yellow green and red buoys Moments that buoy your spirits
fitness

Moments that buoy your spirits

Nicole P,Leave a comment

I was going to write about things that bug me. You know, the targeted “reels” on social media that you are meant to relate to but that bug the hell out of you. For example, the skinny blond with 2” fake, glittery, nails showing you how to make a hamburger “bun” with cottage cheese? Or, how to make sure every bite of food you put in your mouth contains as much protein as possible. I understand the need to get “enough” protein, but I think social media influencers have jumped the shark on that one. What am I saying online that makes AI think this is what will inspire me?!

I have decided not to focus on the things that bug me though. It can be cathartic to vent about trivial things. Yes, I know the aforementioned pet peeves are trivial as all hell. 

Even the things I’m about to talk about, that buoy me – keep me afloat on days where I’m feeling sad, prickly, annoyed, tired – are trivial in the grand scheme of things. 

But in my small world, I am often looking for the small things that sustain and delight me. 

When my daily workout practice comes up, people at work or those close to me say, “it’s so great that you continue to do those things”. As if I am achieving something major. I get what they are saying, for many, it’s challenging to maintain a regular exercise routine. There are all kinds of reasons, sometimes beyond an individual’s control. But, I cannot relate, in the sense that, assuming I am not sick or injured, I cannot imagine not scheduling a workout in my day (usually morning) because it sustains me. It keeps me afloat. Mentally and as I get older, more than likely, physically, so that I am not too stiff. I know this sounds like a humble brag, but it’s not meant to. I’m just describing what works for me. What works for me doesn’t work for everyone.

Even though I love working out I do not start out every session full of pep or full of positivity. No, I have just scheduled in my day and I show up. 

On occasion, when I show up, I feel extra irritable or tired that morning, but inevitably, I feel better by the end of the workout. 

There are moments that come up while working out, that buoy me. 

This past weekend, the theme of the conditioning workout was “power moves”. One of the stations involved standing in between two large kettlebells, which had bands tied to them, putting the bands around your shoulders and jumping up and down in a controlled fashion. Many of the class gaped when the coach was describing the room. Perhaps, we were picturing catapulting too far up and slamming down. I was a bit apprehensive about it. But, when it was my turn I went for it, cautiously, and it was not scary at all. Dare I say easy (don’t tell Bethany because she might make it harder). Also, it was FUN. So much so that it was my favourite station that day. That kind of unexpected fun, when you tried something, you weren’t sure about, and it was FUN – that’s a small thing that provides me with small amounts of joy. 

Nicole, a middle aged white woman with a highlighted blond mass of curly hair tied up in a ponytail, on top of her head, wearing a mint green tank top and reddish purple high waisted leggings, tethered by two thin red exercise bands to two large black kettlebells – arms are mid flight.

When there is a task that you may not think is something you wish to do, but it’s in your wheelhouse of things you are willing to try, those moments of enjoyment are a type of freedom. Freedom from your overactive mind. Freedom from big and small problems in the world. It’s fantastic. 

Other things I can think of that provided sustaining energy this past week were:

  • newly blossoming magnolia trees in the neighbourhood
  • visiting family and seeing more extended family than usual. Especially the young adults among us
  • discussions with people I report to at work who show they “see me and it’s working” (it’s a fairly new job and so nice compared to some previous experiences) 
  • I decided to make coconut macaroons the other day and it starts with whipping egg whites. I am the obnoxious person who puts the freshly whipped egg whites in my “stories”. Why? Because just the act of making them and the sight of those glossy whipped egg whites make me happy. It is a bit crazy. Maybe a bit “basic” but it does. 
selective focus photo of flowers
Magnolia blossoms Photo by Lena Khrupina on Pexels.com
A bowl of freshly whipped egg whites with the large beater immersed in the fluffy cloud.

Dear Readers – what little things are providing you with some needed pep these days? 

Nicole P is looking forward to some warming, sunny, soul-sustaining days.
fitness

Swimming Into Old Age: The 100+ Age Groups.

savita1Leave a comment

The Swim Ontario Masters Championships were held this past weekend (Apr 19th-21st). I didn’t participate in this meet, but have been happily reading reports from members of my team as well as from others. And the overwhelming consensus was that the highlight of the meet was 100-year-old Kalis Rasmussen swimming in the 100-104 age group and setting world records in the 100 m IM (!), and the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke. 

The 100 IM (Individual Medley) consists of 25 m of all four strokes, in the order of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. That means this 100-year-old woman swam 25 m of butterfly. Let me state that again: this 100-year-old woman swam 25 m of butterfly! OMG. I once swam 25 fly and it was exhausting! 

She also swam the 50 breast, but did NOT set a world record. You’d think just showing up and completing the event would be enough. But this age group is COMPETITIVE. That’s right….there’s ANOTHER 100-year-old woman, Betty Brussel from BC, who owns the record for the 50 breast. Those two should have a match race! 

My teammates said that all 500 swimmers at the meet were on their feet and cheering for Kalis, and some were in tears, as she completed her events. And that’s not surprising. It’s always the oldies, 80 and above, who get the loudest cheers at Masters meets. We love them for showing up, and for showing us what is possible. 

I remember attending a Nationals meet in Winnipeg in 2009. The star of that meet was 101-year-old Jaring Timmerman. They held an exhibition relay with the Canadian men’s Olympic team, and he swam the anchor leg, with the entire arena on its feet! He didn’t stop there….Masters Swimming had to create a new age group, 105-109, for him as he continued to compete! 

This rare group of athletes are re-defining what it means to be a life-long swimmer. They really ARE swimming (and training!) into deep old age. 

We are stronger than we know.

Do women really need a different sized rugby ball?
fitness · rugby

Do women really need a different sized rugby ball?

Sam BLeave a comment

Hmm.

“Just last week, World Rugby announced plans to introduce smaller balls into the women’s game as part of a trial to enhance the sport. The idea is to make the ball easier to hold and reduce knock-ons, as well as explore the potential benefits that a smaller ball can make to the kicking game.” See Rugby Dump here.

The argument in favour of the smaller ball is that current ball was designed around the size of male players.

@hersport

Should the standard size of a rugby ball be lowered for the women’s game? We took to the streets of Dublin to find out what YOU think 🤔 Could a smaller ball size help or hinder the women’s game? We’ve seen it in other sports like basketball, camogie and gaelic football – should it be changed for rugby too? And is this something we could see put in place for the next Guinness Women’s Six Nations tournament? 🏉 Let us know in the comments below! #GuinnessWomensSixNations #WomensSixNations

♬ original sound – Her Sport

Not everyone is convinced though.

There’s more coverage of the controversy here in World Rugby.

“World Rugby is considering the use of a smaller ball in the women’s game and is collecting data on the size 4.5 ball which is about 3 per cent smaller and lighter than a size 5 ball. Lindsay Starling, science and medical manager at World Rugby, said: “The women’s playing community is quite divided. There’s a big proportion of individuals in this community that think and feel that retaining the use of the same equipment in the men’s game is important.”

It’s not my sport and I don’t have a strong view except a)I’m not a big fan of gender binaries, and b)women’s specific anything is rarely a good idea.

Gender isn’t a great proxy for size. There are lots of small men out there and some of them play rugby. There are lots of large women and some of them play rugby.

Adding unnecessary gender differences in sports–women play three sets of tennis versus men’s five, or women, or in track cycling where the men’s individual pursuit is a 4 km race and women only race 3 km–is rarely justified.

As I said, it’s not my sport (though I was it had been). But I have a hard time imagining it’s ball size that’s discouraging girls and women from playing rugby.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.

Managing My Climate Anxiety
climate change · fitness

Managing My Climate Anxiety

Diane Harper1 Comment

Belated happy Earth Day. I wish I were actually happier about it. Instead, I have come to realize that I am a bundle of climate anxiety.

I used to love to travel and all my bucket list items included exotic locations. Now, I struggle to convince myself it’s okay to drive to the cottage property I own.

I am looking at e-bike options that have the battery power to get me there, and solar panel set-ups so I can recharge batteries to get home again. Right now I’m torn between the Tern GSD (cute and very useful in the city but shorter range) and the Tern Orox (designed for camping adventures, but still requiring a battery boost to get home, and maybe too big to fit into my storage area with all the other bikes).

On top, a Blue Tern GD e-cargo bike with a passenger seat on the back. Below two adults ride Tern Orox e-bikes through the woods. One is loaded with gear, while the other has a child on the back.

I have even debated whether I could use my acoustic bike to get there. 95 km and steep hills strongly suggests “no”.

Once I arrive at the property, will I be able to cook, or will we be under a burn ban or at wildfire smoke advisory again? I have a small camp stove for emergencies, but normally I cook over an open fire, so I’m weighing the merits of various solar cookers.

If I spend a lot of time at the cottage, who will take care of my gardens? I have two small community garden plots, plus my front yard which is mostly given over to herbs, plants that attract pollinators and whatever I can grow in large planters on the walkway, and some fruit bushes and a small bed with asparagus and onions in the back yard.

Gardening and eating local is partly how I manage my anxiety. I’m forced to eat seasonal foods and almost nothing comes wrapped in plastic. I’m not quite full-on vegetarian yet, but I’m getting there because I hate buying plastic-wrapped meat in plastic trays, and because of the greenhouse gas impacts of meat vs beans.

Fortunately, almost everything survives heat and drought fairly well. Unfortunately, I’m not a very good gardener, so aside from green beans and garlic, there is no way I could feed myself for more than a few meals each year.

Other ways to cope? Buying less, buying used, plogging, using the 2Good2Go app and volunteering with Hidden Harvest Ottawa to rescue food that would otherwise go to waste. And volunteering with Bike Ottawa to advocate for safe active transit infrastructure. Somehow that has morphed into supporting denser, walkable mixed-use communities and improved public transit, as well. All those things will help reduce carbon emissions x eventually.

Will it be enough? Not on its own, but at least it keeps me busy and keeps the climate anxiety from morphing into full-on existential dread. I hope.

Diane and other volunteers at the Bike Ottawa display for an Earth Day event in Ottawa.
fitness

Off to be a model…

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

For a couple of hours anyway.

Occasionally, I do some (clothed!) modelling for a local art group.

I’m always a bit nervous beforehand because I want to give them good poses to draw but once I get there, I have a great time.

There’s something so focusing and relaxing about having nothing else to do but stay still.

I’m the rest of my life, I usually have to make a conscious decision to stay still so my brain will stop prompting me to do stuff and stop wondering why I am lazing around.

And I guess in this case I have made the decision as well but it feels different because moving is the wrong thing to do.

Moving would ruin things.

So it’s not just a choice, it’s important to just sit and be.

And I like it.

Christine’s Experiment – reframed
ADHD · fitness · walking

Christine’s Experiment – reframed

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I was going to start this post by saying that I picked a poor week for an experiment but I don’t think that’s entirely true.

I think I got ahead of myself with my experiment and started at the wrong question. And my hectic week made that very obvious, very quickly.

A photo of two people’s hands holding lab glassware with green liquid in it.
My experiment had nothing to do with test tubes and beakers (flasks?) of green liquid but this image just struck me funny. Image description: a photo of two people’s hands holding lab glassware that has green liquid in it. They are both wearing white tyvec suits. One person’s hand is holding a beaker (flask?) aloft and they are gesturing to it with their other hand as if to say ‘See what I mean?’ And the other person’s hand is holding a test tube with the same liquid in it near the base of the beaker.

To recap, last week I planned to do a 5 minute warm-up before I took the dog for a walk, just to see if getting my heart rate up before I left would help me work a bit harder on my walk.

I thought it was a good-sized experiment, reasonable and not overly ambitious, so I thought it would be easy.

Then last week looked at my plans and laughed.

My days got incredibly jumbled making it both hard to remember that I was going to warm up first AND making it hard to find the extra five minutes before our walk. (Usually on hectic days I take a walk on the spur of the moment but the warmup plan complicated that.)

Khalee somehow immediately connected my warmup with our walk and either tightly circled around me or jumped on me for the whole time I tried to get moving.

A photo of a dog sitting on a bed
Khalee doesn’t get why I’m making a big deal of all of this. Can’t I just amble along sniffing the ground like a normal person? (Evidence suggests that Khalee thinks she’s people, so she would obviously consider herself a normal person.) image description: a slightly, side-on view of Khalee stretched out on my bed with her head raised (sort of a Sphinx kind of pose) She is looking over to the right rather than directly into the camera.

I was sick for three days and while I could manage a walk on two of those three days, I just couldn’t make myself do a warmup too.

So, yeah, it wasn’t a great week and I didn’t get the information I needed.

Except, I kind of did.

For starters, an experiment that fails is still useful because I know what doesn’t work.

But, also, it showed me that my initial question was wrong – I had started in the wrong spot.

Before I can test if a warmup helps me increase my heart rate during a walk, I need to ask myself “How can I make it easy to do a 5 minute warmup before walking Khalee?”

So, that’s the question I’m testing this week and I think the first thing I’ll try is to pick a specific walk time each day and include a 5 minute window for a warmup.

Tune in next week for another exciting update in the ongoing saga of ‘Christine and the 5 minute warmup.’

*****

By the way, while I tend to default to reframing anyway, this particular reframing was inspired in part by this great post on Instagram from Divergent Coach Kelly who was reminding those of us with ADHD that aiming for consistency might be a source of frustration so we can pick other things to aim for – like getting really good at starting over.

fitness · functional fitness

The changing of seasons and functional fitness

Sam BLeave a comment

It’s spring and Catherine is right, that does mean spring flowers.

However, in my fitness world it also means the seasonal changing of tires and moving of clothes.

Out of season tires live beside the house, in a semi-covered area along with canoes and the snowblower and lawn furniture.

Out of season clothes live in the basement in bins and need carrying up two flights of stairs, emptying, refilling and carrying back down.

There aren’t a lot of household chores that feel like fitness activities to me, but these do.

When I carry the tires from beside the house (carry and not roll because it’s less awkward and because I can and I feel badass doing it) to the car and drive them to the tire changing place, and then empty the car of the out of season tires and stack those, I think, “This is why I go to the gym.”

When you search for images of tires you see lots of pics of people using tires in the gym for fitness but I would feel a bit odd paying for tire-centric fitness activities in the gym and then not moving my own tires around at home.

A woman flipping a tire in the gym. Photo by  Maksim Chernyshev  on  Scopio.

I know lots of people who not only have someone else change their tires, they also have someone else store their tires, but I’m not there yet. Never say never. But not now.

To be clear, Sarah is the arranger of tires. She’s the Scandinavian architect of tires and their arranging.   I’m the meth raccoon.

So far, we’re through the tires. Next up, spring and summer clothes.

(We’ve had this discussion a few times, the debate between those of us on the blog who swap out clothes seasonally and those who don’t. Mostly it comes down to living alone or living in a house full of people and/or storing their stuff.)

Blue and white boat on heap of tires. Photo by  Aleksander Des  on  Scopio
And yes we have dogs and boats and tires, but not that many tires, and they’re stacked neatly.

How about you? Do you have chores that feel more like fitness activities?

A field of multi-colored tulips, by Yoksel Zok, for Unsplash. In search of May flowers
fitness · season transitions · spring

In search of May flowers

catherine w3 Comments

It’s been a rainy April this year, which is in keeping both with New England weather and proverb wisdom. Which means, according to both the proverb and local patterns, that May flowers are on their way.

I wish this yay! sign were on my street. Thanks, Samuel Regan Asante for the pic (from Unsplash).
I wish this yay! sign were on my street. Thanks, Samuel Regan Asante for the pic (from Unsplash).

So, I’ve made some flower plans. One of my favorite spring/summer activities is visiting botanical gardens at various times of spring-summer-early fall.

As a warm-up (as it were), the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is hosting Tulip Mania, which is predicted to reach maximum frenzy this week. I’m planning on going before the weekend tulip crowd hits.

You can look, but you can’t pick. However, they’ll sell you some cut tulips, which I will certainly be doing.

Once May is properly in place, it’s time for a trip to the Blithewold gardens in Bristol, Rhode Island. There’s a big house there, too, but I’m all about the gorgeous flowers, green plants and artistic landscaping, complete with huuuuge pottery vessels made by this guy. You can see what I mean below:

A garden path at Blithewold with a 5-foot-tall pottery vessel standing alongside.
A garden path at Blithewold with a 5-foot-tall pottery vessel standing alongside.

If you’re interested either in more details about this garden or Procter’s pottery in situ, look here at this New York Times article.

I’ve been to Garden in the Woods, not far from my house, in late summer, but never in May. So it’s time to remedy that situation and go. It features native New England plants in 45 acres of woodland. If you can’t make it in person, here’s where to go for a virtual tour. And here’s a sample of what I’ll be experiencing in person.

Azaleas in bloom on a stony and green path in the woods.

While doing some low-key sleuthing for this post, I discovered that there’s such a thing as garden tourism. There’s even a guidebook on it for those headed to New England. Who knew?

According to these sources, the mothership of botanical gardens is Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It is vast and complex and beautiful and exerts its own garden-gravitational force on all who venture near it. I’m planning on venturing there while on my way to South Carolina to visit family in June. I hope I don’t disappear into their rich and multicolored abundance of flora. If you don’t hear from me, at least you’ll know where to look.

Readers, are any of you botanical garden fans? What are some of your favorites? I’d love to put some of them on my to-visit list. And in return, I’ll post pictures from my various flowery visits this spring and summer.

fitness

Tonight, we’re celebrating the life of the fit, fabulous feminist,  Catherine Hundleby

Sam BLeave a comment

In Guelph tonight,  at the Bullring, we’ll be gathering to honour the late great Cate Hundleby, feminist philosopher and occasional FIFI blogger,  as well as her father,  who died in the first year of the pandemic,  with our stories, music, and dancing. It’s a Ceilidh and Dance Wake.

The Hundleby Ceilidh and Dance Wake

Hug your friends. Tell them you love them.  Life is shorter than you think.

Rest in power fit feminist, friend, philosopher, fashionista, fellow dog walker, and yogi Cate Hundleby

April is Adult Learn to Swim Month
fitness

April is Adult Learn to Swim Month

Diane HarperLeave a comment

US Masters Swimming celebrates this month as a way to encourage certified learn-to-swim instructors and Masters Clubs to offer lessons. They do this to make swimming more accessible for the one in three adults in the USA who can’t swim the length of a pool. I think that’s pretty cool.

The percentage of Canadian-born non-swimmers is much smaller at 4%, but among new Canadians the percentage is almost five times as high, at 19%. However, new Canadians want to swim: a study by the Lifesaving Society showed that almost 80% of new Canadians plan to be in and around the water in summer, and most feel it is important to be able to swim because Canada has so much water.

Even though Canada doesn’t have a formal Learn To Swim Month, I’m doing my bit.

I have completed all my qualifications to apply for a part-time job as a lifeguard and swim instructor with the City of Ottawa, and I’m applying to local pools that offer adult classes. I live in a community with lots of new Canadians, so it’s perfect.

I firmly believe that everyone needs to be safe around the water. Adults who swim are more likely to ensure their kids know how to swim. Plus, swimming is a great low-impact activity for people of any age.

Image: four women of various ages are smiling as they stand in a a swimming pool, holding flutter boards. Source: blog.myswimpro.com

If you came to swimming as an adult, what worked for you to learn? If you still don’t swim, what’s holding you back? Please let me know in the comments.