I have attractive legs. No really, I do. I’ve heard it all my life. Hey, nice legs!

In high school, twiggy and immature, maybe I wasn’t a loser, I had friends after all, but I needed binoculars to even see the popular crowd. I stayed after school one afternoon to run stairs. That’s not as odd as it sounds. I ran on the cross-country team. Stairs build toughness. I needed toughness. I ran stairs. Renée Hartman, tall and curvy, mature and poised, happened upon me. I think she spent some years in Europe. I think even the popular kids were intimidated by her. She was that cool.

“What are you doing?”

“Running stairs. Trying to gain some stamina.”

“Huh, no wonder you have such nice legs.”

~ ~ ~

In my thirties, rather than settle down, get married, and have babies, I played men’s-league soccer. My position, a defender, was just in front of our goal. George, our goalkeeper and also the team captain stood right behind me through all of our games. When we got together at parties or bars, he always took my girlfriend aside and yammered about how awesome my legs looked, how strong they were, and how I could run forever.

Once, after a morning game, George dropped by my apartment unannounced. I invited him in for twenty minutes of awkward conversation, and then he left. I later decided he came by to proposition me or to kick me off his team, but either way he chickened out. Sometimes I want to track him down and ask him which.

~ ~ ~

A couple of nights ago at spin class, as we cooled down, the instructor, Big Rider E, toured the room complimenting the participants on their performance. “Lisa, your form looked great. Jim, good work. John, you looked tough. Brenda, you really dug in tonight.” He complimented everyone but me. A minute later, from the front of the room, he started in: “Jeff, you really have such beautiful legs…” 

Not being the sort of person who likes attention, I tend to blush and close in on myself. I stare at the floor and will people to look anywhere else than at me.

I should point out that I’ve heard the opposite as well. Once my brother commented out of the blue, “Jeff, you’ve really got a pair of bird-legs on you.”

Yesterday, my pretty legs gave out on me. I have a route I like to bike within the park next to my house. If I pedal hard the whole time, it takes almost exactly an hour. It’s very much like a spin class. Long flats, gradual ups and downs, and a couple of calf-burning climbs. The only time I’m not working is on the two steep descents. The gears on my bike don’t go high enough to pedal while bombing down these hills.

Midway through my ride, I began to bonk. Do you know this term? Essentially it means that you haven’t taken in enough carbohydrates and have exhausted your body’s glycogen stores. You literally run out of fuel. The Pepperidge Farm Sausalito chocolate chip cookie and a handful of almonds I gobbled down as I changed into my cycling shorts didn’t do it for me. A mile into my ride, my stomach panged—a bad sign. By the first long climb, I knew I was doomed. I could have turned around, but I started piecing together this story in my brain instead.

I bonk all the time. It usually happens when I’m walking somewhere. Once, Susan and I walked the mile to a restaurant to meet another couple for dinner. A few blocks before we arrived, it hit me all at once. My legs turned to cement. My shoulders ached. My heart raced. I broke out in a full body sweat and slowed my pace by half. We needed to stop at the Dollar Store next door for a Payday candy bar just to give me enough energy to order dinner.

It also happens in the car on road trips—usually just as we’re checking the map to see where the next restaurant is. On rare occasions it happens when I’m exercising.  I bonk so frequently my kids grew up knowing this word. “Oh God, Dad’s bonking again.” A month ago, in a conversation with Sophie, she realized bonk is a real word and not something I made up. “Oh, I thought we were the only ones who said bonk.”

A word I actually made up is BabyWater. It’s the phonic rendition of the acronym BABWTR—Bad Ass Back Woods Trail Runner. I wrote a whole book about being a BabyWater.* Over the past eight years, anytime we were out on a family hike, one of my kids (or even Susan) would break into a run and scream out “Baaa-beee-Waaa-terrr!” A few years ago, Sophie and Eli were shocked when they accidentally learned that BabyWater isn’t a common running term.

Bonking is a weird feeling. It’s a whole-body kind of tired. Think of a rung-out washcloth—limp, crumpled, empty—that’s how I feel. The shoulder thing is the strangest part. Even though it’s my legs that propel me on my bike, the primary discomfort is in my shoulders. I think I’m genetically deficient in my shoulders. As a young adult, I took a scuba diving class. For each session, we needed to grab an air tank from the back of a panel truck in the parking lot and carry it into the municipal pool where we dived. No one else seemed to have any trouble with this, but I always did. By the time we made it poolside, my shoulders burned from the weight of the tank. That pain is identical to the feeling I get when riding my bike while bonking.

I limped home the last couple of miles on my bike, my legs burning, my shoulders screaming, my tongue dragging on the ground. I dreamed of the lemonade I’d drink the second I got in the door. When I have a bad ride, I immediately want to point to my age as the culprit. “If only I was younger…” Yesterday, it just seemed to be bad planning. In my efforts to not overeat, I continually leave myself under fueled. I can boast about my legs all I want, but without any food, they’re almost as useless as my shoulders.

~ ~ ~

* I don’t recommend my book Bad Ass. It isn’t very good. I didn’t put anywhere near enough effort into editing it, and it comes off as sophomoric. A couple of weeks ago, I received a one-star review on Goodreads, and now I hope no one ever reads it again. If you want to learn more about BABWTR, the story starts here: https://jefftcann.com/2015/12/01/babwtr-1-the-beginning/

Photo by Daniel Llorente on Unsplash (not my leg).