I'll admit it. I have a fear of heights. And spiders, especially spiders. Fortunately, I rarely see spiders - but if I do, I'll scream like a little girl. The fear of heights has become an issue lately for me - so I'm thinking that I'd like to try to make myself "less afraid". During the workweek, I alternate my bike rides - I bike from Sterling to Leesburg and back one day, then the next from Sterling to Vienna and back. I like both rides - they vary in terrain and the stretches of rural, suburban, urban patches - bridges, inclines, ascents, wildlife, the demeanor, et al. This is the glitch. The last leg of the W&OD bike trail between Sterling to Leesburg is after the Goose Creek Quarry (Lucky Stone) - is the actual Goose Creek. This bike trail used to be the W&OD (Washington & Old Dominion) railway - now preserved as a place for biking/running/rollerblading/horseback riding - so some of the austere yet historical relics of the original railway are there - like THIS (stupid scary) BRIDGE over Goose Creek.

I guess I am a wussy. Let me describe this bridge - from a wimpy bicyclist perspective - of one who screams like a girl at any itsy bitsey spider. Here you are rolling along..then all of a sudden...you see a thin concrete surface ahead..about 6-8 feet wide..basically a platform....with a mangy old chain link fence there....this almost invisible divider between you and the creek that is about 75-100 feet below. This bridge stretches prolly for a good long city block. I dread this part of that leg of my trek. I've walked over it most of the times - but I whimsically dared myself to "just do it" feeding into Nike's classic age old ad campain to "Just Do It" - I speed up and whiz down the bridge almost with my eyes closed - in blinders..as not to get startled. I stare down at the yellow line in the middle of the path until I get to the other side. I give myself a hearty pat on my own back after I pass the bridge - then I'm like...oh crap - I have to bike back over it (or walk it). I've been doing this for almost 2 months. As I said before - I'm trying to make myself immune to this fear by purposely biking over it every other day.

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