Warrior Daughter

My dad wanted me to be a warrior. I wanted to see his smile after a footrace more than any ribbon or trophy. When it was cold, or a Saturday, when my body was in recuperation mode, my finish line frown always matched his own. For training, he would lift me up to the pull-up bar in our garage. I remember seeing the bald gym teacher's eyes light up when I pulled my shaking chin over the bar for the ninth time, sure my face was red for all my classmates to see sitting Indian style on the lacquered gym floor below.  He would pat me on the back for beating all the boys and tell us all to run laps and I pretended to be as out of breathe as the other girls so they wouldn't hate me so much.  My dad also taught me how to lift weights in our concrete basement. We ran a half marathon once with one day of training and I wore my toe bruises as victorious warrior paint. Sometimes we'd ride bikes together and I'd cry on the homestretch when the wind was a bear and there were hills and my water bottle was empty. After those day-long rides, we felt like we'd earned the right to make popcorn and watch an old Hollywood classic in an exhausted stupor.
One summer day, my dad and I participated in one of the Breakaway Bike Club's long distant rides. We were trailing a little behind the other fifteen or so spandexed bodies and somehow we took a wrong turn and got lost. We arrived at the parking lot finishing much later, the gang all stood around, squirting Cytomax into their sweaty mouths, clicking around in their florescent clip shoes. My dad then said something I didn't comprehend: that we'd fallen behind so bad on account of me being slow; a girl. It was then and there that I learned to lie.
I started getting lazy and didn't care if my dad smiled or frowned anymore. So when he asked me why I didn't push myself in a 5K, I told him being mediocre felt good. When he asked me why I was gaining weight, I told him I wanted to try new foods and needed to stretch out my stomach. My Spartan, on-the-ready body took the brunt of my flabby adolescent rebellion.
As for our athletic relationship all these years later, let's just say that all that energy is still spinning somewhere in the ethers. We don't live in the same town anymore, but sometimes when I call him up, he tells me he had a dream we were doing yoga together. And I always think of him when I go for a soft and long bike ride alone.