How A Five-Year-Old Taught Me To Ride A Bike

“That’s it.  I’m done.  No more.”

That was the declaration I made to myself the other day.  I’ve been in this boot trying to heal a stress fracture for 6 weeks now, and I’ve absolutely had it.  I had my second MRI last week but don’t have the results of it yet, and at this point I don’t really care.  Feeling like my race season has given up on me trying to catch up with it, I’ve decided to give up on my race season.  It doesn’t matter what the doctor tells me next week.  Healed, still broken, or something in between, I’m finished with my stint in the athletic world.

I had tried to be patient and upbeat.  I pretended it didn’t bother me that my workouts were cut in half, and that every day I was faced with the drudgery of deep water running (even writing about it is boring).  I’ve laughed off race after race that I had registered for back in the winter and then came and went without me participating.  But the other day I finally hit my breaking point.

I know what it is that broke me, too.  I was in my car, driving through my town that in my pre-fracture days I’d either walk or run through regularly.  Ahead of me was a pack of bikers, and I slowed down and swung far around them (and if any of those bikers are reading this, I’m happy to share the road but the operative word here is “share”.  Please don’t hog the whole thing and then complain about drivers being careless and unaware).  And that’s when I had it.  No, not from driving around them.  Well, actually, kind of. I was driving past them instead of biking with them (which if I had, I would have been so pissed off at all the drivers who are so careless and unaware).  I thought about my bike which still sits on the bike trainer in my basement, abandoned by me 6 weeks ago and still waiting for its first outside ride of 2013, probably now with the air leaked out of its tires and the dampness of the basement beginning to affect the gears.  Well, it’s not going to see the light of day.  I am a triathlete no longer.

I celebrated my journey back to “Fat Girl” by eating ice cream for lunch (with chocolate syrup and a chocolate chip cookie crumbled on top for good measure).  I had nachos for an afternoon snack, and pizza for dinner.  Really.  And I learned the hard way that it’s possible to get a food hangover.

My incredibly coordinated left-handed college scholorship

That night I was sitting with my 2 children on my bed, with my stomach saying, “hey, I’m not used to the junk food anymore.  Can you please pace yourself next time?”  Just before my kids go to sleep, we have “chat time” where we talk about stuff that went on during the day.  That morning, my 5 year old son Benjamin had pestered my husband into taking him to the playground so he could learn how to ride a 2 wheel bike.  Ben picked it up almost immediately, his natural athletic prowess serving as evidence of the power of genetic mutation.  During “chat time”, Ben listed his bike ride as his favorite part of the day.  Then he said, “Mommy do you want to know why I want to learn to ride a 2 wheeler?  Because I want to do triathlons, like you.” 

And there it was.  A little boy who doesn’t tie his shoes yet and still believes that a sleeve is a perfectly good napkin took my self-defeat and crushed it in one sentence.  On the very same day that I had given up, my 5 year old son reminded me that I don’t eat healthy and workout just for myself.  I have 2 kids who look up to me, and when they look up I want them to see someone that they want to be themselves.

After I tucked my kids in, my husband Wil saw me clomping towards the basement.  He asked why I was going down there, knowing that I avoid stairs as much as possible since because of my boot I can only take one step at a time like a toddler (and I can’t tell you how many enemies I’ve made at Grand Central when they get stuck behind me on the stairs going down to our train on the lower level).  My answer to him: “I have to go check on my bike.”