Day 36: Start the week off right - Hit the ground running!Endurance, Fountain of Youth and Facing Our Fears
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Another early morning spin class and I meet a rail thin woman with 0 body fat. Being the friendly person that I am, I ask her if she's been spinning long and she says for years and she's also a marathon runner. Not an ounce of body fat on her. She is wearing a short tank top/sports bra so you can see perfectly flat abs and tiny short shorts.
As I put on my spin shoes, I tell her I have just started triathlon training and am enjoying spin classes but I have not taken my new bike out yet. The petals have cleats, (like the spin bikes) and I need some practice getting in and out of them easily, while moving, before I hit the streets with the team. She's been biking for years, she says, and asks me if I want some advice. She won't wear cleats, it's too scary for her, and her friend is all black and blue from falling off her bike because she can't get out of the cleats fast enough when she has to stop. She wears her running shoes and she's fine with that. "Wear knee pads." she tells me and I'm thinking elbow pads too and maybe wrist guards.
We're warming up on the bikes and I ask her if she's planning to be in any races soon. She shakes her head and says she doesn't really do that anymore. She's been going through a horrible 5 year divorce, and she's learned endurance through her exercising. She's always been an athlete and the endurance helped her persevere while some one less strong would have given up long ago. She said "Exercising is the Fountain of Youth. I look younger than women twenty years younger than I am." and she does.
I admired how she learned endurance in sports and carried it over into her personal life. She felt confident in herself and how she looked while also being vulnerable. She was clear about what she was willing to risk and what she wasn't, and it was something simple like cleats on her shoes and bike petals.
What was too scary for her, I jumped right on. Sink or swim. I bought cleated spin shoes out of the gate and what a difference it made in my experience of spin class. And yet, what kind of a big shot am I on a trainer? That's what holds the bike in place in a spin class or store - basically like training wheels. The real test is taking it to the road and I have not done that yet for all my excuses. We all have our Achilles Heels, don't we? What's yours?