Week 1
There are 30 weeks between the time I committed to this new project and the AIDS Lifecycle ride in June. I just completed week 1. I like counting from the beginning like this because if week 1 is any indication, it’s exactly like starting over. Week 1 blew. It blew with the force of a thousand winds. It felt a whole lot like starting from scratch. I had to get comfortable with doing all 5 tasks every day, and it took me a while to ramp up.Here was my brainversation on Monday and Tuesday:
“You have a lot of work today. You should start tomorrow.”“Yeah, you should totally start tomorrow.”“No, you said you’d do this. Remember when you were doing it every day? You felt so much better.”“OK, I’ll do 2 of the 5.”“Randy Scott Hyde? You better do every one.”“Oh, look at the clock. It’s bedtime already. Guess you’ll have to start tomorrow. So sad for you, loser.”
And then Wednesday came. Wednesday brought with it a little magical reminder by the name of Katie Chase Martin, a girl in her early 20’s living in New York and starting her own soul-hole blog. I found it purely by accident, but someone had sent her my blog, and she was inspired to start a journey of her own. I read through each entry of her first few days and remembered how hard this stuff was—is. And I remembered experiencing some of the frustrations that Katie was experiencing, and how important this work is. I gave her the same advice so many others gave me—keep going. (If you’d like to give her some encouragement, too, you can find her blog here.)So with Katie’s help, Wednesday found me back on the horse. I found a journal to keep track of my daily progress, got myself up and into my exercise shoes, and just generally got it together again. And now I’m back on the happiness horse. Every day has been up and down, much like where I was in the first week of the 30 day experiment.And today, a Sunday no less, when I would usually be in bed until my legs cramped or lunchtime rolled around (whichever came first), I was well-awake and coffee’d by 9 am for my first ever spin class at a gym down the street. I’m hoping some spin classes will get me prepared for a real bike ride when my bike arrives at the end of the month. Um, let me just take a moment to describe spin classes for those who have never done one. Here’s a mathematical equation that represents them well:
hard + as fu#k + make it even harder with lots of ups and downs + increased resistance so it feels like you’re going up a mountain + more hard stuff = 1 spin class
My legs were in such serious shock when it was over that I seriously considered taking a cab the four blocks home. Not doing so was its own accomplishment. Let’s hope my legs don’t revolt tomorrow so they can carry me through week 2.
Week 1