Were you athletic as a kid?

[caligurl]

no.... not at all... i was into dance though (but i guess some would call that atheletic) ballet til i was 18.... tap.... baton at some point.... adagio at one point..... (i got to dance with such a cute boy... too bad i was too young at the time to appreciate that!)

[li10up]

How hard/easy was it for all of you to get back on the bike?

[mimitabby]

hahaha.
My Dh got into it before i did. i tried some rides with him and my then children. while the three of them were training for a double century i decided that 5 miles was my limit for a bike ride... bwahahahaha i drove the sag van..
it took a long time before I was strong enough to enjoy riding very far. I liked coasting.
so far as the mechanics of riding itself, i had no problem with that. once I learned, I never forgot how..

[kaybee]

Getting back on the bike (I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a teenager) was much easier than learning to run, probably because I didn't think about it much and I don't take it very seriously; it's just something fun to do on weekends.

KB

[RoadRaven]

hahahahahahahahaha


nope

not at all

I was the kid who wrote herself notes at school to get out of doing PE... I got really good at forging my mum's signature

[five one]

I was active as opposed to athletic as a child.

I grew up in a time when we were scooted out the front door in summer and told to play and not come back until dinner time. We were always busy running, climbing, and riding bikes. We also had PE in school at least three times a week and were active during recess. I took ballet from age five to 12. Once I hit junior high, it wasn't cool to be in ballet and PE became a chore. My new-found love of the Beatles in 1964 kept me indoors playing records and planning how I was going to meet and marry George Harrison

I remained flexible, but was not aerobically fit for the next 20 years. Took dance in college for PE credits and rode my Schwinn Varsity to class.

Later, as a SAHM, Jazzercize was my escape 10X a week. When I went back to work, I began walking, then running, on my lunch hour, but it wasn't much fun and I wasn't real consistent about it.

I was 50 when I began cycling almost five years ago. I didn't have too much trouble getting back into riding. Started with my son's old mountain bike (which was horrible) and when I was sure I was going to keep riding, got my Bianchi. I'm sure that I am more fit now than I have ever been post adolescence, and I plan on riding as long as I possibly can.

[mimitabby]

I grew up in a time when we were scooted out the front door in summer and told to play and not come back until dinner time.

My new-found love of the Beatles in 1964 kept me indoors playing records and planning how I was going to meet and marry George Harrison

I remained flexible, but was not aerobically fit for the next 20 years. Took dance in college for PE credits and rode my Schwinn Varsity to class.
.

5'1" I was going to meet and marry him too! what did that Patti know anyway?!
we also stayed out everyday to play, but not just in the summer. It's raining?
wear a raincoat!

[horsemom]

I thought I was a boy---rode horses, bikes, climbed trees, swam. I never even wore a shirt in the summer until I was about 10!!

Did anyone ever hear the Dar Williams song "When I was a Boy"?

I won't forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy, I'm glad he didn't check.
I learned to fly, I learned to fight, I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other's lives out on the pirate's deck.
And I remember that night when I'm leaving a late night with some friends
And I hear somebody tell me it's not safe, someone should help me
I need to find a nice man to walk me home.
When I was a boy, I scared the pants off of my mom,
Climbed what I could climbup on
And I don't know how I survived, I guess I knew the tricks that all the boys knew
And you could walk me home, but I was a boy, too.

I was a kid that you would like, just a small boy on her bike
Riding topless, yeah I never cared who saw.
My neighbor came outside to say, "Get your shirt," I said "No way
It's the last time, I'm not breaking any law."
And now I'm in a clothing store, and the signs say Less is More
More that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me
That can't help me climb a tree in ten seconds flat
When I was a boy, see that picture? That was me
Grass stained shirt and dusty knees.
And I know things have gotta change,
They got pills to sell, they've got implants to put in, they've got implants to remove
But I am not forgetting
That I was a boy too.

And like the woods where I would creep, it's a secret I can keep
Except when I'm tired, except when I'm being caught off guard.
I've had a lonesome awful day, the conversation finds it's way
To catchng fireflies out in the backyard
And I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived
And I say now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won
And he says "Oh no, oh, no, can't you see
When I was a girl, my mom and I, we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
And I could always cry, now even when I'm alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness,
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you."

[five one]

5'1" I was going to meet and marry him too! what did that Patti know anyway?!
we also stayed out everyday to play, but not just in the summer. It's raining?
wear a raincoat!

Yeah...Patti Boyd. She was so...I don't know...blonde. I was so...not blonde. I did copy her hair and make up though. Just in case George came to his senses .

We got sent out into the snow in snowsuits and "idiot" mittens. The kind with the string that went up one sleeve and down the other so you'd never lose them. Whenever I smell wet wool, it takes me back to Colorado in the 50s.

[mimitabby]

Yeah...Patti Boyd. She was so...I don't know...blonde. I was so...not blonde. I did copy her hair and make up though. Just in case George came to his senses .

We got sent out into the snow in snowsuits and "idiot" mittens. The kind with the string that went up one sleeve and down the other so you'd never lose them. Whenever I smell wet wool, it takes me back to Colorado in the 50s.

Colorado! In the winter the limiting factor was our feet. those little rubber boots didn't keep the feet very warm.. and when the snow was deep, it always went down inside our shoes. I grew up in Newark NJ vicinity, before children were raised with so much fear.

I was not blonde nor did i wear makeup back then. (or now for that matter)

[Pax]

I was a hard core athlete growing up, I played tennis, softball, track, and swimming in high school. When I got to college I added rugby, racquetball, and fencing to the mix. I stayed an active athlete until I had enough surgery that playing any sport got too painful. My SO is a long-term athlete who was a cyclist and a runner when we got together (17 years ago), she got me interesting cycling and I found the transition to a bike to be effortless in terms of comfort with the actual bike...I can't say the same was true for my butt.

[maillotpois]

They put me into remedial PE when I was in elementary school. That's back when they had funding for that sort of thing.

Eye-hand coordination, ball sports, not my thing. I'd ride my horse all day and hike through the woods. But because they put me in a "special" program I always believed I wasn't an athlete.

Until I bought a bike 6 years ago.

[indysteel]

I wasn't much of an athelete as a young kid, at least not in an organized way. I was crazy about my bike, horses, roller skating and swimming, but I didn't pursue anything competitively. My parents were way too self involved to shuttle me from thing to thing and I wasn't attracted to any of the competitive sports offered at my Catholic grade school (does anybody really like kickball?).

Then, for some unknown reason, I became a crazed runner. I joined the track team as a freshman in H.S. and went a little nuts. There was one spot on the Varsity distance team, and I decided that I just had to have it. I desperately wanted to ultimately be a four-year letterman (a big deal at my H.S).

So, I started to training and competing like crazy. I think I ran in at least three meets a week through the season, despite injuries, vomiting (from the exertion of a full-on 800 meters), sleeplessness (I became an insomniac because of my training in the evening). I made it, though, and set some school records in the 800 meters. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I did it all the same.

My sophomore year, I joined the cross country team and again ran through some injuries but set some school records in the process. Unbeknownst to me, I had a stress fracture in my foot. Instead of sending me to the doctor, my coach would just tape my foot up really tight and send me on my way. After the run, he'd then make me stand in a bucket of ice to deaden the pain. I walked on the side of my foot for a good three months before finally going to the doctor. I wish I could say that this was in the dark ages of training or something, but it was 1985.

I spent the off season on crutches. By the following spring, my body started to really give out and I was going to physical therapy for one thing after another, until my doctor told me that I was essentially running myself into the ground. Burnt out and terribly unhappy with what seemed like a monumental failure, I quit the team and never returned. I've always kind of regretted it, especially since I still don't enjoy running. It did help me recognize that I have a somewhat obsessive personality about certain things that I have to reign in from time to time so that I don't ruin something that I love. With cycling, I've remained motivated but not crazed about it. It helps that it's not as hard on my body.

[hellosunshine]

chubby,teased,self conscious outsider!athletic?no,dreaded sports.country bumpkin living in the yorkshire dales,we just walked and walked.lycra clad cyclists were scoffed at!



35,slim,hit civilisation,knocked about by life experiences-took to the bike like duck to water!

after my first stop at some traffic lights when i went over like a domino,being clipless is second nature,it comes like breathing.

[IFjane]

Five-One & mimi - I'm sooooo glad I didn't have to compete with you two as a child - I was going to marry Paul!

I, too, was very active as a child. Outside all the time. Rarely played with dolls or girly things - preferred instead to dress up the family dog & drag her around the neighborhood. I have been riding bikes since I was 5. We lived exactly one mile from the neighborhood elementary school & all the kids rode their bikes to and from school every day. (Kindergarten through 6th grade.) Got my first 10-speed at the age of 20 but quit riding regularly a couple years later. In the summers I swam and water skied (does "skied" have two i's?). In addition to riding my bike, we had horses & I rode/showed them. I never participated in organized sports.

To my mom's credit, she tried to make me more girly by enrolling me in ballet lessons as a child - I think I lasted two sessions.

I took up riding (bikes) regularly again at about age 43 with a mountain bike, then switched to primarily road biking about 5 years ago. No, it was not difficult for me to ride again. That said, I do carry a scar from chain ring bite from my early attempts at clipless pedals!