“She did what? Where?”

When I tell people I traveled to Mongolia for a horse race without knowing endurance or meeting the officials in person, my family and friends struggle to understand. Who can blame them? In early 2018 I was struggling to dissolve my animal massage business I shared with a friend and partner. Always striving to be positive, I focused on creating a new solo business and rebranding my blog into The Timid Rider. In starting over, I found the opportunity to travel to Mongolia with The Gobi Desert Cup, an endurance horse race over 480 kilometers in six days, on Mongolian horses. They sought a writer and photographer, and I applied. But I was actually accepted! Here I was, a mother of three struggling to build a business for herself, and with the opportunity to travel across the world for several weeks away from everything and everyone who was important. I don’t camp, I don’t take normally take risks, and I don’t speak Mongolian. Yet, I never doubted for a second that I needed to do this. I knew from the very start this would be a journey of self-discovery. I didn’t know it would change my life.