Wow, cool forum and great name! Found this site while looking for a solution to a skin issue (and I think I found it, as posted in the Health area)!
Never much into sports or physical activity, I was shocked to overhear my son (from my first marriage) years ago describe me as "the athletic parent." Really? Me? I'm a couch potato, and a large one at that! But after my son learned to ride a bike at his dad's house, the kid and I went out to a bike store and I bought not only a bike for him to have at my house, but also a bike for myself. It's a Giant Sedona, and is the only new bike I've ever had; bikes I had as a kid were always hand-me-downs.
The kid and I took to the trails. When my husband of two years and I were courting, his best friend got a fatal illness and died within the year. He was visiting me when we learned his friend had died; we went out that day and got him a bicycle, too. He hadn't had one since he was a kid. We rode that day, and the saying is right: bicycling IS incompatible with melancholy.
My husband and I had talked during our multi-year long-distance courtship about riding the 184-mile C&O Canal Towpath someday; I was thinking this would be the year, since my son starts college this fall.
A few months ago, I learned that my husband has been having an affair which started five months (!) after our wedding. Since he wants to pursue that relationship.....
Goodbye, husband.
I really thought he was it for me, that we would be together forever.
I took to my bike, which I hadn't ridden much in the past couple of years.
Hello, bicycle.
It's almost impossible to cry and bike at the same time.
And I'm riding the C&O Canal Towpath by myself this fall.
Biking as therapy.