I shouldn’t have asked. Just listening to him made me tired. My work colleague takes a deep breath and launches into his 2 days of adrenaline pumping pursuits over the weekend. My eyes start to cross. “My weekend was great, thanks. I did an Obstacle Assault Course”. That was my cue to smile and walk away but I didn’t. Like picking a scab, it hurt but I had to hear more. And so he continued, “I ran 15km, most thigh deep in ice cold water, then jumped through 15 metal hoops, scrambled on my belly for a half a mile, climbed a 25 foot rope ladder, dragged a tyre 100 yards using just my teeth, kayaked for the next 25km ...” Just the thought of all that activity made my muscles ache. I would have laughed out loud at this preposterous amount of mobility but this isn’t the first time this particular person has impressed me with his athletic and one may say crazy, weekend challenges.
There seems to be a new trend of 40 and 50 year olds who have decided to push their physical and mental selves to a limit that challenges most living things. Where pain, sweat and tears make a normal weekend whether it’s cycling from one coast to another, running barefoot across hot, hilly deserts or swimming against fast moving waters. Warrior Dashes, Crossfit, Insanity Challenges, Ironman, Ultramarathon, Tough Mudder, Survival of the Fittest are just examples of some increasingly popular and challenging sports where one battles the elements (and their bulges) with stamina and grit like never before. What is happening? What happened to lazy weekends where enjoying a cup of tea and a hobnob while watching the reruns of your favourite soaps was the norm. Now there is a growing need to climb, run, jump, cycle, swim……
Companies called Extreme Damage, Tough Gear, Rebel Sport, and Combat Clothing promote clothes and accessories to impress and intimidate fellow competitors. Would you want to run alongside someone who was sporting anti-glow reflective goggles and tuned into a waterproof MP3? With his ‘dual compression, friction free’ leggings with ‘reflective safety flashes’ down the legs and trainers made from ‘lightweight, breathable abrasion resistant material’, intimidation is the game and the challenge is definitely on.
Testing endurance
I succumbed to the challenge. The lure of this trend got the better of me and whether it was the desire for lycra or the Ultra sports shirt with mesh panels for ‘breathability’, I gave in to a need to test my endurance and stamina. I have now put my Only Fools and Horses DVD collection away along with the biscuits, and my weekends are now spent doing athletic pursuits and ‘biathlon’ is part of my weekend vocabulary. I must point out that I am not in the league of these super fit athletes. Far, far from it. For now, I will wear my Snoopy T-shirt and pumps and hope I can cross the finishing line before it gets dark and everyone heads home. In my case, it is less Ironman and more SpongeBobman.
Unfortunately, no amount of energy protein shakes or caffeine-filled sports drinks could get me moving any faster than a very slow moving person. Even my neon-glowing head band and shock-absorbing sports underwear couldn’t inject any level of speed that would qualify for someone over the age of 6 years. I was so slow that everyone had usually packed up and gone home by the time my sweat-drenched body had crossed the finishing line.
But it was while gasping for breath and scratching at my jelly fish sting after my recent Biathlon, that my daughter looked at me and just said ‘you were slow’, that I realised things had to change and I had to pick up speed. While my daughter carried me to the car for the second weekend running, I wondered whether I could attach a motor to my Snoopy T-shirt or if I should jump on the back of one of the competitors and finish the race in his all-new ultra-lightweight ‘hydration, gusseted stretch mesh’ backpack? Or, maybe I should share the biathlon workload with someone? Bingo! So now I am a team of two. My 12-year -old daughter and I compete as a team and as I scramble to the beach after my 1km swim and tag her, she runs off like a gazelle to complete the next 5km by foot on the beach and road and together we achieve a pretty decent time. In fact, we are now so fast at the team biathlons that we are back home in time for Arabs Got Talent with a bag of chips before the sun has set.
Off shopping now to buy my all-in -one lycra suit with mesh panels for breathability and flexibility …
Charlotte K. Arrowsmith is an English language lecturer at the UAE University, Al Ain.
