Riding Helped Her Get Healthy. Now, She Coaches Others
Age: 51
Occupation: Teacher/Personal Trainer
Hometown: Homewood, Alabama
Weight lost: 30 pounds
Time Cycling: 20 years
Reason For Riding: Lifetime fitness, to help get others active
I played basketball in college, and after that, I really didn’t have anything pushing me to be competitive. When I was no longer training for endurance to be competitive on the court, I lost my fitness. With no coach yelling at me, it was hard to motivate myself.
I started partying hard and drinking a lot of alcohol. My weight fluctuated a lot, and in total I probably gained 20 to 30 pounds; though I was still active, I knew something had to change. In college, I could eat a lot of pizza and get away with it, since I was younger and training a lot, but soon I realized that was something of which I had to be mindful.
Where I am in Alabama, there are not many safe spaces for us to get out and ride. But I wanted to get back in shape. When I got back into endurance sports and started incorporating biking, the weight started dropping off, but it took a dedicated effort.
Eventually, I decided to take a chance and do my commute on bike—a 26-mile ride one way. It’s nothing too crazy, but here in Alabama, everyone thought it was. And from then on, I was back into it. Once I really dialed in on my nutrition, I started running marathons and completing centuries.
With my healthy lifestyle, it doesn’t mean I prevent myself from eating everything I enjoy. Instead I just focus on nutrition and eating everything in moderation. For me, if I let myself eat everything I want all the time, I can’t get everything I want out of workouts. But I’m not trying to lose weight, that’s not the goal. I’m trying to be fit! Food is not the enemy, it is fuel.
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When I was a high school physical education teacher, I wanted to incorporate cycling classes at my school. I was awarded a $5,000 grant when I achieved National Board Certified Teacher status, and I spent the money on indoor bikes and began teaching cycling using heart rate monitors in my classroom. I also started a wellness program for teachers, and the heart and soul of that program was indoor cycling. With those bikes, I also hosted yearly “Bike For Bagwell” rides, which was a fundraiser for a former school employee who battled cancer. The students could donate money to the American Cancer Society to keep their teachers pedaling all day.
I wanted to spend the grant money on something that would promote lifetime wellness for each and every student, including athletes, regular-education students, and students with special needs. The classroom environment allowed me to promote outdoor cycling in a safe setting. I followed up with a grant to a local bank and was awarded five bikes to teach outdoor cycling.
Additionally, I was teaching students with special needs, and it’s not safe to get them outside on bikes right away, but in the studio, I could comfortably teach them. The second grant allowed me to be able to take those students outside in small groups once they were ready.
I never imagined that biking would be such a big part of my life. After 26 years of teaching, I’m retired, but I still teach in-person cycling classes at a local YMCA (well, I did before the pandemic) as well as online fitness classes, which I can continue to do. I always incorporate the importance of lifelong fitness within my classes, and cycling is something you can do for life.
During the pandemic, it hasn’t always been easy to find open space to ride, but I joined Sufferfest, and I really love it. I still teach my Lifetime Individualized Fitness Education (LIFE) fitness classes virtually.
Cycling can be such a lifetime sport for all of us. It makes me feel like a kid again. Last year, my wife and I went on a ride with Trek Travel, we pedaled from Prague to Vienna, and didn’t know anybody but we had so much fun. I want to be able to do this forever, and I think at some point, I’ll get an e-bike. And from what I’ve seen during the pandemic, more and more people are starting to champion cycling, and that’s great!
I am currently training for the Dopey Challenge which is scheduled for January 2021. (It’s a 5K on a Thursday, 10K on a Friday, half marathon on a Saturday and full marathon on a Sunday.) I mostly train on my bike, since running tends to hurt me. I usually ride 12 to 15 miles a day, run long once a week, and even do my recovery on the bike, I strength train twice weekly and During the pandemic, I also started yoga, which has been beneficial.
As a personal trainer, I work with people who really have so much to lose with their unhealthy lifestyles. I tell them, “you’ve got so much to lose but so much to gain. You can gain your life back.”
I feel like that’s what I did when I started cycling. Once I gained my fitness back, I gained so much more out of life.
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