Brain-injured or not, I’ve always been competitive; It’s my personality.

Today I am brain-injured, but I wasn’t born this way. 

I lived for 21 years before suffering a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), so I now know life both with, and without, the condition. 

Yet, one element has remained constant throughout—from before to now. 

I like healthy competition. 

Having played three varsity sports all four years of high school and then Division  I lacrosse while in college at Duke University, it was not until my junior summer  of college, June 2001, that competing athletically was put into question.

On June 14, 2001 I was hit by a car after I’d stepped off a bus.
The result was many broken bones…and a brain injury.

Since this disaster, enduring my recovery has helped me to realize that physical competition is really what I know best of all.

I like competing. I understand it.
It’s in my bones.

Soon after arriving back home from the hospital at the end of August 2001, following that accident, I received a phone call from a very important member of the Duke University athletic program. World- renowned head coach of the Duke University men’s basketball team, Mike Krzyzewski, called me at my house to offer some words of encouragement. The words he shared have been imprinted on my brain since he said them 18 years ago. 

He told me that…

Recovering is like winning.

This statement has applied to all stages of my rehabilitation, but it applies, even more acutely, to me right now. Some aspects of my recovery have strictly involved mental fortitude, as my physical body couldn’t keep up then…

But today…man, today is a different story.

Right now I’m the most healed I have ever been. Like head-to-head running races, or one-on-one offense/defense lacrosse matchups to goal, participating in competitive spinning classes allow me to better myself by putting forth significant effort and strength.

Yep, I’m back! 

While both FlyWheel and SoulCycle do good things for me in terms of exertion and strength, a SoulCycle class forces me to imagine the outcomes, and a FlyWheel class doesn’t. 

I like having results revealed on a screen. FlyWheel provides screens.

I like to live in reality. 

I prefer nonfiction writing to fiction. 

I favor fact over fantasy.

I like to know truths as they really happen. I will not allow my performance on a bike one morning to be left to interpretation, no.

I need a score.

So personally, I most appreciate getting my scores in real time, like FlyWheel provides, so I know at what stages I falter and at what stages I give more effort. 

I remain realistic, though.  

Today I know I won’t have a total that will appear high on a 45-person class’s leader board, but at least I’ll know how to beat my own score from a previous class. 

That is the only competition I want—I want to beat me.

 I mean, it’s helpful to see other participants’ scores once in a while just to gauge my own performance, but it’s most beneficial to compete against myself. 

I appreciate both SoulCycle and FlyWheel immensely. To exercise to my heart’s content without having to run is something beyond my wildest dreams. 

These days I don’t ride stationary bikes in order to “win.” 

But I am happy to be able to compete, again.

To see a score in real time gives me that ability.

So while I am grateful to FlyWheel and SoulCycle for the athletic elements they each require of their participants,
for now it is FlyWheel that feeds me what I’m hungry for.

(Pure competition)