I am not an athlete.
I have come to terms with the facts before me:
- I ride a bike but I am not a cyclist.
- I often wear running shoes but I do not run.
- I go to yoga but I am a forever-beginner who still has no idea of the names of those asanas.
- And most importantly, on this trip to Whistler…
- I don skis, but I am a crappy skier.
Especially when Whistler/Blackcomb is setting all sorts of crazy snowfall records.
Let’s be perfectly clear. Gobs of snow is great for people who know what they’re doing. The grins on those kind of boarders and skiers is rather infectious.
But for someone like me who has quivering thighs after two turns in snow that is deeper than quicksand and feels about as forgiving…well, it’s just a titch less fun.
It was at some point between the howling winds and the last time I sunk into a deep snowy hole, floundering and flailing like a half-dead halibut on a dock, that I decided…get me off this mountain alive and I will be forever selfless and only do good.
No wait, that’s not the bargain I made. I think it went more like this;
Get me off of this mountain and we’ll go to the Bearfoot Bistro for the 5-course tasting menu.
If nothing else, I am a practical woman.
Yes indeed. And while I was sliding back the delicate Vancouver Island oysters in a red wine mignonette and whilst savouring the chunks of smoked and roasted pork belly on my wild mushroom toast with pea shoots…
…and when Kevin tucked in to his lobster risotto, just before his lamb-like-chocolate, well, between my smiling sips of Cava and that perfect Pinot Noir, I knew that I had made a good, and very wise, bargain.
$36.00 for a five-course extravaganza is a small price to pay to make it off the mountain alive.
I guess that makes me a cyclist, (except that bit about optimum revs per minute) even though I haven’t been on my bike since about Oct. 15, and only put 300 miles on in the last year! I pretty much live to bike, but don’t seem to be doing much living these days, if that’s the case. I believe, wholeheartedly, that anyone who wants to call themselves a cyclist, or golfer, or swimmer or writer or artist, is allowed as long as they have some interest in and experience with the activity. If you write–letters, the occasional blog post, short poems or technical manuals–you are a writer. Ditto with other dilettantes–they can lay claim to any activity they participate in and enjoy. Who knows? That person’s interest may flower into a passion for what they now dabble in. If you do it, claim it!
Well dammit Mandy, then I guess I’m a cyclist! And a skier! And a semi-fast walker (really can’t claim runner status, given that the knees protest too much) and I definitely claim writer and artist…so thank you for your words…I would also suggest that you do a whole lot of other living – in addition to – the cycling.
I went up the mountain again today, and though the thighs were burning, I managed to go longer and further than yesterday…baby steps 🙂
It’s the fun you have that is the important part, not how well you perform against some artificial standard. Unless of course, someone is paying you to perform to that standard. If you’re not being paid, bumble along however you like; just enjoy. You’ll get better!
Mandy, I am most certainly not being paid, so I guess I’ve got that part covered 🙂 I think I’d just love to be able to pull it off without the screaming thighs…though come to think of it, just about everything I love doing, like cycling, hiking, walking, comes with burning muscles. The only thing that doesn’t hurt while I’m doing it is reading!
Sounds like a fair deal to me, but what I want to know is how you figure you’re not a cyclist? Just exactly how do you define that terms so that it excludes you?
Sharry, I guess what I mean by cyclist is someone who remembers from one season to the next how to change a tire (without a YouTube instructional video each time), who knows all about keeping their revolutions per minute at some optimum level and generally lives to cycle.
Moi? I ride a bike and hope everything works 🙂
I love this post!! I was just thinking, gee, I’d love to sneak off to Whistler for some skiing… and when we went to Sun Peaks a few years ago though I could ski way better than I ever did on the old sticks way back in the day, frankly it’s no use if you have leg muscles on the pre-spinach Popeye scale. The last run of each day (by last, I mean when the body gave out, not when the lifts closed, by far!) I was a quivering, plummeting blob of jello listening to the voice in my head yelling “go back to the gym before you kill yourself skiing!”
Of course Whistler does have sumptuous dining to console oneself with…
Hey Laurie, I went up again today (glutton in more ways than one it would seem!) and the conditions were much better but my thighs were screaming so loud I was wishing for ear plugs. Unreal. I feel like such a wanker!
That’s my kind of ski deal! But can I make the deal before I go up the mountain?