NEED: 31 Days of 5-Minute Free Writes

I have been taking a spin class that meets every Friday. It’s an 8-week commitment that focuses on a particular method of training based on the watts we use.

Today was the fourth of the eight classes. Two weeks ago, a fellow classmate told me that we were going to orchestrate a “birthday ride” for our instructor, whose birthday is October 2.

Last week, we took blank shirts to this classmate so she could have special shirts made for the birthday ride.

Today, we arrived and surprised our instructor by all wearing the shirts that had been designed, donning neon bracelets and handing her a crown.

Then the music wouldn’t work.

At first, it seemed somewhat impossible (okay — less than desirable at least) to do spin class without music.

We all thought we needed music.

We persevered. We started pedaling, and in the less-intensive periods of the workout, we took turns telling our own birthday stories.

Some were funny. Some were poignant. All helped us get to know each other better.

Someone joked that we were pedaling to “the music of friendship.”

She was right!

A social media acquaintance challenged me recently to sit for five minutes in silence before writing my blog post, so the thoughts could mingle better in my head.