Ride day number 8, 4 pm. We crested our last hill and looked down on Kharakhorum, once the capital of Chenggis Khan’s global empire, now a typical confetti-roofed Mongolian jigsaw of a frontier town. In 15 minutes, our ride across Mongolia would be over. We could see the yurt camp where our motley group of 12 would spend its last night together.

At the finish line: Fenella, Dembee, me, John, Boroo, our cook Cegee, Doug, Chris, Tumee and Handa.

I don’t know what I expected to feel; relief that we’d all made it safely, the bone-deep weariness that takes over after extended physical exertion, an overwhelming desire for a beer, a shower and 600 mg of ibuprofen. Indeed, all those feelings were there. But what surprised me was the presence of another sensation; that of a container under pressure whose relief valve or compression bindings had just been released. I felt my chest loosen and tears well behind my eyes. Over the past 12 days there had been so many new experiences, so many things to learn, so many times I’d been pushed out of my comfort zone, that I hadn’t had the bandwidth to think about any of it. I’d lived strictly in the moment, flowing from one event to the next, simply being and simply doing. My container was now stuffed to busting with unprocessed emotions and simmering impressions of new skills and insights into life.

I kept the lid on through the end of the ride until I bashed my head against our yurt’s four-and-a-half-foot high door jam. That was too much. I sat on the bed and put my head in my hands, figuring I’d cry a little to release some pent up free radicals. But it was not to be. John put his hand on my shoulder and said, “are you OK?” Then, not waiting for an answer, he reminded me, “we’ve got to get going. Handa and the drivers are waiting to take us to the Erdene Zuu Monastery.”

Now, comfortably ensconced in our five-star Moscow hotel room, there is finally time to think.

There is a reason the cliché “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” was coined. Old dogs like to do things they’re good at. Learning new tricks is hard work. It often involves humiliation or, at a minimum, uncomfortable feelings of inadequacy. For those of us who can kindly be called “competitive,” it means swallowing your pride, asking for help and advice and not being “the winner” or “the best.” Horseback riding was a major new trick for me and I am an old dog with arthritic, inflexible hips. This one, frankly, scared me. But I am also a loving and dutiful wife. As our group’s mantra says, “It was all John’s fault.”

Over the course of 8 days, I spent 43 hours in the saddle trying to figure out this new trick. Our horsemen weren’t much help. They were guides, not teachers and they didn’t speak a word of English. It also didn’t help that Doug experienced two unplanned, headlong dismounts into the dirt (the one he described in his blog and another when his horse tripped coming down a hill). That added tension for me because if there was one thing I absolutely did not want to do, it was fall.

Learning with intense concentration.

Fortunately, we had Fenella riding with us, a young British doctor and classically trained equestrian. Every chance I had, I studied what she was doing and listened to her muse about the differences between dressage and riding a Mongolian horse. I watched where she positioned her stirrups, how she created balance with her feet and knees, the straightness of her back and her use of thigh power to hold on. I discovered that I already had some transferable capabilities: the most useful being very strong legs from all our bike riding and flexible ankles that could pivot my toes inward to improve my balance. I also had Doug; someone as inexperienced and terrified as I was and someone to compete with for the title of “most improved” at the end of our journey.

So now I have the beginnings of a new trick called horseback riding. I’m certainly no expert, barely passed beginner. But the new trick is fun. Well worth the sore knees and bruised thighs it took to develop. I’m not going to go out and buy a horse anytime soon, but I could probably be convinced to take another lesson or two or go to a dude ranch for vacation. I’ll let this video speak for itself. [I’m in the light shirt, John is the one at the front of the pack. The music is a Mongolian horse song that the guys in the van were playing. Appropriate for the occasion.] The topic of comfort zone pushing will be dealt with in another post.