Evolution

I've never been anything close to what I -- or most people, for that matter -- would consider an athlete. Growing up, I pretty much looked like a human version of Popeye's gangly girlfriend Olive Oil, who had the figure of an 11-year-old boy who hadn't eaten in two weeks (or of Nicole Richie, but whatever). I was always too worried about looking like a dork in P.E. to really give myself a fair chance at really spiking the ball well when we played volleyball or kicking far when we played kickball.

Since I was sure I was lousy at all sports, I never really played any (I say "never really" because there was that exception where I played softball for a whole two weeks. During week two of my career, I was playing in a never-ending scrimmage when I managed to -- in an effort to save time -- catch a grounder with my bare right hand so I could throw the ball immediately to the second base player. Trust me, she needed the time -- my throws never went where I intended them to go. Anyway, I broke and jammed my little finger on said right hand, which resulted in my mother pulling me off the team so my "music career" wouldn't be at risk. I wasn't disappointed. And, for your information, I played in a recital and in a talent show with that broken finger.).

I never even water skiied until just after I graduated from college. The closest thing to a sport I really did was marching band, which is probably more athletic than you realize -- especially in college. Performing pregame at OU is like doing cardio for 20 minutes, but with 86,000 people cheering you on. All the while, you're counting in your head and trying to remember your music and steps for the show. Oh, and there's that whole blowing every bit of your air into an instrument throughout those 20 minutes of cardio.

But I digress ... (since that's still not really a sport)

I think the beginning of this sort of "I can do this" change in me happened when I went to Hawaii for spring break my senior year at OU. ER came with me, and we had decided we would take surfing lessons on our trip. I had a blast.

It was just after that trip that I decided I wanted to go skydiving someday. I don't know what it was about surfing that led me to decide skydiving was next. I'm perfectly aware it's not a natural progression. It's like saying, "I just graduated high school. Next, I'm running for president." It's just that surfing is something I never thought I'd try, and so was skydiving.

When I landed safely on the ground after jumping out of a plane in Hawaii, I had no plans of any further activities that could be considered "brave," "insane" or unusual. But the next day, I snorkeled through an evil jellyfish alert, and I lived (unstung!) to talk about it. It kind of became a joke: "Hey, I survived skydiving and snorkeling with evil jellyfish. I can handle hiking in the rain!"

So last week, at a work meeting, when some coworkers brought up this 150-mile bike ride and made it sound really exciting, I was really interested. I took some fliers to K. He thought it sounded fun too. And that was it -- we were in.

When I decided to do this a week ago today, I thought there was no way I could ride the full 150 miles. But after riding two times at the gym -- once Monday and once last night (for 90 minutes!) -- I'm starting to think I might be able to finish.

What's funny, though, is that I've already got something in mind for after this ride: a 10K run. I don't want to race; I just want to finish. Who knows? Maybe K and I'll wind up doing a 10-miler instead.

Whatever the case, I'm finding myself doing all these things I never would've thought I'd do. I'm having fun, I'm staying in shape and I'm proud of myself for what I've done. It's awesome to see that the gangly little girl who was scared of looking stupid playing in P.E. could grow up to be a skydiving, jellyfish-alert-ignoring, 150-mile-bike-riding, 10-[insert long-distance measurement here]-running (someday) woman!