Next try: Biking

I can't ride a bike.

I never learned.

I was a kid once, believe it our not.

I had a bike. It was pink (I'm a girl). I had training wheels. I remember my dad used to take me up to the local elementary school (where I did not go) and I used to ride my bike around the parking lot.

I liked it a lot.

Then the training wheels came off. We were on the sidewalk, in front of my house. I fell down. I said," This is stupid, I'm never doing this again."

And I didn't.

I wonder if that's how it really happened, though. You know how memory changes as you age? Maybe it didn't really go down like that.

Maybe I fell down and had a neighborhood kid laugh at me.
Maybe I fell down and cried and my parents told me I didn't have to do this.
Maybe I yelled at my parents that I didn't want to do it and they made me.
Maybe my parents taught me wrong. They are kind of inept people. Maybe my dad was holding when he shouldn't, and didn't let go when he did. They aren't normal. They don't do things right.

I can blame it all on them, right? That's the thing to do, right?

Any of these things could have likely happened.

So I want to learn now.

But I don't know how. A friend has offered to teach me. This is my running partner's boyfriend, who is a friend in his own right (you know how sometimes that's not always the case, it's X and her BF, or whatever).

But I don't have a bike. I don't want to buy a bike specifically for this purpose--what if I hate it? I guess that's what craigslist is for...but I prefer not to deal with the initial cash outlay if I don't have to.

I need to borrow a bike. Or find a beater bike somehow.

I really don't want to pay for one.

I would rather pay someone, a group, a session, a clinic or something, for use of a bike to learn on. I don't know if I will be a bike rider. Just that I need to learn how to ride a bike. I need to be able to do it. I don't have to go out and do it on a regular basis. Just that I know how to do it.

I have done a precursory search. There don't seem to be any clinics or group adult lessons to learn how to ride a bike. Is that because Portland is such a bike-friendly city that it's assumed, like, why would you move here without a bike or at least knowing how to ride the fuckin' thing?

I'm striking out.

There are an obscene number of stores that sell bikes, bike accessories, bike this, bike that...I find it all so complicated and overwhelming. I don't want any of that. It's tools and jargon and I don't like tools and jargon. Even rowing had too much jargon (I'll get back to rowing in a sec). Biking seems like a good thing to do if you are mechanical person. A mathematical person. From what I have heard so far, biking involves a lot of numbers.

I'm not a mathematical, mechanical person. I want the kind of bike that people ride around canals in Amsterdam. Alongside the Mekong. I don't want to be able to go zipping by in some bike race.

I just want to be able to do it.

Let me tie up the rowing loose end: I didn't do the regatta after all.

Work had something to do with it. But the other things that had to do with it was the fact that I took an extra session on the Wednesday before the regatta (due to travel and oversleeping, I had missed the last class and the one before it, as well as an optional practice session).

And it was fucking horrible.

I was in seat 7. I was behind someone who was rowing at race pace. I didn't know what that was. Our usual coach wasn't out there. I didn't like the one who was. Jargon was called out that I'd never heard. I was rowing (if you could call it that) with people I'd never rowed with before. I had to try to pretend I knew what I was doing. It was the definition of failing miserably. I was miserable. And failing. I was my own FAILblog.

I was that person in the boat.

I didn't want to be that person in the boat. I didn't want to be the loser who made everyone fuck up. This was way over my head. I wasn't ready. It wasn't like, oh, I had a bad day out there and buck up...kind of thing. It was like, I'm going to be miserable the whole time if I have to do this.

So I took myself out of the situation.

I might take an intermediate class next year.

But for now, it's time to run. I've got a marathon I want to finally race. The past 2 years I've had a curse in August/September, where injuries sideline me until well into the fall. My foot's been feeling weird and I don't want that curse to pop up again.

Which is why I am completely terrified of falling on a bike and not being able to run.