Riding the Aquarius Trail: Lessons on Belonging, Mindset, and Capability
I just finished a big goal: a mountain biking adventure I had been training for physically and mentally for quite some time. The Aquarius Trail is a 200-mile hut-to-hut ride across southern Utah, with 17,000 feet of elevation gain. That meant 30 to 40 miles a day, and between 2,500 and 5,000 feet of climbing each day. More than I had ever done in a single ride, repeated six days in a row.
What made it even better was sharing it with close friends I trust deeply. Jamie, Julia, Mo, Eric, and Mike, you made my extended 40th birthday celebration unforgettable.
Big Miles, Busy Mind
Before the trip, my mind was busy. Six days. Two hundred miles. Seventeen thousand feet of climbing. I felt both excited and nervous, an emotional combination I know well.
Prepping the Body
So I trained. I biked up Lower Brewers in Sinks Canyon outside Lander, again and again. It never got easy, but I learned that pain has edges. About 12 minutes of burning lungs and legs, and then the relief of coasting downhill.
My Buddhist practice helped here: impermanence. The pain rises, then falls away.
The meadow section, however, was a surprise. With a name like “meadow” it should have been whimsical and flower-filled. Instead, it was nine minutes of not-so-whimsical suffering. I reframed it as nine minutes of high-intensity training, and that small shift gave me the perspective to keep going.
I biked as much as I could through a busy spring and summer, and then committed to a mental shift: I am physically prepared enough for this trip. It was the most supportive belief I could attach to, and my only choice.
Prepping the Mind
Physical preparation was not the hardest part. It was preparing my mind.
I became familiar with a flood of unhelpful thoughts:
I am not a super-athlete like them.
Today I feel like a puffy marshmallow. And marshmallows are notoriously bad at mountain biking.
This is uniquely hard for me. Everyone else is fine.
I am holding my friends back.
Those thoughts narrowed me, separated me from others, and convinced me the “less-than” feeling would last forever.
But I have learned I can influence my thoughts. I can notice them and choose not to believe them. Not with cheesy affirmations, but by asking: What else is true?
Some truer thoughts sounded like this:
Nobody cares how fast I climb.
I am lucky to explore the world like this.
Good job, body. Good job, heart.
These aspens are so yellow.
My friends are so cool.
These thoughts expanded me. They reconnected me to reality. I could breathe again. I could see the landscape. I was no longer the center of a tiny world. I was part of something much bigger and more welcoming.
Falling Behind
Falling behind touches something young in me. When my friends pedaled away, I could feel the younger parts of me panicking: Do not get left behind. Do not get kicked out. Belonging has to be earned.
That younger self developed powerful skills: likeability, humor, competence, hustle, and attunement to others. They kept me close when I was young. But now, they do not have to run the whole show.
These days, I practice showing up as I am: messy, ordinary, funny, strong, slow, real, constantly changing. Not performing. Not pleasing.
On the trail, borrowed faith looked like this: when my insecure part snuck out, I asked my friend Julia, “I’m not riding too slow, am I?” She looked at me, confused, and said, “Too slow? No way. You’re doing great.” Tears pricked my eyes. For a moment, I needed to borrow her faith until mine returned. And then I kept pedaling.
It also looked like staying true to myself, confident and present, and grateful to be in that beautiful place.
The Ride Itself
And somehow, it all worked out. I rode my own ride. Slower on the climbs, steady at my heart’s sustainable pace, still laughing and cooking and clinking beers at the huts each night.
Every day brought something new: longer miles, steeper climbs, aches I had not felt before. And every day I gathered new evidence: I can handle this. I can handle more than I thought.
What It Gave Me
Yes, it is “just biking.” But biking is where I practice capability. It is where I test how much discomfort, uncertainty, and joy I can hold.
I used to be ambitious in a striving way, believing that if I became stronger or faster, then I would belong. Now my curiosity asks: What else is true? What opens up if I stop believing my limitations, and trust that I am already welcome and my belonging is unshakable?
The Aquarius Trail stretched me. Now when I look at my local trails, I do not just see limits. I see possibility. More rides. New terrain. More hut systems. Bikepacking with gear. Strength training and nutrition. New ways to care for this body so I can keep saying yes. More ways to play with my dog and my friends in landscapes I love.
It matters that we push. It matters that we rest and celebrate too. Right now, as fall settles in, I am celebrating this body, this heart, and the reminder that we do not have to earn our place. We just have to ride our own ride.
