Aside from the fact that the Shitbird Scale didn’t wholly climb down from its position of Chief Pisser-Offer yesterday morning, I was buzzing as I got ready to go out on my first bike ride in more than seven years. I’d gone to bed on Saturday night having laid all my gear out in readiness, including my old skinny-life cycling shorts, my cycling gloves and my helmet. My bike was standing in the kitchen in newly serviced anticipation.
The only bits of me that were quivering with nerves rather than excitement were my bum cheeks, and to be fair they had a hall pass on excitement for obvious reasons. Size of saddle vs size of arse…no further explanation needed, right? In the cheeks department it was never going to end well, and I’d already made my peace with that.
Pulling on the cycling shorts, I was immediately filled with gratitude towards the person who invented lycra back in the day. You’ve got to bear in mind these bad boys are actually four sizes smaller than the size I should rightfully be wearing, but although it felt like I was wearing an arse corset they did make an heroic effort to stretch far enough to provide padding in all the right places.
On the downside, being squeezed between the waist and the knee area meant that the areas just above the waist and just below the knees looked…well, lumpy is how I think I’d describe it. I pulled a second pair of exercise pants on over the top of my cycling shorts in an attempt to disguise some of the more obvious overspill, and it wasn’t entirely successful but it was better.
I had to swallow my worries that somewhere along the route I might explode out of all that lycra but surprisingly, everything held together and there were no fat incidents to report. And you know what, my friend and I had the most awesome morning. We cycled for the best part of 15 miles, and I can’t even begin to tell you what it felt like, zipping along the greenway on two wheels. I felt free, somehow. Well, apart from having no circulation below the waist, obviously.
And agile…I felt agile. I wasn’t a fat girl on a bike, I was just a girl on a bike, same as all the other cyclists who were out for a Sunday morning ride. It took me right back to the time where I was a fully paid up resident of Skinny Town. And after sniffing the air of that life again yesterday morning I’m more determined than ever to go back and stay there this time.
Now, I’ve got to be honest, by the time we got home, my arse cheeks were not feeling the love. Without thinking, I perched on the edge of a chair last night to talk to my boy and shot up again like a scalded cat but it’s a small price to pay, you know? It’s no worse than the aches and pains I’ve pushed through after working out in the Kingdom of Pain, except the saddle managed to reach places the kettle bells can’t get to. It’ll pass. By mid-week I’ll brave another outing, once the bruises in my pants have calmed down a bit.
I can’t help feeling that a whole new world of possibility has opened up to me, and I’m excited. Eighty five pounds ago, I couldn’t have done this, and now I can 🙂
