WASHINGTON – I almost skipped my spin class this morning. I would have missed the first lady of the United States.
Jill Biden has made her love for SoulCycle evident – she even attended a class in London the day after King Charles III’s coronation with Akshata Murthy, the wife of the U.K. prime minister. But I definitely wasn’t prepared Wednesday morning to see her, second gentlemen Doug Emhoff or the Secret Service when I showed up, still half-asleep, to my 7 a.m. “Pop Star Battles: Lizzo vs. Harry Styles”-themed SoulCycle class in Georgetown, about a 10-minute drive from the White House.
After I absentmindedly went through a metal detector and bag check at the door (I sleepily did a double take as that’s not part of my usual SoulCycle routine), I made my way to my bike. A few minutes later, Biden, dressed casually in workout clothes, joined me in the back row, two seats away. The first song of our class was “Like a Girl” by Lizzo, which starts off with her singing: “Woke up feeling like I just might run for president.” I’m choosing to believe this was a purposeful decision on our instructor’s part.
Some call it a cult, but I love the camaraderie of a spin class. Between the instructor cheering you on, classmates around you working hard and, in today’s case, Harry Styles’ and Lizzo’s feel-good music, I’m so much more motivated to push myself than I would be at home or at the gym by myself.
But I’ve never had a stronger motivator than the 71-year-old first lady crushing her workout just a few feet away. Jill Biden isn’t sitting out this tap-back, push-up sprint? Neither am I. She’s pushing through the last set of weightlifting? Same here.
For a long time I preferred the solitude of an at-home workout, but having a workout buddy, classmates with similar goals, and, occasionally, the doctorate-holding wife of the president of the United States, is endlessly more fun and encouraging than going it alone.
Dr. Biden, if you’re reading this, see you next week for Taylor Swift Tuesday?
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