Fit at Thirty

If you've noticed a few more posts than usual today, it's because my ambition to keep up with super-biker Ian yesterday has led to super-recovery day for me.

So a bit of background: Ian and I have known each other for roughly ever. I'm pretty sure he came to my first grade birthday, and we went through those awkward years called middle school as pretty good friends. But life, as it does, rolls on, and for the past several years I've been busy, being a mom and growing a business. Meanwhile, Ian's been growing his own very successful career and has kept himself incredibly busy. The upshot is that it had been quite a few years since we'd really connected or had anything beyond our childhood memories to talk about. But I do remember one phone call about 3 years ago, when I told Ian I was just starting to take a Pilates class at the rec center and he said he'd purchased a bike and was getting into bike commuting.

So fast forward 3 years and Ian's become quite an accomplished long-distance cyclist with the absolute ideal strength:weight ratio for hill climbing. He tackled STP in one day and said it was, you know, not too bad, and now he's thinking about taking on the Paris-Brest-Paris. Meanwhile, I'm surprising myself at how much I'm enjoying the constant challenge of crossfit and triathlon. So after our ride yesterday at lunch we talked a little about our rapidly approaching 30th birthday's, and how that landmark year is a bit easier to swallow since we're both in absolutely the best shape of our lives.

It got me thinking: neither of us were exactly athletic in our youth. I leaned towards chunky and hedonistic and Ian, though always extremely lean, didn't have the same long-distance wireyness that he now displays. What compels a couple of book worms to make a physical challenge such an important and (dare I say) cherished part of their lives?

I think for me (and I make it a rule never to speak for Ian) the answer comes in part from having never been an athlete. I never defined myself through athleticism or physical achievements in my youth, focusing instead on academic successes. So my foray into fitness was quite tentative at first. I wasn't "diving back into" something I did in High School. I was dipping my big toe into waters that were a bit foreign, a bit scary (the water analogy in my case is quite apt: swimming terrified me).

But overcoming that fear and working for success in something totally new filled me with a kind of pride that the academic success of my youth just didn't. I was expected to do well in school. It was assumed, and when I did, the success wasn't a particularly big deal. Which is not to say that I didn't occasionally work very hard in school; just that the outcome of that work was never particularly surprising or, to be frank, gratifying.

I remember a particularly challenging spin class. I had pushed myself pretty hard through hill intervals and glanced over at the mirrored wall. I was dripping sweat, half stripped-down to my sports bra, and grinning like a maniac. I just kept thinking - I can't believe I can do this! I can't believe my body can do this. I was ludicrously happy to be able to push my body in a spin class because I knew there was a time my mind would have abandoned the challenge.

I have found, as I grow in my fitness that I continue to run up against things that scare me-- swimming, particularly in a lake or open water situation, terrified me. Overcoming those fears has has a physical but also mental consequence. I now look at almost all any physical skills and think, "you know, with enough time....the right training....I could DO that," instead of, "Who DOES that?" And at the end of the day, it's just really, really fun to keep learning.