I clipped in, ready to push hard, ready to chase the numbers on my screen. My heart was steady. My legs, eager. But my lungs are a question mark ready to be tested.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The effort was moderate—something I should have powered through without thinking. Throw on a show or audiobook and settle in aero, and let the trainer hum. Yet sweat poured off me, far more than expected, pooling. My body, still shaking off the last remnants of sickness, wasn’t ready to rise to the challenge this morning.
I wanted to fight through it, to ignore the rasp in my breath, to let my willpower outrun my failing endurance. But there’s no negotiating with oxygen debt. There’s no gutting it out when the fire in your chest drowns out everything else, like I was on a mountain stage. Though I thought I could empty myself and settle in, I faded. I had to unclip. I had to let go.
And that’s the hardest part—knowing that my heart and my legs were willing, but my body still carried the weight of what came before. It’s frustrating, humbling, infuriating. But it’s also a reminder. Fire isn’t just destruction. It clears the way for something new.
Today, I fell. But it was better than yesterday, and tomorrow I’ll rise again.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/from-the-ashes/1642030744?i=1642030746