Great story, Bike Writer.
I rode 700 miles my first year, 1300 the second. It's hard to believe that was almost 11 years ago.
Yesterday, DH said to me, did you ever imagine you'd be doing this? I can honestly say no. I was involved with aerobics and gym stuff and felt the same way, but I got burned out. The thing about cycling, is that there's always another type of riding to do, if you get sick of one thing. A couple of years ago, I did about 700 miles riding around to farm stands, errands, appointments, in addition to riding my road bike, because I was sick of trying to be a fast road rider. That was a needed thing.
I often wonder what my gym teachers would think. I flunked so many physical fitness tests, it's not funny. Of course, those were "skill-based," i.e. shooting a basket. One time I got put in "flab lab" in high school. The other students wondered why a 5 foot tall, 95 lb. person was in there... but the stuff we did in that class was endurance oriented. I found out I was good at that by running around the locker room and gym, in the dead of winter, for 30 minutes.