up for two ladies group rides! This was a huge goal of mine and I had been intimidated to show up to one prior to our retreat. Both rides were so much fun!
Now I’m making lists of new trails to ride because they have fun and challenging features on them!
I’ve also shifted my language to call them “trail prizes” instead of features which just makes riding more fun.
➕Anything else you’d like to share? My fear of retreats has been wiped away.
I was really worried about how I was going to feel being around strangers who the only thing we had in common was wanting to ride better. But as soon as we met I could tell there were deep connections beyond biking.
We all shared a "vulnerability" of sorts in that we had decided that this was going to be our time and space to make the effort to learn from ourselves and each other. This concept of being open and vulnerable enriched the 'moments’ and made the 'memories' more powerful and bright.
📸 Natalie Starr
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