The Cycling Widow.
The long-ride 
So… I am proud of my husband for his desire for a better healthier physic. I cannot deny that I am chuffed to bits that he’s one of the fitter dads in the playground and still turns heads. He’s mine and I love that. I accept the multiple purchases from Wiggle (there are other suppliers I believe!) arriving with random bike parts and other items that obvious enhance bike and rider performance. The excitement that ensue’s when a new brand of energy snacks is discovered and gets described as ‘rocket fuel’ is endearing and can only be likened to our children on Christmas morning!
However, and yes fellow ladies we all know there is a ‘however’ when it comes to the battle for who wants to get their ‘me time’ in at the weekend. Is there a bike race coming up or is there a half marathon I’m training for. Who’s training is more important at that time - who wins??
Why does a bike ride take so long…
I escape for around 2 hours on a Saturday morning for my weekly yoga class and if I can extend it to a coffee and chat after with my fellow yoga mummies I see this as valuable ‘me time’ and cherish every moment. I feel i’m winning at the start of the weekend.
Now… when it comes to the weekly mens ride, the husband requires a full 4-5 hours of ‘he time’. Plus ‘extras’ There is nutrition that needs to be thought out the night before a ride, usually meaning extra rice with the takeaway and sometimes chips from the chipshop count as ‘carbing up” Or if we’re being ‘clean & lean’ we might add a cheeky potato to our usually low carb Friday night meal.
There is route planning that needs to be discussed with all parties during the week in the lead up to the weekend ‘long ride’. The bike must be adjusted and tweaked and cleaned (thoroughly with approx. 20 different products for each part of the bike) this in itself can take a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon.
Then there’s the ride itself… Several lycra clad gents rocking up at my house at 8am on a Sunday morning (meaning I probably should be dressed!). bum bags on, filled with energy snacks, multiple water bottles filled, weird shoe things on over the bike shoes (!!) Fantastically unattractive skullcap underneath the helmet on - to keep the folically challenged gents heads warm in the wind. And they’re off… 5 or so hours later, there appears to have been a stop for a bacon sandwich, a nice pub at the top of so and so hill where they rested and had a beer and if it’s a long ride there’s usually some other kind of cafe stop. When they arrive back the Strava updates must be compared and each hill discussed in detail. All gents then return to their homes and husband’s bike must then be cleaned again before it’s put away, plus an abundance of protein must then be consumed followed by a big rest!
We must ensure we are ‘king of the hill’ and beating Phil from 3 doors down on Strava on both speed and distance. This must also be discussed during the week to ensure they have compared all the possible elements that could have contributed to Phil or my husband ‘taking it easy on that hill’ Not an excuse of course, just a valid reason for not going quite as quickly as one would have liked. Or a possible reason why Phil’s mph was marginally quickly.
So i’m feeling a little guilty whilst enjoying my coffee with my yoga mummies on the Saturday. Worrying that the husband is at home dealing with the bickering children and secretly hoping he might have started the maths homework. Why do we feel guilty ladies? It’s in our makeup as wives/mothers I think.
After several loads of laundry, building a lego village and watching several dance shows and trampolining tricks. One must now put the guilt aside, congratulate my husband on his ride, then give the children a big kiss and hug, strategically lay out the maths homework as a visual prompt, pop on my trainers and off out I go for a training run - guilt-free, never, but i’ve been a cycling widow for most of the Sunday, so i’ve earned a little more me-time now to run with my buddy for half an hour and hopefully he can be proud of me in the playground too…
We all have our fitness fixes, just still not sure why the ‘long ride’ takes quite so long…
