From an L.A. Times story by a woman who keeps going despite the strange looks from skinnier, faster hikers.
Maybe you have to be fat to have the “What if?” moment I had. Because that cave was not built for anyone who can’t fit into a Patagonia Seamless Mesh Bra Top. The entrance was maybe 3 feet high and 2 1/2 feet across, and I knew the shaman who had practiced here must’ve been a slender, probably wiry man.
A small woman ahead of me sprang in and out of the opening like a cat, signaling that it was my turn. I climbed up into the cave, prayed I wouldn’t get stuck and wriggled through. Of course it was claustrophobic. Of course I had the horrible image of rangers having to yank out my wedged body.
I’ve been passed by people of every shape, age, nationality, etc. You really don’t know anything about people’s capabilities or lack thereof just by a single glance on the trail. The one you write off will inevitably be the one who saves your fanny. So save the funny looks for the wildflowers and rattlesnakes.
every…well almost every…week-day morning i wake up an hour or so early to put in a couple hiking miles at Radnor Lake before work: it’s a local park about a mile from home. i hit the South Cove backwards from the Granny White side; this is by far the hardest route of the park, gaining a few hundred feet over a short incline where i helped erect a bridge last summer. anyways, every few days i am tapped on my shoulder during my workout (as i usually have my mp3 headphones blaring) to let traffic pass. this traffic is seemingly always the same jolly smile-filled dark-haired female…easily 50-or-more pounds my senior. letting her by, i gently return the physical slap as if to say, ‘physics my ass – you go girl!’ embarrassed? nah!–she’s obviously got the strive that i’ve hidden far away from my firing synapses.