Cyclemania

I've never been what I would consider to be athletic. I've tried a lot of different things. Moving around meant constant interruptions to my childhood activities, and consequently starting up something new each time we moved. I've done various forms of dance, rhythmic gymnastics, basketball one year. I never liked gym class. I took swimming lessons many times and didn't get far because I've always hated the water. That's something I come by honestly - my grandmother can't stand the water either and we come from a family of islanders. The irony isn't lost on me. [Is that true irony, or Alanis Morissette's version of irony? I digress...] In high school I was too self conscious and insecure to join any sports teams because I always thought all of the other girls had been playing those sports for years and I'd only dabbled in such things. I was even asked to join the rugby team in gr. 12 when they formed one, but I declined. I probably could've kicked some butt though! ;) I learned how to lift weights from a couple of different boyfriends and I've always kept a foot in that door. As I grew up, and gained a little more confidence and learned not to care so much about what other people thought, I did join an Ultimate Frisbee team. And then joined more than one. And then I was even the captain of one for a season. That was fun for a while, but then I hurt my knee and couldn't play anymore because the injury meant I couldn't run. That was quite a few years ago now, and as a result of that I started doing spin classes at the gym. I had a little bike to putt around town on when I liked, but after meeting people in my spin class who took it to the road when the warmer weather hit, I started looking at getting a serious bike. And then I moved into the place where I live today and my landlord helped me find such a bike. The rest is sort of history - 3 years of history anyway. My love for cycling has grown from the kid who spent summers biking to the local pool and all around the small towns in which she lived, coming home only at dinner, to getting my second real road bike, but one for grown-ups, and riding distances that when I first heard of people doing I thought were crazy! And now wanting to get better at it, so actually doing training on the bike.

And so the point that I'm coming to... today I actually took a half day off work to train on the bike with my cycling coach and the rest of her triathlon team. Of course the question of me doing a triathlon came up. As you may expect, seeing as I can't run, and I really don't relish the idea of swimming, my answer was no. But next week I'm actually seeing a surgeon - something I've been trying to do for 2 years now. Yeah, we won't go into the rigmarole I had to go through to get an MRI, and then an ortho consult. It took me 2 years to cozy up to the idea of even being serious about having surgery if he thinks it's worth doing, so it was likely meant to be that I had to wait this long anyway. If I do get my knee fixed my excuses for not running or joining the tri team may likely be eliminated. Then I'm thinking I may have to challenge myself to overcome my fear of the water. Wow. OK. But that's not really the point of my post. My point is - I love the cycling so much that I took a half day of my vacation days to train with someone! Man! Am I crazy or what? I'm looking forward to getting outside on the bike with that tri group, and the regular group that I cycle with is trying to sort out what trips we're going to do this year (and next year - we have big ideas).

I'm really happy I hurt my knee, started spinning, got a real bike, joined a bike club, met new friends, got bike-crazy, and ended up here. How many more days til Spring?