Working It Out

I became a year-round competitive swimmer at the age of 7 and didn't stop until I was 17. This meant that for ten years I was exercising, what felt like, constantly. Outside in the summer or indoors in the winter, at 4 in the afternoon or 4 in the morning, sprints or long distance...I was swimming everday. Although these years were demanding, competitive, tiring, redundant, exhausting, tough and grueling they also shaped me into a determined, competitive, disciplined, eager, engergized and tough "quasi-athlete". I didn't know a life without exercise or the people you shared it with.

Ten years and then I was 18, the year I left for college carrying with me years of self-assurance and strength, the year I would soon discover muscular legs and broad shoulders were not "sorority/fraternity-friendly" or considered beautiful next to the little, petite southern belle. Exercise changed for me at that point. No longer was it about pushing myself to be the best I could be...it was now pushing myself to the be the best I could look. Gone were the days of becoming stronger, in were the days of becoming smaller...as small as my broad-shouldered, God given tall body could be. Springtime freshmen year came along and a comment from a guy friend, "you've lost a lot of weight, you look really good," in the elevator only strengthened my resolve - I was getting there.

And getting there I did. Through college and into my years afterwards, it was always...the skinnier the better, the smaller the skirt size the better, the more you could see the small muscle in my arm or the collar bone running along under my chin, the better. The exercise was no longer an option, it was routine, boring and unmotivating. It was, in short, demanding, competitive, tiring, redundant, exhausting, tough and grueling but an athlete I was not. A self-confident person I certainly was not. How could I be, constantly in comparison to others...not even knowing why anymore.

Fast forward from the age of 25 to the age of 27. Not that longest of times, but certainly long enough to take a very long look at myself and rethink what this whole "exercise" thing is about. I cringe when I see someone in the gym who looks like a woman in need of a cheeseburger...or a break.

My realization came last fall in Italy on a cycling trip through Tuscany. After each day, 40, 50, 100 miles after the morning espresso, I would think to myself - I never would have been able to do this 2 years ago. I didn't have the strength, I didn't have the determination, and I didn't have the healthy outlook I needed to keep going for miles and miles and hills and hills.

Six days of biking...victory wine!

All roads lead to Italy

100KM day...a congrats from our leaders for finishing

quasi-athletes

I have found that exercise is not there to make us feel worse - but to make us feel better. To feel empowered, enegrized, excited, eager to keep going back, time and again. I smile when I see someone in the gym who's happy, glowing with that feeling of accomplishment - a lot of times that person is me. I go work out when I want to now, I don't do it out of obligation, but because of desire. I find solace in the company I keep with these other quasi-athletes that are in my cycling classes or running along the resevoir in Central Park. We all share the same feeling - the feeling that comes with knowing your body is strong enough to take you places you never thought possible. The things you contemplate, the stress you release, the endorphins you feel - it all comes along with it in one neat little one hour package.

This morning in a new class I took, the instructor encouraged us on by yelling out - "Cycle because you are alive! Cycle because you are healthy! Cycle because you are on this earth and living this life and it's good!"
Now, those are the best reasons to work out I've ever heard...

Good exercise should always end in a moment of "ahhhhh"....