The Inconvenience of Weight Gain

It’s finally warm here and I’m trying on summer clothes, jorts and riding shorts, sports bras, bathing suits, and everything is tight, cutting into the flesh of my back, refusing to slide past my thighs. I jiggle my arms in the mirror and study the new mottling of cellulite over my ribs. So this is what it’s like.

I have enough self-confidence to not measure my whole worth based on my weight, but it stings. After staying the same size for almost a decade, my body has rebelled in the last six months.

Why? My metabolism is probably slowing down—that’s a thing, right? My mom always said it happened at 25 so I figured I had dodged that bullet until now.

I’m always more sedentary in winter than summer, but I’m sure it didn’t help that winter started in September last year. And I was doing home renovations. Now I can finally get back to long runs and hard rides, my lifeblood and the outlet for all those accumulated calories.  

And then there was the pregnancy, I guess. I hate to blame that brief and dangerous incident, an ectopic emergency that I finally went to the ER for after waiting way too long. My stomach is sloppier now and twin scars mark the spots where my pelvic bones used to show under my skin, before the surgeon made little incisions to send a scope through my abdominal muscles and scrape out my uterus.

I still feel pretty sometimes and athletic usually. And every time I try to mentally work through how to lose the weight, I realize that’s not really my style. I hate the thought of going to any kind of exercise class or doing joyless workouts in the quest for self-improvement, instead of exercising because it satisfies and sustains me. I already have healthy eating habits. I always eat breakfast, I cook veggie-heavy meals most nights, I don’t drink soda or eat salad dressing or any of the other high-fructose Trojan horses. The unhealthy decisions I make—candy binges and two or three or five beers a night—are consciously made and improve my quality of life.

So I guess, since I don’t want to change anything, I’m stuck with weight gain. And have to find new clothes. Or just run and ride farther and faster this summer to escape the pounds. That sounds like more fun anyway.

In Praise of LDS Friends

I was recently moping that my fella doesn’t like the same kind of adventures that I do. A lot of couples function as each other’s primary backcountry partner, to varying degrees. The most extreme version of the outdoor couple speaks only in plural pronouns and is always posting summit selfies, arm in arm.

With more reflection I realized that I’ve never dated an adventure partner. My college boyfriend was the one I rode bikes with the most, but he was really into “training” and I openly mocked him for it. Before I moved west I dated a guy who was pretty good for a long trail ride, but he was so cold to me and so disaffected that the fun part, the bullshitting in parking lots and at intersections, was missing.

I could never date a boy that doesn’t do things, but I also don’t need a significant other for a backcountry experience. I’m kind of a hack but I’m self-sufficient enough to fix a flat, solve a problem, navigate, and keep myself warm and fed, without leaning on a person that is committed to supporting me because of some sort of relationship contract.

Tyler rides and he taught me how to ski and tour, but we have different priorities when we go outside and the breach seems to be widening. Thus the necessity of the “let’s do something” friend, or LDS friend, with apologies to Joseph Smith.

My father was my first LDS friend; he taught me how to ride, I taught him how to run, he taught me the importance of bringing a beer for after a run, and almost every Saturday at work, we’d have the conversation: “Do something this afternoon?” “Sure.”

I think that’s what makes a great LDS friend: say yes first, plan later. Spread a map out on the table and trace a potential route. Know that trying and failing is better than not getting out at all.

I had a lot of mountain bike adventure buddies, maybe because Pisgah breeds people who want to go lasso as much territory as possible into a brutal loop, and then drink novelty-sized Dos Equis afterwards. But running is more intimate and there’s less gratification, if you live for adrenaline.

I was overjoyed to find another LDS friend in Tahoe. Rebecca Duffy and I rode the whole South Lake trail system, her on an old beater Gary Fisher, not as confident on descents but just so down. We chased ideas across Desolation Wilderness. “We should create a Fallen Leaf Rim Trail, we should connect these peaks, OK I’ll steal some chips from the kitchen if you get a wilderness permit.”

The cliché is the boyfriend ditching his chick to get after it with his bros, but what if there’s a minor gender shift? I have a new LDS friend now but going off in the woods alone with a dude can be an awkward platonic proposition. Tyler totally gets it—he knows that since he’s unwilling to do the nonsense I want to do, he can’t be possessive and he can’t stop me from playing outside or I get all sad and bitchy and hard to be around.

Fortunately my roommate is also someone who is always down, even at dawn.
Pic courtesy of Cy

Yeah, I wish I had a great LDS lady right now, but I haven’t found one yet, someone who has a wide-open schedule and goes the same speed as I do and doesn’t already have a boyfriend who fulfills all her outdoor needs.

Maybe I’m just not the kind of person who gets that from a relationship. It makes me sad, but maybe it also sets me free.

My Cup Runneth Over

a couple of glorious fall rides later, on a finely tuned steed built of quicksilver and dreams, i'm feeling like a slayer. every gravel road climb begs a sprint and every rooty berm cries out for shreddage. everything in my life makes me smile and sometimes the days are too full to even pause and appreciate it. we all make our own happiness and by god, if that were my job i'd deserve a promotion.

Hard to be down when you look up

Wonderful rides with wonderful people

Miss you already

Merrymakers on a wild night

Wow

Seventeen years is such...a long...time. But now I'm one quiz, one exam, one thesis introduction, and one road trip away from being completely finished with school.

In retrospect, college was pretty sweet.

This was four years ago. Yeah. Seriously.

Freshman year. This is my favorite picture in existence.

Halloween of sophomore year. The ladies dressed as the five stages of Britney Spears.

Junior year. Ugly sweater party at the Cowie/Tellman household.

The Sycamore crew mobbed the seasonal trails at midnight, 10/15/08.

I spent a lot of time in this guy's company.

Senior year. Mountain bike season would not have been the same without them.

Cheap and Cheerful

I want you to be crazy
'Cause you're boring baby when you're straight
I want you to be crazy
'Cause you're stupid baby when you're sane
-The Kills