Forties are for Fun
In my life the 30s were an intense period of academic work–publish or perish. I didn’t perish. I put my head down, worked very hard, prospered and now have tenure. Yippee. It was also a time of having and raising small children. I loved it all but when I looked up somehow I had turned 40. I decided that the 40s were to be the decade of rediscovering fun, of trying new things, and of pushing some boundaries.
These past two weeks I’ve tried two new very fun activities: one fast, one slow, both requiring trust. Both also required a significant degree of physical fitness and there is no way I could have done them in my 30s.
Last week I passed Track 1 at the Forest City Veldrome. Never has anything gone from being terrifying to being fun so fast. Adrenaline junkie that I can be, I fell in love. Track bikes are fixed gear, no brakes. There’s no freewheel on a fixed gear–you can’t coast. Remember riding a tricycle or a fitness club spin bike? It’s like that but really fast. Whenever the bike is moving forward, your legs are moving in circles. Bike messengers like these bikes for control and for simplicity. Me too. I commute on a fixed gear (with brakes) but it’s not the bike that made the experience, it’s the track. The track itself is wood, banked at 50 degrees round the turns and is very short. It’s like riding inside a wooden goldfiah bowl. But once I learned to look away from the wooden wall of death it felt just fine. 
Actually it felt better riding behind other people because I knew that as long as I kept up with them, and they didn’t slide down the wall, I wouldn’t either. What prompted this? Well, it’s part of my philosophy of learning to appreciate what my small city has to offer and we have a velodrome, one of only a few in Canada. A few of my bike club friends are avid track cyclists and this summer I read One Gear, No
Breaks : Lori-Ann Muenzer’s
Ride to Belief, Belonging, and a Gold Medal and felt inspired. Muenzer won her olympic gold in her late 30s, twice as old and nearly twice the size of some of her opponents. In the photos in the book she looks fast and powerful. (An aside: That book makes no mention of LM’s personal life or sexual orientation. I was left guessing. That’s in sharp contrast to Lance Armstrong’’s It’s Not about the Bike which talks lots about his marriage.) I don’t know if I’ll ever race on the track but for sure I will do some recreational riding there. Maybe a time trial. Certainly Track 2. Bring on the adrenaline.
So that was the fast. Here’s the slow. This week I went canoe camping in the interior of Algonquin Park. You know, the great Canadian experience of packing everything into watertight bags, loading up the canoe, shoving off and sleeping in a tent under the stars listening to the loons. My friend L has been doing this for years and when she offered to have me tag along I couldn’t resist the chance to try this with an experienced outdoor enthusiast as my guide. 
I watched in admiration as L deftly hoisted our canoe upon her head and carried it away from the rental desk.
I confess I was a bit nervous when the nice woman at the Parks Canada desk asked for our tent and canoe calour in case they had to come looking for us! The many bear warning signs led to some additional jitters. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a city girl. I’ve camped and I’ve canoed. But never together.
Wow. It was an amazing weekend. The fall colours were beautiful. I saw beavers and an orange frog. We didn’t quite manage to get our food 15 feet off the ground hanging between trees (L and I discovered that we both throw ike girls) but we did put lots of hours in paddling and loved our high rocky camp with its view of Ragged Lake. We also loved our longer day trip into Big Porcupine Lake, leaving our stuff back at our camp on Ragged so portaging was easier. Here are some additional thoughts and reflections:
- What on earth were Parks Canada staff thinking when they made the camp site signs red and the portage signs yellow? Look at the blazing fall colours and ask yourself just how well you think they’d stand out. Blame our aging eyes but we kept wishing for colours not found in nature for the signs. Neon pink anyone?
- With each portage the more fit our travelling compantions seemed. We started out with some mixed groups, families, seniors but by the third portage the only people we met were very fit young men, swathed in brightly coloured gortex, festooned with bear bells, so that when they ran (yes, really, ran) from one end of the portage to the other they looked and sounded like Santa’s elves. L says she gets lots of admiration for going in on her own which is what she does usually but even so we saw no other women there without men. I was struck by two thoughts ill at ease with one another. I found myself regretting how much fitness and ability limited who could see and appreciate this beautiful wilderness (not at all wheel chair accessible!) while at the same time greedily appreciating the peace and quiet and relative solitude.
- As for my own fitness, I was struck once again with the realization that being able to do this sort of thing is why I work out indoors at all. I am not a fan of indoor exercise for its own sake–my travelling companion’s excellent Bodyflow classes aside–I do it so that I can make trips like this one and enjoy myself. I loved the paddling and the hiking and definitely hope to go back. I was so very glad that L offered to share this part of her life with me.
