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You know that thing I'd been working on for, like, a year? That thing that, 99 rides ago, seemed beyond impossible? Well, I did it.
I hit 100 rides at my spinning studio, Harness Cycle.
When I took my first class last April - an introductory class, just 30 minutes long - I felt... pretty terrible about myself. The class seemed impossible, & my body seemed broken, & I was just so mortified by my inability to keep up.
Why did I want to stick with it? God, I have no idea. I cried in that first class, & I cried after it. I blogged about it, ending that first post with, "I have 10 classes to use up by June, after all. I have to do something - & I guess, for now, it might as well be this, right?"
So I went back. And then I went back again. And then I went back 97 more times - until I hit my 100th class last Friday.
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And no, I still can’t always keep up. I am by no means in shape or an athlete, & some days I still feel like I can’t do a damn thing well enough to be there. But I show up. I walk through the door & ride even when I don't feel like it, even when I'm not very good at it, even when my knee hurts or my lungs burn or I'm sweating so hard I can barely see straight.
Three wonderful friends rode with me for my 100th, & one of my favorite instructors, who is such a badass, played some of my favorite songs, from Lizzo to the Backstreet Boys to Alanis Morissette to Bonnie Tyler (that's ride, we rode to "Total Eclipse of the Heart"). We rode & danced & laughed & cheered & could barely breathe at the end, & damn, was it ever fun. Afterward, my friend Marisa & I went across the street to Saucy Brew Works, where we ate my favorite pizza & drank beer & caught up... & then, when I got home, Mike had three cupcakes with "100" candles waiting for me.
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I am so grateful to everyone who supported me & cheered me on & sent me DMs or left me comments or showed me any kind of love on my road to 100. I know this is the kind of thing that other people - athletes - do all the time, & I am under no illusions that I am somehow special for doing it. But this is huge for me; this has changed everything for me. I am a better person, a growing person, a stronger person both mentally & physically. And I just so proud of myself for it.
I'm now at 102 classes, & while I won't keep up a public count anymore (for now!), I have no plans to stop cycling any time soon.
Thanks for everything, Harness. Let's keep ridin'.
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