After weeks and weeks of mulling it over (or rather, being cajoled by a school mum), I finally decided to say yes to a big life decision: the woman (me) who hasn’t owned a bicycle or a bicycle helmet in seven years is going to take on the Palace to Palace challenge and cycle from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle.
Anyone who knows me will know this is crazy talk. I don’t do sports challenges, and I’m definitely not a fan of anything that requires me to squeeze into Lycra and join those annoying gangs of cyclists clogging up the roads on a Sunday morning. And yet, here we are.
But having popped out a couple of kids, and inching ever closer to my mid-40s, I have realised that, outside of work challenges, I tend to veer away from challenging myself in other ways.
A lot of that has to do with my short attention span. I get bored very easily (as evidenced by every single one of my school reports). But I also think it is probably a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t really grow up in a family that had time for physical challenges. With their five jobs between them and raising three kids, my parents had little time for frivolous things like challenging themselves physically. So the whole idea of it was never on my radar.
But I’m getting older and I don’t want to feel older, if you see what I mean? I want to feel as if my body is still useful and can still achieve things. From the moment we are born, the female body is preparing itself for the possibility of housing a child, birthing a child, and feeding a child.
And then you get older – and the chat is about winding down from the giving birth part of your life: when your body signals that its baby-making job is over, and it’s going to make you go to hell and back losing all that oestrogen.
I guess I want to feel like my body is worth more than that. And I want to feel like it can do more than just the daily commute to and from work, standing on the sidelines watching my eldest play football, or rolling around in soft-play centres with my youngest.
I have never done marathons or things like that – I’ve proudly cheered friends on at the sidelines when they have done the London Marathon. But in all honesty, there has been an element of jealousy at their achievements. It’s what you, as an outsider, see on their faces when they cross the finish line: the joy, the pain, that sense of peace and pride when they know that they pushed themselves beyond their expectations and did something remarkable.
At the grand old age of 43, I would like to know what that feels like. One could argue that I ought to have figured that out a couple of decades ago, but I do believe that I needed to see my body do the childbirth thing to realise its capabilities and then push it further. It may seem like a weird calculation for me to make, but it makes sense to me.
My body has been good to me thus far: in my 20s it was very good at raving in London clubs until 6am. And although that particular pursuit was harder in my early 30s, my goodness this body managed it with aplomb. And I’m super proud of it.
But now feels like the perfect time to push it further than body pump classes in the local gym, or a boring jog round the park. I want to work towards something bigger. Not as big as the marathon though, because I know myself very well… and it just ain’t gonna happen.
So I’m going to jump on a bike I don’t yet own, and take to the road and train. Again, anyone who knows me will be chuckling away at the thought of me being “in training” for a “cycling challenge”. I’m literally making myself laugh typing it, to be honest.
Although the biggest challenge will be me not getting bored with training midway through. So if you happen to spot me standing next to a bike and scrolling through my Instagram feed, feel free to yell at me: “Get on yer bike!”
Charlene White is a presenter for Loose Women