Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Here comes the bride (ok, not really - just the dress)


I happened to notice something on my Garmin Connect account the other day, where I archive my bike and run files (and some swim). It says I've burned 239,000 calories since the start of the year -- not that I concern myself with calorie "burn" at all EVER but when I saw that number, it just looked big. Then I thought about what IF I hadn't burned all those, but still ate what I ate. I am fairly certain I wouldn't fit into my wedding dress from 18 years ago.

So it was kind of cool to discover over Thanksgiving that I did indeed fit comfortably into my wedding dress!!  You know, you get with your sister and niece and mom and husband back in your childhood home and from the closet emerges the long-ignored wedding dress. I slipped it on and in the moment of truth, my mom zipped it up. (Road ID matches everything, even wedding dresses!)

I'd like to clarify that what is important to me is how my body functions and performs and I don't get wrapped up in how it looks or its form. But I admit I was glad to fit in the dress, especially since there were many intervening years when I would not have fit in at all. 


Several times I've biked up the mountain to where we had our wedding reception (Mountain Lake, VA). The pics above and below were taken in the same spot. I'm FAR more comfortable in a cycling kit than I ever will be in a big dress. But once was nice!


When I had the dress on my dad was trying to think of other uses for it and he thought I ought to run in it. That got me thinking how much fun it would be to have some kind of wedding/bridal dress race/run. I'm sure they are around. The pic below was for a contest in Belgrade to win a dream wedding. (Those shoes make so much more sense for a wedding day too...just saying.)


I'd have to do some alterations, but If I can run fast in a turkey tail, I'm pretty sure I could figure out how to run fast in a wedding dress.