I’ve heard this a zillion times and guess what? I still fear.  I’m one of those people whose base level is one of anxiety with little voices in my head that say “no”, “be careful”, “you can’t.”  I don’t argue with them anymore; I accept that I seem to be constitutionally built to fear, and then I turn around and ignore them.

It is no surprise then that I was afraid of my goal in the Under Armour What’s Beautiful campaign which was:

Conquer Florida’s highest point, SugarLoaf Mountain, on my bike as I train for IronMan Florida while still being the best mom I can be. I WILL.

I write about the campaign here, here and here and I continue to be ever grateful to FitFluential who got me into this whole thing.

IronMan training has officially begun, I’ve been the best parent I could be and this post is about what happened when I went to climb Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Sugar Loaf is in central Florida, and about a five hour drive from where I live.  My family turned this challenge into a weekend road trip and we all headed north.  We were supposed to leave Miami around 3:00pm to get to Howie-in-the-Hills at 9:00pm fed and ready for bed.  We ended up leaving closer to 6:30pm and here is the clincher … I couldn’t complain.  Joe had been travelling all week, he would be the one driving, he volunteered to stay with the kids while I rode, AND it was father’s day weekend.  While he was stuck in his office, I nervously paced around.

In the car I started to panic a bit and told Joe … “I have no idea who I will be riding with.”  This made me anxious because I am a very conservative rider, and I also had pace lining rules inculcated in my cycling brain during the GEICO Road Safety Tour: don’t coast, don’t break, over-communicate. I don’t like riding with people I don’t know because I am not sure if they have the same cycling practices.  If they don’t, it makes cycling more dangerous (thus triggering FEAR) or it makes it unavoidable for me to be dropped leaving me to ride alone somewhere I am unfamiliar with (trigger another FEAR).

My original plan did not include riding with a group I didn’t know.  But I seriously doubt you want to hear the details of how I ended up here, it suffices to say that a facebook friend mentioned a group from Miami would be riding Sugar Loaf  the only weekend I could do the challenge, and without thinking twice I jumped in and  booked our hotel.  It only dawned on me in the car, on the drive up, that I didn’t know anyone.

I began to think: what if the group is a bunch of fast cyclists who drop people? What if they don’t stop at a red light and I do and I lose them? I have GPS but then I would land on main roads with speeding cars. What if this? What if that?  I drove Joe nuts.

We were meeting at 7:00am in the lobby, and if there is one thing I know is that cyclists tend to punctual because no one wants to be left behind.  We met and headed out.

We went down a small hill, around a beautiful lake and BAM I saw what I thought was Sugar Loaf and immediately began to panic.  Except that it wasn’t and we turned right and then BAM there was another quite imposing hill, and then another and people began to get dropped, and I began to pedal to make sure I was not one of them.  I thought “why in the world do I do this to myself? I don’t like hills! What was I thinking?”

Fortunately the group was wonderful with lots of experienced cyclists who were more than willing to impart their wisdom on a basket case like me.  They also didn’t drop riders, so we made it to the top of Buck Hill (the second highest climb in the area) to wait for the others.  I mentioned in passing that it was my first time heading to Sugar Loaf and that I was nervous, and someone said: “don’t let the thought of not making it enter your head or you won’t make it.”  Hearing that brought out all my pent up anxiety; good thing my cycling glasses cover a lot of my face because at this point fear got the best of me.  We had to begin riding fast before someone noticed I was actually crying!

Luckily we did and we were headed for the dreaded Sugar Loaf.  It’s hard to get a picture of the mountain and the incline.  The start of the road is at the top of a short hill.  You ride down for about 500 feet or so before you begin the .9 mile climb.  There is debate between Garmin and Wikipedia as to the exact height of the climb but when you are finished you are about 312 feet above sea level.  The grade of the incline, at its steepest point is 17% with an average grade of 8 or 9%, again depending on where you are when you hit the stop button on the Garmin.  I am aware this is a molehill for some of you but given that the only incline I have trained on outdoors is a 4% grade half-mile bridge, this was a challenge.

I tried to take advantage of those 500 feet of downward slope and ease into Sugar Loaf.  I thought to myself “this is it” and somehow courage began to enter my psyche.

The pedals got heavy quickly.  If they got too heavy and I couldn’t move them chances are I would tip over and fall.  Luckily, Ultrabikex had changed my cassette (the back gears of my bike) allowing me to make the bike lighter.  This came in very handy as I never felt the bike was too heavy for me to push down on the pedals or be even close to tipping over.  I was breathing hard, I was zig zagging a bit, but my legs were spinning and I realized I was going to make it to the top.  The months of spinning classes, of riding with the Wolfpack and on the Computrainer at Ultrabikex, of sharing my journey on Under Armour’s Whats Beautiful Challenge culminated in less than one mile.

And when we got to the top my new cycling buddy Yamile said “that’s it! You did it!” I screamed and then realized this was a residential neighborhood and though I am sure I am not the only moron that did a “woo hoo” at the top, it was still 8:30am on a Saturday morning.

From there the ride continued, up and down smaller inclines and that day we logged 50 miles.  But in truth, all I could think of was: mission accomplished.

So the next day I set out with the group, and we headed to Sugar Loaf where I rode up with a lot more ease.  This is such a popular climb that at the top there is a house whose owner sets out bright orange coolers with ice cold water for cyclists.  There is also a small donation box for Wounded Warriors and so far in 2013 they have collected over $3,000.  I got to the orange coolers on Sunday and realized there was still a lot more in me.  I wanted to do it again.

But the group was going to continue on its ride and I made a split second decision to stay with a couple of other people, ride Sugar Loaf again and return to the hotel in time for a Father’s Day Breakfast.

Going down Sugar Loaf was an entirely different experience.   On Saturday we took a different route so I had never actually gone down the steep downhill I had just climbed.  I feathered my breaks the entire time and hit 40 mph even if I didn’t want to go that fast.  I am told that if you push, you can go over 50 mph on your bike.

I turned around at the bottom and began a third climb.  I was doing hill repeats on Sugar Loaf!  A fellow blogger, Running Hutch, posted a comment to encourage me, and she said “you eat sugar loaf for breakfast.” I thought of this and posted I had Sugar Loaf for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

As I write this I know there are many of my cyclist friends who can do Sugar Loaf ten times in a day, and I am in awe of their strength and their determination.  But I am not like them, and seven weeks ago climbing Sugar Loaf on my bike was a goal just above my reach.

Under Armour set out a competition to redefine the female athlete with #whatsbeautiful.  In the process I have proven to myself, once again, that I am stronger than I think I am and as a result I am more confident and a bit less fearful.

This weekend I stared down Sugar Loaf mountain, lifted my chin up with sass and asked: “is that all you’ve got?”

And it answered “Yes. I’ve got nothing on you.”