RIDING IN THE DARK
I used to be afraid of the dark. The dark was where the monsters hid, under beds and tucked away in closets, my only refuge the warm glow of a night light beaming from the corner of a room. The light was safe. Jumping onto a stationary bike in a dark room full of strangers changed all of this. Now, the dark is where I feel most alive. It’s an invisibility cloak where I can disappear, shifting my focus from outside to within.
Spinning in the dark I can push myself. It’s just me, the thoughts running through my mind, and my only opponent is myself. The dark doesn’t care if I’m wearing the latest fashion trends. It doesn’t care that my hair is most likely disheveled from the night before. It takes me as I am, concerned only that I show up fully committed and ready to ride.
I curse the heavy gears forcing my entire body to engage in a rhythmic dance of muscles expanding and contracting with each foot to pedal. The air is thick, dense with the energy and heat created in the room. I can feel the inner workings of my bike grinding. The mirrors behind the instructor podium start to cloud. I grunt as the spin instructor tells us we have to keep our high gear on after climbing a mountain she called “Everest." There is no rest for the weary, only various levels of resistance. The amount of sweat dripping from my body would be cause for alarm anywhere else, but here it is a badge of honor. In 45 minutes, in a dark room, I become undone and done again.
If you were to ask me a few years ago, as a 20-something barely making it to the gym, if I would agree to voluntarily enter the darkness and be pushed to my physical limits, I would’ve said no without hesitation. So why now, have I suddenly become accustomed to this routine, craving my time alone in the dark?
THE WALK IN
I remember peering into the glass doors of the mysterious new spin studio opening in my neighborhood, my hands cupped around my eyes to block the natural light. But, it was always closed during the day, refusing to reveal its secrets. On the exterior there was a floor to ceiling photo of a woman with her back turned to me, her arms curled up in a flex, her muscles pronounced and tattoos showing. It was a declaration of power, of taking back the night. All I wanted was to walk in and be surrounded by the hype. This was the first spin studio in Baltimore, and a stone’s throw away from my apartment. There were no excuses for not giving in.
Eventually I got my timing right and was able to walk in. I was greeted by a young woman at the front counter. “What is all this?"I asked, and she began to explain the concept of the spin studio.
“Welcome to REV Cycle Studio," she said, and continued to tell me that this was a place where people push themselves and achieve their fitness goals, but it was also a place of community. I’ve always been intrigued by the concept of finding places to belong and connect: those common grounds where our paths cross though we are from different walks of life, and the notion that our lives overlap and intersect in more ways than we give credit for. But, did I have fitness goals? Not really. I loved running the pedestrian path that rounded our harbor, offering views of sunrises reflecting on the water in early morning with music blazing through my headphones. I also loved hitting the trails of national and state parks and being completely surrounded by nature. But to commit to something, commit to showing up at the same place and time on designated days, this concept eluded me.
MY FIRST RIDE
I arrived in my yoga pants and a sweat-resistant top, attempting to blend in with the sea of lululemon and Under Armour. But with my wild curly hair and freckles everywhere, I’ve never been good at blending in. I was really nervous about my first ride and not sure what to expect. The spin room was so dimly lit it felt eerie. It took my eyes some time to adjust. What went on within these four walls once the door closed? My stationary bike was in the second row, #17, and a staff member helped to get it adjusted to my height. I mounted it and sat up on the bike seat. The music got louder and the lights went out. This was it. This is just like riding a bike, right? There is nothing to fear. But also like a true introvert, I noted the nearest exits.
The instructor, Ann, seemed welcoming but also powerful as she commanded the room by stepping onto her bike at the front podium. She shouted instructions about RPM and gear resistance, while I wondered how she could do all that and still ride in unison with us. The music blared and with each pedal push, despite the encouragement from Ann, I acknowledged this was a lot harder than the romanticized biking of my youth. Fifteen minutes in and my lungs felt as if they would leap from my chest. I was seriously considering the exit strategy noted before. Come on Jess, you can handle this for 45 minutes. And so I stayed, through the discomfort I rode, counting down each minute using the timer on the dashboard of the bike. I felt accomplished at the end. I did it. I survived. I could have walked out mid class, in the dark no one would see me leave. But I stayed in that room, and in not quitting I found the immediate satisfaction of effort amounting to achievement. I was finding my way. I didn’t have fitness goals, but maybe I could get some. I started to want more of this energy; I decided to come back.
CLIMBING EVEREST
My relationship with spinning did not come without facing my own Everest Mountains outside the studio. In admitting this I know that my story contains the same struggles that many have faced as they work hard towards life goals only to get knocked down along the way. In life I have fallen, and there have been times when it was much harder to get back up than I expected.
My first slip occurred three years ago during a sunset hike with a friend on a rocky trail overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains. After watching a picturesque sunset fade across the sky, we began our descent and my foot landed on a loose rock, taking me down hard into the shrubbery on the side of the trail. I shrieked in pain, my ankle fractured and suddenly non-weightbearing. With that came the realization that getting off the mountain would be my greatest challenge. Through a series of piggy backing and using my friend as a crutch, we walked painstakingly slow into the creeping sounds of the dusk. Hours later, covered in layers of sweat and the remnants of things that go bump in the night, we emerged high on adrenaline and me unaware of the hardships that were yet to come.
I remember one night during my recovery, the spin studio was hosting an evening ride with movie to follow, showing a documentary about women cyclists. My ankle in a full cast, it would be some time before I hopped on a stationary bike again, but I came out on my crutches anyway to sit with everyone and at least watch the film. I wanted to be close to the community I was just breaking into. I still wanted to belong to something that was bigger than me.
My second major setback came in 2015, where a severe pain in my lower abdomen sent me on a trip to the emergency room. There I learned I had an overabundance of fibroid tumors in and attached to my uterus. What followed was a series of urgent doctor’s appointments and uncomfortable probings. The further I dove into the realms of health care and the limited options for my pressing condition, I discovered surgical removal was imminent. The procedure itself lasted a couple hours and required an overnight stay in the hospital; they wouldn’t let me leave without evidence that I could walk a couple steps on my own. I was left with a large C-section scar across my lower abdomen, a trail of stitches and staples, and a six month recovery time. Post surgery, at a time when I thought my uterus problems were over, I developed dysmenorrhea, making my time of the month physically crippling and unbearable. My relationship with my bed and body pillow deepened indefinitely.
No one tells you about the emotional suffering that accompanies long term physical hardship; that it will be hard to get up long after you are physically able to get up. It was a different kind of darkness. Because of the location of my surgery, walking was strenuous, the same energy exerted on a spin bike was easily depleted during a one block walk to pick up prescriptions from the local pharmacy. Sitting was sometimes arduous. Spinning was impossible. Even as I slowly embraced the long road to recovery, I didn’t think I would ever enter a spin room again. I felt ultimately defeated. What’s the point of doing your best to take care of your body, when one day it will drop kick you? One day you won’t be sure if you can move forward from wherever you’ve landed. It seems there is no avoidance, despite best intentions. The severity will vary, but there will come a day when our bodies will knock us down, and we will struggle to rise.
Even after walking became more regular and I was able to sit down with ease, I struggled to bring myself back to the spin room. It felt like I was starting over from the very beginning, peering into the glass and reaching for the door only to find it locked. My sister would text me sometimes and say “you should go ride,” remembering how much it meant to me. But I resisted, dealing with bouts of depression weighing me down and a body that was changing as it healed.
Slowly, though, I got my strength back and pieced myself together. First there were neighborhood walks, and then I was back to walking on trails and through parks again. Eventually, I returned to the dark room that I sorely missed, reminding myself again that the dark does not care; the most important thing was that I showed up, ready to ride.
AND STILL I RIDE
On most mornings now I wake up to a gamble. I’m either going to feel perfectly fine and ready to tackle a spin class before starting my day or, I will wake up to nausea, maybe some modest abdominal cramping, or a slight headache which threatens how the rest of my day will play out. These have been deemed temporary symptoms as my body adjusts and normalizes the hormones from the Depo Provera birth control shot I just started taking to control the dysmenorrhea that never subsided. My morning routine has become inconsistent except for the call to spin. Sometimes I can have my morning protein shake before class, and sometimes a ginger chew is all that’s going down.
But I decided with the first wave of new symptoms that I wasn’t going to stop spinning. I would just ride through and do what I can. Maybe it would mean an easy ride on some days, or that I would have a day off before another day on. But I would show up. I decided I couldn’t put my ambitions and life on hold because of the unexpected problems that rose with the sun. Is this not the human condition, to rise above and to ride? We push through, don’t we? The challenges we face, we find new ways to accommodate, to give them space, to take care of them and ourselves, but ultimately the only way out is through.
Spin ended up becoming a constant in my life. Through it I have made friends, I have watched people grow, and I have partnered with people to reach fitness goals with the simple gesture of “will you ride with me?” Though I have symbolically fallen off the bike many times, I find myself always returning. My peace in the dark. Ready to ride.