what is left

I have discovered there is more to me than I knew.

because of cycling.

I will start here, and then we can extrapolate to Much Bigger Things.

see, when I first started cycling I thought it would be a good way to get in better shape, get rid of some flab, and start something that I could keep doing for decades in an effort to age gracefully.

I was never an athlete---I played tennis in my very-small high school, and that was about it---and although I'd attended hundreds of aerobics classes, spin classes, and weight room sessions, it was always just to try to be healthy. not because I was athletic.

and then I bought my road bike, and started to get a little more serious. power camp came along and taught me about form and interval training, and then I started conquering peaks. I've always worked hard at it, and pushed myself because, well, because I could.

and then I dug deeper, found more, and discovered something within me I didn't know was there.

and this is what hit me yesterday: I am capable of more than I ever imagined.

how incredible is this concept??

we live with ourselves forever, our entire lives, and then one day we take a serious look at ourselves---or survive some kind of a test---and discover that we have more depth, more passion, more ability, more whatever that we ever knew.

I have lived on this earth almost five decades now, and my excitement could have lit up the entire canyon as this thought struck me yesterday. I am not staid, static, shallow, or even a known entity. there are depths of myself yet to discover, there are strengths and abilities and brain cells that have yet to be challenged.

my whole cycling life began just four short years ago, and as I plan to live many more decades, there must be untold experiences ahead of me that will continue this journey of illuminating unexcavated places within me.

what a thrill! to learn that you are more than you realized? to learn that your possibilities are endless?

our task, our mission, is to accept those opportunities that dangle in front of us, grasp firmly those ropes and leap away into whatever comes next. because that's the only way we'll ever discover what lies deep, deep within, just waiting to be pulled forth into existence.