Fit in my 40s: welcome to the velodrome. You’ll need nerves of steel | Zoe Williams

You can’t coast, can’t brake, can’t know if you can stop until you’ve tried it. I found this terrifying

• Fitness tips: track cycling for beginners

I’ve been commuting on a racer since 1999. I have cleats, and make that self-righteous clicking-in noise when I push off at traffic lights. I have bum-padded shorts, a helmet (OK, it’s in the shape of R2-D2). I’m not especially quick but I never fall off. What could possibly go wrong when I try track cycling for the first time? It’ll be just like going to the shops, except a little bit faster.

Ah hubris, thy name is later-life fitness columnist. I showed up one morning at Herne Hill Velodrome, where I used to go to watch the Easter meets, in my 20s. I remember it for baking hot bank holidays and handsome Cubans in powder-blue Lycra. I do not remember it being raked like the inside of a steel drum. I did not bank on having to use a special bike, which I was fitted out with by a gentleman no older than 12. All the way through his adjusting my seat to an impossible height, the only thing I wanted to say was, “Why aren’t you at school?” It was an introductory session for women and the over-45s. I didn’t stop to think what it might mean if you were both. I didn’t stop to think at all.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Gy1Iox