The Pink Ladies Conquer Pink Lake

Joy here...Last Friday some of the super sisterhood rode up the steep hill to the Pink Lake lookout, and high fived ourselves with our triumph!  Then rain foiled our plans for a full double-loop of the park on Sunday, and I was out of town for the rest of the week.  And if you've read any of my other entries, you'll know that I routinely fail to keep my workouts steady when I have to travel for work.  So predictably, even though I was all set and ready to run, my shoes stayed in my suitcase, and I spent 3 days eating wrong; being stuck in meetings; and generally getting thrown out of whack.

My pink feet all ready to go!

All of that was set to change yesterday as my friends, Cili Padi and the Trainer, were set to ride up that Pink Lake climb with me.  And not only were we going to ride up it once, but we were set to tackle that climb TWICE!  You see, back when I was training for my first ever half marathon, I was introduced to the notion of hill repeats, basically that's where you run up a steep hill over and over again to build strength.  And, well, you can do that on a bike just as well as you can on your feet, so Friday's ride was all set to be our first hill repeat on a bike.  We dressed ourselves up in pink, slathered on the sunscreen, headed out the door to ride amongst the Friday morning commuting traffic, and made our way to the park to begin our Pink Ladies Power Ride.

Me dressed in pink and ready to go!

Now, I know, you might be wondering why I've gone nuts with this whole "pink" thing.  I know that most self-respecting feminists (as Nomi and I and the majority of our friends would consider ourselves) balk at the gender-role stereotyping informing the very use of the colour pink.  Feminists flee the notion of pink princesses and barbies as representing the sum total of female accomplishment or worse yet, femininity.  Feminists would cry out:  Surely what it means to be a woman, what it means to be female, what it means to be feminine isn't reduced to pink, cotton-candyesque fluff.  And they (or we) would be right.  Pink and all its silly connotations of bubblegum and  puerile girlishness cannot come close to encompassing what it means to be a girl or woman in the world. But just as various other marginalized groups have reclaimed previously-damaging words and images, reappropriating them and redefining them (think here of the "N" word's appearance in contemporary music; or the reclamation of "queer" as a word of pride, not a pejorative etc.), I am also on a quest to ironize and reclaim pink for girls and women everywhere!

My pink bike computer!

Pink doesn't have to be relegated to those who unthinkingly have become victims of society's investment in the objectification of women.  I will wear pink, and I dare anyone out there to merely see me as a weak object of either desire or mere silliness!  I will wear pink, and I will power up that Pink Lake climb with the burn in my quads and my breathing laboured to make sure that I'm squeaking out every last bit of strength from my body, pushing myself to the limits to see how fast I can go as the hot sun beats down on me and the chill wind cools my sweat with each heavy push of my pedals.  And I will chase down the Trainer (not dressed in pink, but wearing pink in her heart nonetheless) and pass her, both of us pedalling hard and strong, our quads and calves flexed to their maximum as we grind up the hill.  And Cili Padi will choose not just to do only one repeat up the hill as planned, but will power up a second time, wearing her pink jersey (just for me!), and promising herself that each inch of pain she suffers through up that hill gets her that much closer to fitting into her beautiful, Italian suede pants.  And the three of us will reach the top of the climb after two hill repeats, and we'll chat and catch our breath and revel in how strong we've become; at the start of the season it was all we could do to make it to the top of the climb once, before turning around and making our limpy way home.

Pink Lake: the climax of our climb!

Now we can ride strong and hard twice up that hill before celebrating and choosing to take the long way back afterwards...the long way that also includes a congratulatory stop at the coffee shop!

So next week, these powerful pink ladies will aim to complete three hill repeats up Pink Lake on Friday morning and two full loops of the entire park on Sunday morning.  They won't be kept down by silly gendered expectations; they won't be kept down by society's double-standards; they won't be kept down to be "ladylike"; and they won't be kept down because they just might wear pink!

They might, however, be kept down by the weather, so let's all keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't rain and storm next week!

Remember, it was the power of the original Pink Ladies
that gave Sandy the strength to tell Danny,
"you're the one that I want!"

So, here's to Pink Lake repeats, to pink ladies, to being stronger today than yesterday, and to friendship!

Over and out,
Joy