Abbi Hamlin
Primary Outdoor Sports: Mountain Biking, Trail Running, & Skiing
Job: Nutritionist
Favorite Beverage: Coffee
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunset
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Tapping into my Creative Side
Go-To Trail Snack: Homemade Peanut Butter Protein Balls
Favorite Season: Fall
Guilty Pleasure: Taking Way too Long Showers
Book Recommendation: ROAR by Stacy Sims
Three Words to Describe You: Driven, Easy-Going, and Curious
“I grew up in Wenatchee and both my parents were always really active. They got me into outdoor sports. I grew up watching my dad ride road bikes and go on mountain bike rides with his friends and my mom was always a runner. She did a couple of marathons when I was eight or ten. So just watching them pursue their goals inspired me.”
“For a while, I was pursuing triathlon heavily. I got into a mindset where I felt I was pushing myself really hard and I didn't take the time to stop and think, ‘Do I still love this?’
I had this internal battle of feeling that I was good at it and feeling like I should pursue it, but in hindsight I really wasn't enjoying it and ended up getting pretty injured. Now, I'm thankful for it because it was this stop in the path of, ‘Let's take a moment, slow down, and think about how you want your life to look.’
During that time, I had mountain biked a couple of times. I was not good at all, just learning. But, when I was on the trail, I'd feel so worry free because you don't have space to think about anything else. You're just thinking about what's in front of you and how you're going to get up and over and around it. That brought me so much peace and joy at the same time. I hadn't really been feeling that in triathlon. Getting injured made me realize that I wanted to pursue something different and that's how I found mountain biking.”
“I broke both of my wrists in the first year I was riding. Not at the same time, but back-to-back. So I was riding, fell, broke my wrist, and it healed. My second ride back, I fell and broke my other wrist. Some people would hear that and be like, ‘Why did you keep going?’ But, I kind of liked that challenge and I just loved the feeling of being on the trail and on my bike.”
“I came from an endurance sports background. With running or road riding, you're paying attention to your numbers and your heart rate and there's a cool aspect of pushing yourself endurance-wise, but mountain biking has this other challenge where you're really pushing yourself mentally.
There's features on the trail that are scary and your heart rate gets going and you don't think you can do it. You have to push through that and that's been a really cool thing about the sport. I've done stuff that I never thought I would be able to do. When you get over that feature, you go off that drop, and you do it, it builds so much confidence. It's just a totally different way to progress than endurance sports.”
“I recently went to a mental health talk and it was talking about mindful coping and mindless coping and how it's really important to have both. In mindless coping, you just kind of turn your brain off and go, but in mindful coping you process things and let your brain feel it and understand why you're feeling a certain way.
Sports and endurance activities are kind of both of those combined. Sometimes you can just turn your brain off and go, but other times you really need to think and process. It creates this really beautiful space to do that. And, I think there's something about when your heart rate is going and your blood is flowing, you can just think through things more clearly. It creates that intentional space to just process.”
“In the last couple years, I really started to enjoy the ride. I'm not bombing and just seeing how fast I can go down a trail. I'm taking a quick second to slow down and really take in the full trail. Then, you can figure out what little things to pop off or how you can pump into the corner. It's kind of this dance with the trail and it makes it feel artistic. There's kind of this creative side to it.”
“Outdoor sports are so unique in the way that they build your confidence. I think that there's so many challenges that you face in endurance sports or in mountain biking, whether that's a feature that you're scared to go over or you're super tired and you feel like you're hitting the wall and you push through. When you get over that feature or you push through that wall and finish the race, it helps build your confidence that you can do hard things.
That's a lesson that I've been able to use in my life. Maybe it's in a work situation or something hard that happens with family, whatever it is, the outdoors teaches you that you're stronger than you ever thought you were and that you will get through those tough times.”
“As an athlete or someone who's pursuing these outdoor endeavors, it's easy to put your identity into your performance and what you're accomplishing. Then, when you get injured, all of that is kind of taken away temporarily. You need to learn the lesson that you're so much more than what you do and that you're not ever going to be remembered for how many mountains you climbed or what times you had. At the end of the day, no one cares about that.
They care about how they feel when they’re around you. They care about how well you love other people. That's just something I've been thinking about more and more.
In the sports we do, it's so easy to put our self-worth into everything we accomplish, but at the end of the day that's not what matters. These goals are amazing, they're important to have, and I think we can get after it and push ourselves but not let that be our full identity.”
“Leading Girl Get After Events has been really impactful. Just to see a lot of women in the community progress and get out and push themselves and try things they never have and how bringing together this group of women creates a unique and special place for women to try things that they never have and watching women who have been really scared to go to the Lair and hit jumps for the first time and try the jumps and grow in that self-confidence themselves is really cool to see. That’s what lights my fire.
Jaclyn and I were just sitting at our little community pool hanging out and there was a group of Girl Scouts having their final party there that night. One of the dads came up and neither of us knew him, but he said, ‘Are you Abbi and Jaclyn?’ And we were like, ‘Yes.’ Then he said, ‘I just want to say thank you so much for everything that you're doing with women in the community and what you're posting about mountain biking. My girls look at that every day and I show them when you guys post. They get really excited and fired up when they see the mountain biking.’
For me, that was so impactful because I think that's the reason why I do a lot of these things. I hope to inspire this next generation. Even though pushing myself might seem scary, those young girls are pushing themselves too. For them to see women pushing themselves, how much better are they going to be when they're at my age? It's cool to see and hearing that from a dad in the community makes you realize that, ‘Oh, I am making an impact.’”
