Fail often to succeed sooner

 I don't know who needs to hear this, but never give up. 

Today I went to go cross country skiing at Lapham peak today. I bought a year long trail pass and vehicle sticker so I try and go out and ski multiple times a week. This year started out on a sour note though when my ski binding on my right boot completely came off the boot when I was probably the furthest away from the car as I possibly could be. I called my parents to explain my misfortune and started the trek back to my car to drive back home. My birthday was coming up, and I figured my parents would start looking for new ski boots as a gift for my birthday, but it was important for me to tell them that I didn't want any new boots. Instead I wanted to repair the boots, its a good thing too because a new pair of boots can easily cost $200 - 400. I came back, put my boot in front of the heater and coated both sides of the binding and shoe with contact cement, waited until it was tacky, and then smushed it together. 

Perfect, everything was back together, time to try and go back to Lapham Peak and try skiing again. I went back to the trails a few days later and was super happy with my repairs. I went around the man made trail multiple times, the black loop once, and everything was going great until it wasn't when the other shoe, the one I didn't repair, let loose in the same way as the first.  Well, I guess I was done. I went back home, in a similar manner, I dried the boot and binding with a portable space heater, coated both sides with contact cement, waited until tacky, then smushed the boot and binding together, this time I didn't want anything to happen so I used some extra insurance that this would never happen again to me by putting a clamp on the boot.

A few more days go by and I decided to go to Lapham Peak again today. The repairs were holding up great, I made my way to the terrible "Gut Buster" hill(actual name of the hill) which takes you from the lower loop to the upper loop, all good. I went down a few little roller hills and took particular care to maintain my footing due to icy conditions. A little further up the trails on one of the rolling hills, my foot got caught, or bounced in and out of a hole caused by a hikers boot and my binding snapped, I flew head first onto the cold snow coming to a sliding stop, I looked back... Yup you guessed it. My binding came loose from my boot for a third time. Three times. Let me repeat that. I have had such bad luck this year with my boots coming loose 3 times this year. I feel like most people, most sane people that is, would give up on this pair of boots at this point. Heck, I even thought about it at this point. But I am just here to remind you, never give up. Look at experiences like this as challenges or learning experiences. If hardships like this were easy, anyone and everyone would do things like this, but they don't. I learned what worked on my first shoe repair, and what sadly didn't work on my second repair. I try and remind myself that these are the experiences that build character, these are the experiences that build up your skill. These hard times that I am going through now, I will learn from them, I learn what works and what doesn't work. This knowledge I gain, well, I hope one day it will help a fellow skier who finds themselves in a similar situation.

This experience is unique to my own experience, but when things get hard for you, just remember to learn from it, don't shy away. Hopefully you can help someone else going through some hard times in the future. It might not seem worth it now, but it will be worth it to help someone in the future. 

Remember, never give up.

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