Let me begin with saying I've always thought I was a person in fairly good shape. True, I don't spend mindless hours in the gym trying to beef myself up but I partake in other activities to keep me toned. I try to surf when I can, I run (although it's usually cause I'm late to something), and I lift(ed) heavy equipment at work (though my title was a Biological Scientist I often felt more like a pack mule). In fact, one of my favorite activities is bike riding with my friend Jennifer Lyles, especially during the summer months. There's no better way to explore the St. Augustine scene than on a beach cruiser, plus you can go wrong with bar-cycling.
So, putting all this together I thought it was a great idea for Amanda and I to spend the day biking around Inishmor, the largest of the three Aran Islands. After all, I'm an experienced bike rider, right?
This island has ruins, forts, churches, and healing wells scattered amongst its stony terrain. I imagined us whizzing through the countryside, enjoying the sites and charms of the island with the sun on our face and the sea breeze blowing through our hair. Well, simply stated my vision was clearly WRONG, not even awry just plain out wrong!
We did see the sights listed in the tour book/map but we also made some up. What better way to relieve your butts from those hard seats than to stop and pretend to look at something! In our defense, the beach cruisers back home have those super-wide seats with the extra cushioning and little springs for shock control but not these. I don't even think it covered a third of my teeny-tiny bottom! Also, there was no whizzing involved but more of a slow, aching, forward motion in which I'm certain bypassers were bewildered at how we even maintained an upward position without enough forward momentum. And as for that gentle sea breeze I had imagined. Well, silly me forgot that the islands are the barrier between the giant Atlantic Ocean and Ireland so they receive most of the wind. We were biking through gale force hurricane winds and believe me I'm from Florida so I know what those are like. To make matters worse (for our pride which was little left), we'd befriended a guy (Craig) who was biking all of Ireland and as often as I was waving him ahead of us to, "go on without us, leave us behind", he never did.
So, imagine two girls huffing and puffing (literally) up the steep terrain. Our thighs, calves, and gluts are BURNING incessantly, we have sweat EVERYWHERE (I didn't even know I sweated in some of these places), with bangs plastered to my face making sight a bit of a difficulty, hair tangled into a giant knot (thank you hurricane winds). Definately no vision of beauty but I'm sure at least one of entertainment. I'm hoping Craig thought so which is why he was kind enough to stick around and bike at a snails pace the entire 28 km bike ride.
In the end, this was no beach biking (Florida is much flater AND below sea level) but Lyles would be proud of me and my Gluts look damn fabulous and I would definately do it again!!
