A few weeks ago, a friend (I’ll call him Falstaff -- not for
his own protection, but because I’m whimsical, and also a jerk) remarked that
he’d had a really crazy idea. Maybe next year, he – like me -- would sign up to
race in the Sluicebox 100. A hundred
miles of mountain biking! Over every
hill Fairbanks
has to offer, including some you didn’t know existed! Bonus swamps, mosquitoes, ruts, rocks, roots,
and forest-fire smoke!
“But Laura soon brought me back to reality,” Falstaff added.
(I’ll refer to his wife as Laura because her name is Laura.) “She said, ‘But then… you’d have to
exercise.’ ”
Ugh. Exercise.
I don’t have oodles of willpower. And I hate exercise.
That’s why I never do it.
Whoa. Whoa.
Wait a minute. You can’t deny it, Nancy.
We’ve seen you at it. Repeatedly, blatantly, apparently shamelessly, and
we might add, totally publicly.
Yeah. I know, I know.
I’m the one who runs to work when it’s
fifty-four degrees below zero. And yes,
I’m the one who owns the only double-tag-along bike in Fairbanks, and pedals around town on this
bicycle-built-for three, panniers bulging with library books and kids singing
an out-of-tune duet of the Alaska Flag song. Yes, I’m THAT woman. I also hike rather a lot. I ski a fair bit. I even brachiate across the monkey bars
whenever the mood strikes me – which is pretty much whenever my parenting
duties lure me onto a playground. Mea
culpa, mea culpa. I do every one of
these things. But I don’t exercise.
Um, Nancy, that’s a ridiculous claim. You mountain-biked a hundred miles yesterday..
Oh. Right. I
mountain-biked a hundred miles yesterday.
As a result, I’m facing a few challenges today – such as thinking, walking,
and typing. (If you don’t understand the typing part, you’ve clearly never
spent 17 hours and 54 minutes rattling over assorted rocks and tree roots,
fingers locked desperately around the handlebars, clutching at the
brakes.)
I admit all this. But
I do not, I repeat, exercise.
The word “exercise” is freighted with meanings and
connotations. Merrian-Webster has a lot
to say about “exercise”. The definition
that most people seem to have in mind when they sigh that they “ought to get
more exercise” is 2(b): bodily exertion for the sake
of developing and maintaining physical fitness.
Then again, 3: something
performed or practiced in order to develop, improve, or display a specific
capability or skill and even 4: a
performance or activity having a strongly marked secondary or ulterior aspect resonate,
too. None of these definitions is really
something I want to take up in my free time.
None of them sound like something it would be easy to stick with, via self-discipline
alone. None of them, in short, sound
like much fun.
Out of curiosity, I typed “exercise…” into Google, and let
Autocomplete do its magic. The first
item on the dropdown list was “exercise in futility”. Well then.
I tried “exercise is…” I found that “exercise is
medicine.” I also learned that “exercise
is good for you” – and, immediately below that, “exercise is bad for you”. Finally, for those who like their Google
responses wordy and directly cribbed from Public Health Reports, “exercise is a
subset of physical activity that is planned, structured, and repetitive.”
Planned, structured, and repetitive? Oh, heavens, Google. Indubitably, I enjoy activities that drive my
heart rate way up. I can have fun doing
things that make me sweat. I frequently
thrill to the challenge of hobbies that require enthusiastic muscular activity,
balance, control, or interesting bodily positions. (If you can think of activities that combine
the best of all of the above attribute, especially if your name is Falstaff, please
exercise decorum in the comments section). However, my enthusiasm for all these
endeavors notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure I don’t like anything that is “planned, structured, and repetitive.” Nor do I want to undertake “bodily exertion”
solely for the sake of physical fitness.
Or, if I did, I wouldn’t have the strength of mind necessary to persuade
myself to do so.
I do, however, want to “undertake bodily exertion” for
plenty of other reasons. I want to get
places, using simple forms of transportation that don’t burn any gas, don’t
break down, and don’t prevent me from seeing and smelling the details of the world
along the way: commuting as exercise, shopping as exercise, and errands as
exercise. I want to roam and explore,
feel the wind in my face, and find solace in solitude and wonder in wilderness:
hiking and skiing and canoeing as exercise.
I want to use my body as a tool, to lug our water, build an outhouse, and
haul the wood pellets that heat our house: life as exercise. I want to challenge myself, pushing the
limits of how far, how fast, how long I can go, and finding the space inside
myself that comes from movement and exhaustion: racing as exercise. Last but most certainly not least, I want to
play, chasing my kids and lurching them skyward, rolling and tumbling, laughing
with movement and blatant bodily fun: joy as exercise. I want
these things. I revel in them. No willpower required.
So, yes – you’ve seen me out there. Much as I’d like to think some sort of
penumbra of invisibility protects me from the embarrassment of public recognition
(even as I chandelier myself in blinking LEDs all through the 17-month-long Fairbanks winters),
friends, acquaintances, and amused-at-my-expense strangers are fond of telling
me that I’m a local landmark. I can only hope that I’m a familiar character in
the manner of the charismatic produce guy at Fred Meyer West, and not in the
manner of the woman with the paranoid persecution complex who keeps running for
public office. However, whatever you
think of my idiosyncrasies, and whatever you think it is I’m doing on Alaska’s roadsides,
trails, and trackless yonder, I’m certainly not exercising. Not even when I’ve been rattling along from
seven a.m. until well past midnight. Did
I mention that my legs aren’t obeying me terribly well, and my hands are a bit
unwieldy today?
The Sluicebox was conceived, organized, and mapped via hours
of toil, paperwork, and painful logistics by some of my more selfless,
over-committed, and insane friends -- such as, for example, my husband. The work of putting it together is so
Herculean that it may not occur again in its current form. Moreover, not everyone’s dreams of challenge
and adventure require an event long enough to listen to an entire George R.R.
Martin audiobook (although some people’s dreams are long enough for the whole
series, and then some). However, I have confidence that other
opportunities will rise up, Phoenix-like, from
the smoke of a hot, dry Fairbanks
summer.
Like its winter equivalent -- the White
Mountains 100 -- the Sluicebox is an over-the-top endeavor. It’s ridiculous. It’s numbing.
It’s astonishing. And it does
not, I still maintain, require exercise.
As such, Falstaff should shake up his terminology, reclaim
“exercise”, and get out his bike.
Your absence of exercise must be a bit maddening to all the people you are passing on your 100-mile tours. Others call it fantastic.
ReplyDeleteLike me! I exercise, dammit! At least I beat Nancy to the finish line--barely. You're an animal, Nancy, and it was fun to ride (and push) with you for a while.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd been a bit slower, we could have discussed more books! But hey, we could get together some time for a ride. It wouldn't be exercise, you see; it would be socializing while enjoying a bike ride. Totally different.
Delete