Challenge #19: Sarah vs BMXing

I was probably about seven-years-old when I gave up riding my little blue bike. Coincidently, it was around the time I bombed down the hill where I grew up, took my hands off the handle bars and went straight over them, creating a mess of both the pavement and my face.

That painful face-planting incident - along with the very wise decision to give up riding a bike - flashed through my mind as me and my BMX smashed into the ramp we were attempting to ride up. It was a combination of nervousness and indecision, I got a bit of a wobble on, made a half-arsed attempt to go up it, couldn't quite decide which ramp to go up and then... crunch. We were only 20 minutes into a two-hour BMX session and it was already the second time I had fallen off.

I like doing things that have an element of danger to them and get the adrenaline pumping, so I thought BMXing would be right up my street. Sadly, I hadn't taken into account the number of years it had been since I last rode a bike or my ability to injure myself at any given opportunity. I was crap and the falling off certainly didn't help my confidence, especially when the place was full of children who weren't falling over.

Having said that, normally in these falling over/knocking something over/doing something incredibly silly situations I would be mortified, but on this occasion I wasn't. I didn't actually give a shit whether anyone was watching it or filming it for YouTube because it was very funny and I'm happy to laugh at myself. Within just 20 minutes of entering the building I was bruised and bleeding.

That face says 'what the fuck am I doing??'

Evidence I did ride the bike

 And went up the ramps

Dan's so fast he's a blur. He was also very good,

which made my efforts look even worse.

Bless

Things I've learnt

Ok, so I was completely rubbish at this challenge, but I'm glad I gave it a shot. Up until now I had enjoyed all of my challenges and while I was a little gutted I couldn't get the hang of it, it's not the end of the world. I'm good at lots of things, but I can't be good at everything and there's no shame in that.


Other things I've learnt

BMXing is very cliquey. If you're into it and good at it, they have time for you. If you're not your 'instructor' will watch you fall over and bleed and not bother to ask if you are ok, and will then piss off and leave you to it because he basically can't be arsed with you. On a positive note, not everyone that worked there was a dick, but some really were.


Even more things I've learnt

Cheesecake makes everything better...



The aftermath

It wasn't until I got in the bath that night that I realised quite how much damage I'd done to myself. I haven't counted the bruises yet, but there are a lot.

Verdict: A wobbly and bruised win, but I don't think I'll be trying it again 

Challenge #11: Sarah vs Ten Pin Bowling

I have vague memories of a ten pin bowling party I had as a child, but there isn't any photographic evidence to prove this ever happened and I have no idea how old I might have been at the time. What I do know is that I haven't been bowling since this event - which may or may not have even happened - and is probably something I should have done well before turning 29.


What people say

It's worth mentioning here the amazing reaction I get when I say ten pin bowling is on my list of things to do before turning 30: "WHAT?! You've never been bowling?? What have you been doing with your time?"

It's the exact same reaction you get when casually remarking that you haven't seen some classic film.

In my defence I may have been bowling before, but if I haven't, it's because I've been busy trashing my ears for fun at gigs, occasionally stalking bands and working on enhancing my record collection. These things ain't cheap you know.


The Rules

The only rule I'd come up with for the bowling challenge is that I wasn't allowed to have the sides up - I like to call them wings - because I thought that would take all the skill flukiness out of the game. And possibly some of the fun too.

Shoes

Balls

Let's play...

Without any thought for how shit an afternoon it might be if I never hit anything, I insisted we were going to play three games. For some unknown reason I was quietly confident that rolling a ball down a lane would be quite an easy task and that knocking pins over would be do-able. I was being cocky. I was also wrong...

My first shot was a gutter ball. I was gutted.
It's lucky you can't hear what I said at this point,
but to give you a clue it began with an 'f' and ended in an 'off'.

This is Dan looking confident as he goes to take his first shot.

 You can tell that his first shot is right on course.

We're not putting this down to skill, we're putting 

it down to being incredibly spawny.

What I'm thinking: Yay, I finally knocked one over!

I would love to say that this shot was taken shortly after my first gutter ball,

but it wasn't. I did at least four of them before I managed to knock over one pin.

It was a proud moment though and this picture was taken just after

my celebratory dance.

First game score:

Dan 47

Sarah 22

Action shot

Action shot

This is Dan looking smug because he got a strike. 

Or two.

This is me looking pissed off because I didn't get any strikes at all.

Second game score:

Dan 59

Sarah 43

In the last game, Dan's tactics kind of went to shit.
I was delighted.
He was not.


Third game score:
 Dan 66
Sarah 69

I finally won a game!

Dan putting on a brave face.

Thoughts

Ten pin bowling is actually quite a tricky sport to master and what I've learned from the experience is that running and lobbing the ball somewhere in the direction of the pins is not the way to win. Also, having some coordination really helps, but is sadly something I seem to be lacking.

I've also discovered that playing against someone with more bowling experience will only lead to disappointment and name calling, so if at all possible, play against someone who is either shit or a small child.

Verdict: I hit some pins, so that's a win in my book