No More Training

The Olympics are over, the bachelorette party was awesome, and I don't have to travel back to Minneapolis for three weeks!  

On Saturday, I took my first bike ride in over 32 months without a pending race on the calendar.  It meant riding for no reason.  It meant riding because I wanted to ride and not because I needed to ride or should ride.  And, despite only being an 18 mile ride, it wasn't easy as my body just hadn't done it in awhile.  I'm not going to say it was hard.  But it was a swift kick in the butt.  I had been on the trainer, but hadn't ridden outside since Vineman.  

And...I joined a gym!

I have been without a gym membership for awhile.  I kept my gym membership when I lived in Mountain View because it was so cheap.  But in reality, the outdoors had been my gym for the past two years.  When I moved, I canceled my membership.  And, since I don't have any races on the calendar, it was time to finally join a gym again.  It means I am now "working out" or "exercising" and I'm no longer "training."  As a sidenote, I always thought it was funny when my mom would leave me a voicemail on a Saturday morning and say, "Hello.  Where are you?  You must be exercising or something."  Yes, Mom.  I guess I was just exercising on that 78 mile bike ride.  

Anyway, I find it ironic that the first thing I did as soon as I joined was take a spin class.  But, you know, sometimes you just have to start somewhere and that just felt like the right segue for me.  It's not that the gym is scary.  But it's change. And, it will take awhile to get back into that gym groove.  

Awhile back we took engagement photos...something I did not want to do.  I thought the whole concept of engagement photos was silly and just another one of those wedding industry "must haves" that someone made up randomly one day as a way to make people spend more money.  However, our photography package included the photos.  She said that it was just as much for her as it was for us.  When couples don't take photos, they find the wedding pictures more awkward as the couple is not as comfortable with the photographer or the camera.  I cannot believe I actually took engagement photos wearing lycra and spandex.  But I did.  We actually had a lot of really cute bike ones, even a few of us riding, but these are the two we liked best.