Wednesday, September 15

Amaze Yourself!

I think one of the greatest thrills in life is when you amaze yourself.  I’ll tell you—I amazed me yesterday.
I rode my bike to work yesterday.  I really wanted to put that line in bold, but you don’t understand yet why it deserves bold type.  You’re thinking to yourself, “So what?  You rode your bike to work.”  Let me set it up for you: I live 9.6 miles away from my office.  The real kicker is the elevation difference of over 300 feet between my home and my office.  It took me one hour and 15 minutes to get to my office, but—dang it—I didn’t once get off my bike and push it up a hill.  I pedaled that sucker up over 300 feet!  There was a time in my life when a flat bike ride of 20 yards would have winded me.
So let’s try that again: I rode my bike to work yesterday!
I will admit that the longest inclines are on the way home, so I decided to ride the bus home in the evening.  Amazing myself is quite the thrill, but each day only needs so many thrills.
I had determined that biking to work was something I wanted to try (even if I determine that I don’t want to try it again).  I gave it a shot on Saturday last weekend, thinking a non-work day would be the best time to see how long it would take me.  But I only got to the top of the first hill before I chickened out and thought of a lot of good reasons to turn around.  So Monday night, I decided I was just going to do it.  Sometimes, you can’t give yourself planning time, because planning time often just turns into you deciding why you shouldn’t do it.  Sometimes you just have to surprise yourself with the decision.
When was the last time you tried something you’ve never done before?  How did it go?  Would you do it again?  How did it make you feel?

1 comments:

Kristen said...

YAAAAY! That is quite the accomplishment. I participated in bike to work month (May) and rode my bike to work a total of four times. Its a 7 mile bike ride with very little elevation change and most of it was along the lake so it was very peaceful in the morning.

If you keep at it, you could challenge me next year in bike to work month! :)



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