I’m not the best winter person…..take that back, I’m really not a freezing kind of girl. I like the warmth and the thought of being outside in sub zero temps really never was something I heard about and said “Heck yea” sign me up! LOL
That said, a seed was planted in my brain back in October. We were looking for an out of the box all girls trip and I threw out Fat Pursuit in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. None of us had ever been and it sounded like something that would be challenging to all levels while still giving us a chance to succeed. PLUS we got to go to an event which in 2020 was a gamble. I started planning, digging and called Jay. Scared and excited were definitely the two emotions that surfaced quickly….could I do it and how would that look? But scared gave me motivation to want to train and ride my bike. I had a goal for the first time in months.
I called my coach and said this is the goal….quickly followed by “I trust Jay and he says that I will be ok”. I wasn’t ready physically but I was getting there mentally. I wanted a shot at it….and wanted that shot badly.
Life has a way of throwing curve balls and this year was no exception. I was invited to the Fat Pursuit Camp with a scholarship…..YEA! But as my clumsy self would do I fell getting out of the car on ice and couldn’t move much less drive 2-3 days in a car. Plan B here we come.
Since we couldn’t get to the camp, and the event was not happening in ID because of COVID we decided to embrace Jay’s COVID Challenge. Nick and I live in the River Bluffs, it’s not the mountains or Yellowstone but we have hills, roads and snow. We threw it out on social media that we were meeting up at Yellow River State Forest and decided to just see what would happen. Happen it DID!
Yesterday was nothing short of an all day adventure that was fun! We had people from three hours away in all directions show up. Kirk truly took the adventure to heart and camped out in the Forest the night before. We laughed, talked, rode fatties and spent the day enjoying the outdoors. Heck we even had people riding fats in the snow for the first time!
Is life always what we think it should be….no. Is there always a plan that we don’t understand…..yes. I wouldn’t have traded yesterday for riding in ID. There is always something to be said for being adaptable and I am really glad that we were.
Next year, I’m going to ID and learning how to camp out in the snow. But for this year my heart is full and I was challenged…..I suspect that is the goal that Jay had all along!
Crystal Kovacs 