My Encounter with Suburban Velodrome

Sweta Lal is a Melbourne-based writer, editor, and social media consultant — an engineer turned freelancer who writes blogs, poetry, non-fiction, and children's stories.

The baggage I didn't pack

All the New Year festivities and gatherings left me with many memories — and, if I'm honest, a few extra kilos picked up from delicious, mouth-watering platters that seemed hugely impossible to deny. I had to get back in shape to take on the year ahead, which had no room for overwhelming baggage.

So I did what every resolution-maker does: I looked around for something that might actually hold my interest past February.

Enter the velodrome

What I found, tucked into the suburbs, was a velodrome — one of those steeply banked cycling tracks that looks, to the uninitiated, like a concrete wave frozen mid-crash. I'd come across them on television during track cycling events, but I had never stood next to one, let alone ridden one.

Watching riders lean into those banks at speed is something else. There is no coasting through a turn on a velodrome; you commit to the curve or you don't ride. It struck me as a decent metaphor for the whole fitness enterprise: the people who get somewhere are the ones who lean in instead of hovering at the edges of the track.

What I actually did about it

Did I become a track cyclist? Let's not get carried away. But I did take the first honest step, which was finding something about movement that interested me more than a treadmill never could. The kilos would take care of themselves in time; the interesting part was discovering that exercise stops being a chore the moment it becomes curiosity.

If your own resolution is wobbling, try this: don't join a gym you hate. Go find your local velodrome, climbing wall, dance class — whatever looks faintly ridiculous and fun. The best exercise plan is the one you don't have to talk yourself into.

For readers who want to pair movement with traditional wisdom on daily routine and bodily strength, Swastik's Knowledge Vault is a good place to start.

From the archive: this piece was originally published February 28, 2012, and has been refreshed for clarity.