WATCH OUT, SECRA, HERE I COME...!

9 March 2002

This exercise thing is threatening to get out of hand. Not only have I been religiously going to the club every day for a month (I just got my first bill yesterday), and sticking with a new eating plan that has lost me nearly 30 lbs so far, now I've taken yet another step.

My friend Olivia called a few days ago. She's been following the saga of this Reshaping of Bev and she had a suggestion. She knows that I don't work on Friday and she is self-employed, so she is able to set her own hours and would like to take Fridays off too. She suggested that we start taking bike trips together.

Bike trips???

Do you know how long it's been since I've been on a bike? Reagan was still president. The Soviet Union was still a union. The members of NSYNC weren't even conceived the last time I was on a bike.

To my amazement, before I knew it, I heard the words "sure! why not!" come out of my mouth. I felt like Charlie McCarthy, with Edgar Bergen controlling my words. Was that me who said yes?

Can I even still ride a bike?

I figure that if SecraTerri can learn to love bike riding, I can too (though I'm not going to aim for 2002 miles in 2002, thankyewverymuch.)

So today Olivia came to Davis and we went Bike Shopping.

I felt like I had entered a whole new country. It was a subculture I'd never encountered before. It had its own special language, its own special customs, and even special clothes. Olivia spoke the language. I just trailed along behind, wishing I had an English-to-Bike dictionary.

Once we'd found the right bikes, then it was time for accessories. (Bev learns to accessorize...does this mean I'm becoming a gay man?) Olivia went round the store like a whirling dervish--she'll take one of these and two of those, and one of these and a large size of that, and a small size of this. All the while the clerk was following along behind her, notepad in hand, the smile his face growing as the list lengthened. He had a live one.

In the end, he ran off an estimate in a hefty 3-figure price. I tried to continue to smile placidly while mentally calling up my checking account to figure out if there are three figures in it.

is it me?

We agreed to return at the end of the month to get our bikes, which will have been custom assembled just for us by then. And then we're off on our great adventure. For 3-figures, I'd better get a lot of use out of this silver chariot.

We discussed our upcoming bike adventures over lunch at Strings Italian Cafe, where I had a chicken caesar salad, which I only ate half of, bringing the other half home for dinner tonight (good Bev). Then Olivia dropped me off at home and went off on her own to try to find Esparto.

The idea of purchasing a bike and starting to actually go biking somewhere must have made me giddy. I decided to go for a walk. I put on my walking shoes and headed out for the Davis Art Center (1.3 miles from here, according to Mapquest). There is a kind of weather shelter, which is called "David's Place" which was built with funds that were donated after David died. A plaque was put in about a year ago and I'd actually never seen it, so I decided to walk down and take a picture of it.

I walked nonstop at a fast clip from the house to the Art Center, stopped for 5 minutes to take a picture, and then walked back home again at the same fast clip. I didn't get winded. I didn't feel the need to stop. I wasn't sweating. And when I got back to the house, I was amazed to discover that I had completed the whole round trip in 40 minutes, including the 5 minute stop.

This exercise thing must be working. Maybe I will be able to go on bike rides. If I can even remember how to ride one. But, I guess it's like...well...uh...riding a bicycle--it will all come back to me once I actually get on the bike. Or so I hope.