This New Women Bike PHL Cycling Team’s Story Will Convince You to Find a Workout Buddy, Stat

Women Bike PHL Devo Team | Photo via Annie Monjar

This winter, two Philly ladies, Elisabeth Reinkordt and Michelle Lee, started a new cycling team for beginners called Women Bike PHL Devo, with the goal of getting women who’d never completed a bike race in their lives race-day ready. Yesterday, cycling blog Ella featured a piece highlighting the highs, lows, and triumphs of training season from the perspective of two of the team’s seven members, one of them through the eyes of co-founder Lee, and the other from teammate Anjali Chainani’s point of view. And, along with being seriously inspiring, both stories are basically PSAs telling everyone to go get a workout buddy, like, now.

As Anjali Chainani says of her teammates (another word for super-dependable workout buddies) throughout the three-month-long training:

“Together, we grumbled about the ice and the snow. We met for happy hour. We talked about our anxieties and came up with strategies. They were supportive, patient and expressive in their coaching.

“My teammates were present to the fight. Get MAD! they would yell. GET ANGRY! It worked. Someone else can’t be more excited about my life and my abilities than me. That just can’t happen. I got PISSED OFF and gave my all. We all did.”

See? Sometimes all you need is a workout buddy to vent about your cycling (or running, or CrossFit, or yoga) fears to, who — once you’re done venting, of course — will give you that extra little push to get over your fears work as hard as you freakin’ can.

There are about a bazillion more inspiring quotes from the Women Bike PHL Devo ladies over on the Ella blog, so if you’re in need of some midweek motivation, be sure to read up here.

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