Shaping up Noosa Style.........by alex o'halloran
As a self confessed bikini junkie in my teenage years, nothing mattered more to me than the "brand" - Yes........I truly loved my "EXPOSEES" - white and pink polka dots to be exact! I just had to have them - no matter how ridiculous the price tag.
I lived for Summer and literally lived at our local beach in Mt.Eliza where I grew up. My girlfriends and I spent every spare moment of our holidays and the odd wagged school day 'suckin' up the rays.
As I plonked my butt down on the sand in Noosa last week, I looked down at my mismatching bikini with it's floral top and completely wrong bottoms and thought to myself.............how things had changed!
These days, "the bikini" just doesn't rate in my world or on my list in the fashion stakes.Why spend a fortune on some teeny bit of fabric that I simply loathe myself in? Hell........... a great handbag is a much better investment and looks great with anything. People stop you and say, "Great bag". I can't remember the last time someone said that when I was all "bikinied" up sand side!
Looking around at the "all too tanned fabulousness" on the main beach, I regretfully noticed a group of 16yr old beauties sitting far too close.Thin as whippets, not a panel beaten leg in sight and clearly they were all gorgeous, body confident too.The only thing weighing these girls down was the ipod they carried. Admiring and hating them all at the same time.......I decided move myself on to the secluded family beach at Little Cove. Not a teen in sight.
Feeling 40 something, white and flabby, the next morning I decided to take up my husband's offer of joining him on his morning run through Noosa's National Park. As I laced up, stretched and thought of the those dimple free girls, I was ready to whip his ass and tragically abort my morning of magazines and coffee!
Listening to his words of encouragement it went a little like this, "Hey Ali, we'll take it slow and run until the wheelchair access path stops."Easy", I said.
Ready to die,still running and smiling too, I noticed that we'd jogged well past the path.
Casually I mentioned.............."Obviously wheelchairs in QLD are fitted with 4Wheel drive tyres??" The path stopped miles back!?" "Just a bit further" he said with a wink.
5.2km later and hating him, we ran back through the enterance gates to the National Park. Never having run that far in my life, I stood there out of breath and quietly happy with myself.
On waking the next day, as I crawled down our apartment stairs, it was clear that I was the one that needed a wheelchair. Seriously........I was literally cripple for 3 days.
The next morning as I dragged myself down our apartment stairs, I wondered what on earth had happened to my poor body. I decided that I had been viciously attacked in my sleep, but then the 5.2km run flashed in my head and I asked myself, "What part of running feels good?". "It doesn't!!"
As I sat there aching, crippled and feeling very sorry for myself, I drank my coffee and read my wonderful magazines that in "my world"shouted normal!
Smiling to myself, I thought...........'Hey, what's a few dimples between friends.......but then again'......................
