FBD18

The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Eighteen – Slip Slidin’ Away

Why do people ski? I understand that for some it’s a fitness thing, and some people would prefer cold weather activity breaks to hot holidays lazing on a beach. These reasons make perfect sense, but they don’t account for the huge number of people that take to the slopes.

I could never ski. “You've got to try it to understand the attraction” say habitual plank-gliders, which is a pretty recommendation. Jack the Ripper might have justified his actions with the very same words. I know that skiers will hate me more than a novice snowboarder that’s just scraped away their virgin powda, but skiing is surely just another sport?

Would these same people take a special holiday just to play chess or practice throwing their legs around a pommel horse? Again, these minority interests are fascinating when performed well, but I can’t for the life of me understand what would possess an average person to give up a week or more of their precious vacation time to actively participate in them especially when, as in this case, there’s a fairly high possibility that the inexperienced participant might actually have their holiday prematurely cut short via an exciting but wholly unplanned ride in an air ambulance.

I hear that it’s all about the adrenalin rush. If this were the case then wouldn’t they be flocking to swim with sharks or take up freefall sky diving? In non-skiing season wouldn’t there be troupes of frustrated slope-rejects juggling chainsaws badly just to get the same natural high? I think those chalet girls are slipping a little extra ingredient into the Gluhwein

Anyway, my balance is terrible, as Snowy (my aptly-named Wii Fit board) keeps telling me. I’d be all over the place on skis. Snow is icy and dangerous, just like running on frozen pavements. At this time of year it’s still dark by the time I get home, and the cold weather is going to hang around for a while. If I want to rip my already-gimpy knees apart, I could just go for a run on the slippery streets around home. I hit the deck more than once just walking to my office this week (on the days that I didn’t decide to take advantage of that much-abused 21st century office practice, working from home). Heaven knows how bad I’d be if I were running.

So my exercise has moved back inside for a little while, and my trusty static bike is getting more than it’s unfair share of Shaun-abuse once more. I’ve been concentrating more on the running over the last few weeks, and it showed.

Right from the start it seemed as though the hours (well, minutes) pounding the streets were paying off. The pedals spun with less effort, the numbers on the distance thingy flew by and I wasn’t even breathing heavily.

I notched the hard-o-meter up a little to get more resistance, and still I wasn’t having any trouble. Just to try I cranked it up to full difficulty. I’d tried this once before and couldn’t even turn the pedals. Now… now I could turn the pedals, just. It was difficult, as is only fitting for the highest setting, but it was manageable for a short while. Only a short while though, I’m still a fat bloke.

So I put it back down to my normal level and churned out the miles. Or at least tried to. After a mere thirty minutes I ran out of steam. I’d been able to pedal for well over an hour before but now I was totally spent after half that time. And strangely enough half an hour is the length of run / walk that I’ve been doing lately. Coincidence? I suspect not.

And just in case anyone got the impression that I was being anti-London the other week, here’s a chucklesome but depressing tale to hopefully redress the balance.

I went for a meal in my local pub here in Yorkshire the other day. I young family sat down at a table near me and began reading the menu. The father was obviously interested in a beef casserole, but was confused by one of the ingredients listed.

“Shallets?” he grunted, rhyming the word with palettes, “What the bloody hell’s shallets”?

“Ee, yer daft bugger”, replied his equally erudite partner. “Them’s them long thin green things like little marrers. They ’ave ’em in posh folks’ salads”.

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