I took a pretty silly quiz recently that compared “fitness types” to geometric shapes—people who like regularity and structure are squares, for example.
I do not fall into that category. Routine is the death knell for any activity in my life, and exercise is no exception. Variety is not just the spice of my fitness life; it’s the main course. Depending on the season, I might sprinkle in kayaking or biking, a dash of hiking, snowshoeing, downhill or cross-country skiing, and a few visits to the gym (in a pinch) … where I also have to mix it up. That makes me a squiggle, according to this quiz. And aside from the fact that a squiggle has no place in geometry, this makes perfect sense.
Even at my most squiggly, though, I never considered what Sophie Goodenough has made the centerpiece of her fitness plan. A big wheel.
Sophie, a nurse, kirtan chanter (a musical spiritual practice), and self-described sugar addict, has been searching for a fitness plan to accompany her attempt at diet reform. Though she enjoyed riding her bike, it gave her pain in her wrists and shoulders, and discomfort in the “seat.” Lap times at the local YMCA weren’t convenient for her schedule (she works nights and sleeps days), so swimming was out, and, partly due to her weight, she thinks, she experienced lower back pain while walking.
Recalling her active childhood, she tried to recapture what made playing so much fun. And then she remembered her Big Wheel.
“It had these red noisemakers on the back wheels so I could maximize the annoyance to my neighbors as I rode it around outside,” she wrote in a blog documenting her journey on three wheels. “My father cut the noisemakers off after a while, but I rode that thing all over the place and had a wonderful time. Such speed! Such exhilaration!”
Turns out this speed and exhilaration is also available to adults, in the form of a High Roller Trike. Riding on High Roller Henrietta (as good a name as any!), Sophie says she feels tactile memories of her childhood but remains “in the moment” in a way doing other forms of exercise has never allowed. And she’s documenting this, her most adventurous attempt yet at a healthy weight, in a blog she calls “High Rolling to Health.”
“I know that riding Henrietta gets my heart rate up and is an aerobic workout,” Sophie wrote in an entry over the summer. “I’m realizing now that it’s also turning out to be an exercise in meditation, being present, and truly experiencing the beauty of the world around me. If I get a few strange looks from people when I’m out and about, it’s a small price to pay for such a peaceful joyous feeling.”
Friends and people who see her around town have been giving her decorative items to "trick out" Henrietta, she's lost 6 pounds, and she says she's found it easier to lift people at the nursing home where she works.
Unlike my squiggle, Sophie’s geometric fitness shape is composed of two small circles and one large one, set into a perfectly playful triangle. Check out Sophie's latest on Henrietta and the rest of her ride through life on her blog.
