Before and After Bonking
If Tom Matlack could get back into shape, you definitely can.
I’m 46 with a background in swimming, rowing, marathon running, and kickboxing. I like to think I am a badass—that is, I did until I tried to ride a very steep seven-mile hill on a road bike, and stopped once half way up and then six miles up for good.
In road biking parlance, what happened to me is called “bonking.” The non-technical translation of that is falling off your bike in exhaustion, puking your guts out, being unable to move, and requiring a rescue helicopter to airlift your lardass off the mountain. In my case, the chopper never arrived, so I had to get on my bike and ride back down the hill about a mile from the top, babbling incoherently the whole way.
The site of this humiliation was on Mulholland Highway, which rises up from Pacific Coast Highway north of Malibu. Further east, Mulholland Drive is famous for a really bad film of the same name and, more recently, the mysterious disappearance of one of Charlie Sheen’s vehicles over the cliff.
But I really didn’t give a crap about Charlie’s lost car. What I cared about was the fact that my college roommate Brian—a guy who I had been able to manhandle in pretty much any athletic event over the course of a quarter century—had just brought me to my knees. Literally.
This set me on a course to explore what could be done in the realm of fitness for a washed-up alpha male. Six months after my roadside meltdown, I traveled back to LA to test myself against not one but two of my college roommates—both very serious riders—over three climbs bigger than Mulholland, totaling nearly 9,000 feet of vertical ascent, over 65 miles of riding. The result was vindication.
Here’s how I did it, with some general thoughts on fitness for the alpha male, in 10 easy steps.
About Tom Matlack
Esta excelente la retórica que se asocia directamente a la catarxis aunque en apariencia pertenece al estereotipo satanizado de macho. Esta muy simpático y crea camaradería. Un abrazo.
I’ve run marathons, been really into yoga for years, and tried my hand at the martial arts. But I finally settled on road bike riding because it’s easy on my old man joints, a bunch of my friends are into it, there’s plenty of gearhead stuff to think about, and it combines tough aerobic activity with a great view. I have friends who swear by tennis, swimming, and even golf.
Regarding the skintight cycling clothing.
It is amazing how men can now only wear such clothing if the clothing has ‘clear utility’, otherwise the clothes now are ‘only for women’ (or men like me who say,’ er, this is originally menswear. im wearing it and the women can scorn away’)
Yet, our glorious masculine male warrior ancestors birthed and nursed these clothes into history, NOT for the female form – but for OUR male form. Note too, how it is the form of the slender male body eg. legs that is used to sell these clothes to women
It is in sportswear we find the last remanents of the clothing of our glorious masculine male warrior ancestors. The pangentry of the vibrant colours, patterns, skintight and/ or revealing clothing (though that too in the last twenty years has been under attack with the horrific reintroduction of victorian kneelength ‘nonsporting’ shorts. how on earth can sportspeople move freely in that crap. will they start wear heavy victorian ankle length hobnail boots too?!? thankfully aussierules football has resisted such nonsense)
I used to find it odd that men would wear replica shirts outside of matchday. But now mine eyes have been opened, and i understand it is currently the only way that most other men (over30) can peaCOCK.
ive noticed too come Halloween in Cardiff, the number of men that dive into ‘women’s clothing’ or wear skintight clothing.
How the peacock yearns for liberation, so it can strut with the masculine swaggerjuiccce, of its ancestors.
Go on Tom, admit it
A big part of you also chose cycling not just because of the low impact on the knees (my knees have gone too), but because it allowed you the freedom to wear skin tight revealing clothing in public.
Cycling allows you to PEACOCK like a lighthouse in the darkest night