Thursday 27 December 2012

Aborting the food baby

Like me, you've probably finished Christmas with a fridge full of left overs (hello turkey sandwiches!) and a "food baby" (a tummy resembling a six month pregnancy).

I knew this would happen, so I have been preparing for a solid round of cycling over the holidays.

Except that sleeping in has been much more enticing - especially as the weather in Sydney has been absolutely crap.

But come this morning, there was no choice - the food baby was starting to resemble twins. So off I went.

Normally I go east. I don't want to go anywhere near work for the next few weeks, so the first place I went was west - I thought a lap or two of the Homebush Olympic precinct would do the trick.

Just one problem - every man and his dog was passing me. That doesn't usually happen. Sure, a few speedsters on TT bikes will blat past me, but I can generally hold my own against most cyclists, being passed by only the skinniest and speediest blighters.

Not today. Every person on two wheels went past me. I was giving orders to the legs to give me turns for 30-35km/h, but they simply refused. I was lucky to be doing 26 - going downhill. After a week off the bike, the legs had completely gone to sleep.

On my second lap, I was passed by a young lady with a nicely developed set of glutes. I thought, "Blow this - I'm not getting overtaken by a woman", and suddenly the turbo kicked in and off I went.

There's life in the old dog yet - you just have to know which buttons to press. And the oldest and most basic buttons work best.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That "nicely developed set of glutes" is one of the benefits of cycling that is not normally revealed to non-cyclists. They'd probably ban it.

The dictionary word is "callipygous" - my favourite velodrome word. A few years ago, riding around an outdoor velodrome, we discussed our favourite words. As you do. Male and female riders. It was an interesting conversation, particularly when we had to give reasons. It got us through about 75km at around 34km/h.