If you were to take one look at me, I can almost guarantee that you wouldn’t consider me to be your typical “cyclist.”  Good.  Because I am not.  I am just a girl who loves the great outdoors, likes a good challenge and is trying to make an effort (no matter how small it might be) to better myself one mile at a time. I used to want to be a runner.

I remember morning after morning laying in bed praying that this would be the morning that I woke up with the body of a runner, no bad ankle, no shin splints and all the energy in the world.  Now, I realize that irony in that I was asking for these things while laying in bed but stick with me here people!  The fact was that it just wasn’t going to happen without some effort.  I tried to run but it’s true, I have a bad ankle and shin splints.  I was frustrated, discouraged and figured whatever… why even try? And then I bought a road bike.

It was the largest single investment that I had ever made in my life (aside from a car) and I was both excited and terrified.  When I bought it in the fall of 2013 I had a dream that it would be my mode of transportation to and from work.  All 13 miles, each direction.  I remember the first day that I got on that bike and rode a few miles after work.  I felt like I was on top of the world.  Needless to say, like other things in my life, the excitement wore off, fall turned into winter and there was no more time to ride that bike.

Over the past 18 months I did finally accomplish that goal of riding to and from work.  Even now as I sit here looking at my bike it blows my mind that it has the ability, with my pedal power, to transport me all those miles to and from work but between it’s make-up and my willpower it does and I do.

Something occurred to me over the few weeks and it has brought on this blog series called “Following Jesus from my bike seat”

Over the course of the next several weeks I want to tackle some things that I have realized are parallels between cycling and living our lives to be more like Jesus.  I understand that it might sound a little far fetched but my prayer is not that you will completely understand my crazy brain,  but rather that we will understand ourselves a little better and see areas that we can be less like us and more like Him.

See yall on the next ride!