Nat, spinal movement and the Jefferson curl
flexibility · functional fitness · injury · mobility · Sat with Nat · strength training · weight lifting

Nat, spinal movement and the Jefferson curl

natalieh (she/her)Leave a comment

I’m at the final stage of recovering from my lower back injury from the winter.

It started with analysis and restricting movements until my back healed then re-introducing different spinal movements.

The last step is yet another “silly little movement” called the Jefferson curl.

Emily described it as going from standing to fully bent over, curling my spine like a pill bug.

This bug is curled up just bragging about its range of motion

Emily and I spoke about why moving each vertebrae separately was important.

First, it’s helping my proprioception. As I stand tall and slowly curl my head, neck and each part of my spine – I’m understanding what muscles and connective tissues are doing at each stage of the movement.

Second, it’s practicing movements that occur in everyday life. Bending over to pick up a sock or stooping to get a weed in the garden should be effortless and not require special movements.

Third, learning this move is removing my fear of re-injury. I’ve been overly protective of my back which, ironically, makes me more prone to injury.

The internet has strong opinions about the Jefferson curl specifically and spinal movement in general!

Do a quick search about spinal flexion and or the Jefferson curl. It’s ok. I’ll wait.

You will quickly find people yelling about always keeping a neutral spine. Others imploring everyone to use the full range of motions of your back. What a mine field!

I do like SoheeFit’s explanation.

Never round the back?

Carefully and under light load

Under my physiotherapist’s guidance and coaching, I practiced the movement with a tiny 5 pound kettle bell. I didn’t even know they came that small!

Emily reassured me that it would feel like breaking every rule about form. It did! Since it is so ingrained in me not to round my spine I struggled to get my body to comply.

After two weeks of doing 2-5 reps a couple times a day using a 5 pound weight, the Jefferson curl is feeling more fluid and available to me.

I’m not saying everyone needs the Jefferson curl in their routine but it has caused me to question if I’m unnecessarily restricting other movements.

I tend to shy away from kneeling and other pressure on my knee because of an old injury. I’m going to gently explore that and challenge my self-imposed restriction.

Use with caution

It’s not that the advice to keep a neutral spine is wrong. When lifting heavy loads, it’s important to get in the right posture and engage your legs and core. Good form for exercises matter!

So I will never be using my heavy weights on this movement. I also need the range of motion available to me in my life because socks and weeds need picking up!

Look at the lovely curve of the spine!
A Fitbit for My Finger, Five Years On
fitness · gadgets · Metrics · motivation · technology · trackers

A Fitbit for My Finger, Five Years On

elan.paulson1 Comment

Can you think of an example of when you first started doing a thing, then what you do shifts over time without you even really noticing?

Looking back at my 2021 post about getting an Oura ring, I wrote about how my new finger fitness tracker had suddenly got me reviewing my stats after every soccer game, emptying my bar fridge, and cleaning my house. The story surprised me a little for how I’d forgotten how much this little gadget had motivated me.

Five years later, and I’m taking an indefinite soccer break. Most mornings the ring delivers a verdict I can already predict based on my choices the night before. And despite software updates, the ring tells me when I’ve cleaned, but it doesn’t do the cleaning for me!

Elan’s hand with Oura ring
My Oura ring glows green and red occasionally. Otherwise, I don’t notice it all that much.

These days, I check the app half as often as I used to. On a recent 2-week hiking and biking trip to the Azores I left the ring (and charger) at home entirely to avoid extra pack, and it didn’t cross my mind again until I got back.

Over 5 years, the app interface has changed along with how I use it. Added doo-dads. There are now scenic pictures behind my stats, and the app calls me cutsie names like “champ.” There are new dashboards too, one tracking “saved activity time” and another breaking down the “energy zones” I’ve engaged and avoided. I look at neither.

Weekly Zoned Minutes report that I’m not in the zone, at least not Zone 4 or Zone 5.
Weekly Zoned Minutes report that I’m Not in the Zone, at least not in Zone 4 or Zone 5.

I do regularly use the app for a 5 to 12-minute midday meditation break. They’ve added Headspace-style voice narrations with choose-your-own soothing background noises, and there’s one narrator’s voice I like. But it’s stuff I could probably also find online for free.

I also still go back to the sleep performance tracker. Sometimes, Oura and my partner have divergent views about how restless or disrupted (or disruptive) my sleep was. At least the fitness tracker never complains about me.

Overall, 5 years later my Oura’s job has shifted, mostly confirming what I already know I should or should not be doing. It also seems to have an overload of data sitting on top of the two or three things I most care about.

I’ve been reading more lately about personalization and AI in the context of education, and it lines up with something my fellow blogger Nat wrote about her three months of smart watch data: she’s not motivated by stats that aren’t meaningful to her. Like Nat, what I want from the next version of my fitness tracker device is personalization: the ability to say show me what I most care about and hide the rest.

Until then, I guess I’ll to keep wearing it. Not because I need it, but because it’s free for me to use without a paid membership. And, I’d rather have it and not need it 75% of its stats than to need them and not have them.

Screenshot my my Oura app after a night’s sleep, with a mountain in the background. The screen notification says, “tHey there champ, your resting heart rate indicates that you’ve recovered well. Looks like you’ve done a good job balancing your workouts and rest.”
Screenshot of my Oura app after a night’s sleep, with a mountain in the background. The screen notification says, “Hey there champ, your resting heart rate indicates that you’ve recovered well. Looks like you’ve done a good job balancing your workouts and rest.” Have I?
Sam’s summer movement plans go awry: Some problems and maybe some solutions
fitness

Sam’s summer movement plans go awry: Some problems and maybe some solutions

Sam B2 Comments

It’s been a rough summer so far. My big vacation and conference travel plans fell apart due to a host of family issues, big and little. Work hasn’t been that easy either.

I thought then maybe staying close to home, I’d have time to bike more, but a) the weather has been a disaster, and b) increasingly, there’s no one to bike with.

Sarah and I were going to ride today but the air quality is the worst in the world, and outdoor exercise is not recommended!

Oh, and it’s too hot indoors to ride on the trainer at home for very long, though I am doing it because I care about my Zwift streak. Which is ridiculous, but here we are. I’ll blog about that later.

On the friend front, some of my riding friends have moved away, others have stopped riding, and Sarah is usually too busy at work. I’m not fast enough to ride with any of the local cycling clubs. Unlike Nat, I don’t like riding alone, and it all feels pretty impossible. Without any big cycling holidays or goals, it’s hard to make myself get out there. Bah! Bah!

So I thought maybe, just maybe, I could spend more time at the gym. It’s air-conditioned. But personal training is over for us for the summer, and again, when it’s just me going alone, and I’ve got a busy work schedule and demanding home life, I have a hard time getting to the gym, even though I know it helps me cope with all the work and home things.

There’s always an end-of-day aquafit, right? I love that Movati has aquafit classes scheduled at 430, 530 and 630. There’s aqua Zumba (no one can see you getting the moves all mixed up), aqua yoga, aqua intensity…so many options. But no. Actually, zero options. The pool at Movati is being repaired and is closed for the month. Update: Now closed with no end date as they’re having difficulties repairing the pool lining.

And if that weren’t enough to make me want to scream and stomp, my anti-gravity fitness instructor is away for the month.

Well, at least I’m walking the dog, right? NO. It’s been too hot for Cheddar to go much more than around the block.

On the upside, Susan and I did get to the Elora quarry. Sarah and I did get to the Puslinch Tract Conservation area with Cheddar. And I did ride the Tour de Guelph with fellow dean Graham Holloway and College of Arts staff member Abby Scott. All great, but not enough.

Walking with Cheddar on a very hot day

Plans?

Well, it’s the middle of July, and it’s tempting to start thinking now about next summer’s plans. I’m definitely going back to some serious cycling vacations. You know the kind where you ride every day from place to place, not the kind where you travel and just bring the bikes along.

But I also know it’s too easy to bail on this summer’s fitness ambitions. I still want to put some serious cycling miles in the bank. I am reminding myself though that the move of cycling to an autumn activity might be a good fit with what’s happening climate-wise. See It Feels Strange and Awful, But It’s Where We Are.

We’re back at personal training on August 18. Between now and then, we’re going canoe camping and hanging at the farm with bikes and a swimming pool. So it’s not like there’s no movement in my life. I am still enjoying the morning movements.

Deep breaths.

Deep breaths.

Just breathe.

And move!

accessibility · swimming

Sometimes Good Things Grow

Diane Harper1 Comment

Way back in 2013, I did my first Bring on the Bay (BOTB) swim, a 3 km swim in the Ottawa River to raise funds for Easter Seals.

In 2016 BOTB started to offer a swim angel program. It’s the largest program of its kind in Canada, and it’s an important contribution to making the event more accessible. I think is that’s very appropriate for an event raising funds for people with disabilities.

Coincidentally, 2016 was the year I had bunion surgery. I was very nervous about swimming that distance as I hadn’t done much training and was afraid I would get a massive foot cramp. My friend Nadine was friends with the guy who had dreamed it up after supporting one of his friends to do the swim the previous year. She offered to be my angel. She swam beside me and it gave me the confidence to keep going (but was prepared to get me help should I need it).

I couldn’t find a picture of us from BOTB that year, but here we are swimming at Meech Lake on a foggy day.

Fast forward a few more years and I was bored of swimming for myself, but thought it would be fun to pay it forward by being an angel. My swim team mate Sarah was interested in doing the race but was nervous because she had no open water experience. I volunteered to be her angel. She did great!

Sarah and I after our swim

The next year, Sarah convinced her mom to try. Irene did the 1.5 km route all in breaststroke. She now comes to Ottawa from Hamilton every year to do the swim.

Irene and I before starting our swim

Last year, I was paired with Penny, who it turns out I knew slightly as she often swam at the pool where I lifeguard. We did the 1.5 km race last year and this year she did the 3 km. Now 83, she was the oldest female swimmer (and may have been the oldest overall) this year.

Penny and I after our swim last year. Ignore that random hand on my shoulder; it is not AI. I cropped the photo.

This year, I was paired with Lisa. She had recently had surgery and was anxious. I was technically still recovering from my surgery but knew I could do the distance. We were well matched and took care of each other.

Lisa and I in the line waiting our turn to get into the water. There were 995 swimmers this year.

Nadine has moved away, but her influence is still felt in the Ottawa swimming community. She introduced me and several other friends to being swim angels. This year there were four of us out of 38 angels who met through her.

And the word has spread within my master’s swim club; four of us were angels, including Sarah, plus our former coach. Not bad for a tiny 35 member club.

Thanks Nadine – you really started something.

Deny Pain, Heal Faster; if only …
fitness

Deny Pain, Heal Faster; if only …

Mina2 Comments

Two months ago, I tripped over a big old tree root while running and hurt my shoulder (I wrote about it here). The Urgent Care doc said that probably it was just a sprain and I should come back for an Xray and MRI only if the pain or mobility symptoms worsened in the next couple of days. I’m averse to medical tests, so that recommendation aligned with my own avoidant inclinations. Nothing worsened. So, I went about my life. As was possible. Given that I had severely restricted mobility and, yes, some pain, which I worked hard to minimize, going so far as to take fewer of the prescribed painkillers, to monitor my recovery, I told myself. Minimizing pain is an inherited trait. Discomfort was not to be acknowledged in my family.  

More than a month after my shoulder injury, I finally started physical therapy. Although I already felt miles better, the therapist said she wouldn’t treat me without an Xray and MRI. The results were shocking (not just to me, also the doctor and the physical therapist). I had multiple fractures and partial tears. You know that feeling when you have just had a close shave and then afterwards you are shaky, thinking about what might have been? That’s how I felt when I got the MRI results, oh — that’s why my shoulder hurt so fucking much. The results gave me retrospective permission to feel all the pain I’d been in. Even though it was mostly gone by then. I realized that I’d been very tuned into what provoked more pain. But I was less tuned to the level of daily pain.   

I would like to move beyond my inherited relationship with pain. And yet, here’s what I’m wondering: did not naming the pain, nor seeking an accurate diagnosis, help me? My recovery has gone better than expected. I’m not back to doing handstands or pull-ups. Yet. Eight weeks out, almost everything else is back, with only minor tweaky discomfort. I can throw on a jacket or wrestle off a sports bra without a significant extra physical negotiation. Running. Cycling. Yoga. Oh, yes, I am using lighter weights at the gym. I’m not that insouciant.

In an easy version of this scenario, I tell myself, see, not knowing healed me, the mind is powerful, trust the body over the scan. The reality is that I have no control case. I don’t know what would have happened to this shoulder if I’d had the MRI on day three instead of day thirty-two. Maybe I’d have been sent to surgery, immobilized properly, protected from re-injury, and healed faster and cleaner. Maybe the delay allowed me to heal in blissful ignorance. I can’t know.

Here’s a possibility I’m considering: Not knowing how bad my injury was meant I didn’t guard the shoulder the way I might have if a radiologist had handed me a list of exactly what was fractured and torn. I kept using my shoulder, to the extent my body allowed, without the extra layer of fear that comes from a diagnosis. Pain research talks about fear-avoidance, catastrophizing, the way bracing against a movement can cost you more function than the injury itself does. Maybe less fear meant less guarding, and less guarding meant more range of motion stayed available while the tissue healed.

At the same time, I’m suspicious of my own desire for my not-knowing to have helped, because that’s the version where I’m tuned into and trusting my body. I like that story. And I’m going to hold it loosely.

What I’ve learned from this incident is not, don’t get a scan. In fact, I’ll be more likely to get an early scan next time. And I want to create more permissive space for my pain to be real, no matter if there’s a diagnosis or not. At the same time, I want to stay tuned to my body and keep dancing with my potential fear and the threshold of what’s still possible.

A photo of a wire card with the word decide drawn on it. Meditation Jumpstarts Christine’s New Exercise Routine
ADHD · habits · meditation

Meditation Jumpstarts Christine’s New Exercise Routine

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

I started the Hybrid Calisthenics routine last Monday and I swear I can feel a big difference in my movements already.

Yeah, I know, it’s unlikely that I actually have many results from a single week of focused training but my brain is convinced otherwise so I am just rolling with it. 

In fact, my brain is so convinced that it isn’t fighting me on finding time to exercise every day. Instead, it has let me just get started* when I reach ‘exercise time’ each day. This is virtually unprecedented. 

And I think this shift comes down to two things:

  1. A meditation on Insight Timer called Train Like An Athlete**  in which Amanda Sellers said (among lots of other helpful things), “You don’t need motivation, you need a decision.” 

I swear when I heard that, I actually said ‘Oh!’ out loud.

I don’t know why that really hit home at that moment – I know perfectly well that I don’t need motivation but perhaps subconsciously I didn’t believe it until just then. 

Right after I listened to the meditation, I got out of my chair and did some stretches, squats, and standing twists just to keep myself in the right frame of mind. 

And later that day, when I was mowing the lawn, I reframed that chore as exercise and decided to make sure to push myself a bit harder throughout the process.  My ADHD brain loved the feeling of that decision and it loved the fact that I was accomplishing two things at once. 

The good feeling of DECIDING to move my body more effectively lasted through the rest of the yard work the next day and brought me right up to Monday morning when I realized that I could build on the momentum of the last two days by choosing a new exercise program and starting it RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. 

And that’s when the Hybrid Calisthenics app kind of floated into my mind. 

  1. The Hybrid Calisthenics program app is VERY straightforward and VERY clear.

I have sort of tried the program as outlined on the website before but I didn’t get very far with it because, as I now realize, I don’t do very well with just a list of exercises.

When I just have a list, I always either push myself too far and overdo it early in the process or I don’t push myself enough and I get bored with it. 

So, while I love Hampton’s friendly and encouraging style on the Hybrid Calisthenics YouTube Channel   I had kind of filed his program away for later.  You know, the perfectly logical process of putting a program that will help you slowly build your fitness on hold until you feel fitter. (Note: please read that sentence in a dry sarcastic tone. Include an eyeroll if you can.)

But once I took a look at the app, his routine felt a lot more possible so I once again took Amanda’s advice and made two decisions 1) to give the routine a try and 2) to follow the routine as it was laid out – no second guessing, no figuring things out, just following the instructions in the app.

Before I knew it, I was doing two sets of 30 wall pushups and two sets of leg extensions, recording my progress on the app, and feeling a real sense of accomplishment. 

It must have been the perfect combination and level of exercises for me because while my muscles were a bit tired the next day, they weren’t discouragingly sore and I could do the next part of the routine without strain or stress. 

And now it’s a week later and I could increase my wall pushups by a few reps this morning. 

All because I heard that line “You don’t need motivation, you need a decision.” and made a decision at just the right time. 

Now I just have to keep deciding to show up for myself. 

Go me!

*Task initiation is notoriously hard for the ADHD brain in general and my ADHD brain in particular. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=adhd+trouble+getting+started

**The full meditation isn’t available without a membership but here’s a sample – https://insig.ht/a0IpEg5jK4b)

fitness

A  new close to me rail trail!

Sam BLeave a comment

“The 51-kilometre former Orangeville-Brampton Railway is being transformed into a multi-use active transportation trail spanning Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon, and Orangeville. Acquired by local municipalities in 2022, the route will connect the region and create a north-south link for the Trans Canada Trail.”

See Ontario cities transforming abandoned railway corridor into recreational trail

I’m hoping we can add it to this list: Southwestern Ontario Biking Trails We Recommend!

Bike trail

What I thought my body was for
fitness · Guest Post · martial arts

What I thought my body was for

cnsfitzgeraldcd30e267f8Leave a comment

By Chloë FitzGerald

Sport was not my category. I filed myself under something else early on — books, ideas, arguments, the life of the mind — and closed the door on the rest without many qualms.

My parents had been sporty in their youth but didn’t particularly push me in that direction. The biggest influence on me was my grandmother (Nana). She taught English literature, loved Henry James, and instilled in me a passion for fiction and is who I credit with my choice to study philosophy and specialise in ethics. She was brought up Quaker — the British kind — and had long since stopped believing in God, but she believed firmly in seeing the good in people. Despite loving watching all sport on the telly, she also had no interest whatsoever in physical activity herself for its own sake. She would only consent to walks with a clear destination — preferably a pub — and plenty of conversation along the way. Even the word ‘body’ made her shudder.

Nobody in my family saw sport as particularly important. There was an unspoken hierarchy: physical activity was fine as a hobby, but the mind was what mattered. Academic success, being clever and well-read was the real currency.

I was actually a fast sprinter, and I loved swimming. But I couldn’t catch a ball reliably, and at secondary school my tennis game suddenly plummeted (probably because I needed glasses) and I simply gave up. I only enjoyed things I was good at. If I couldn’t excel, I wasn’t interested in trying.

So I chatted through PE lessons, got shouted at by teachers, and felt collectively humiliated alongside most of my classmates when we were bussed to a state school to play field hockey in the cold and mud in our terrible PE kits. When sport was no longer compulsory, I stopped doing it.

In my twenties, I took up half-hearted running to keep in shape — thirty minutes maximum. I swam when I could because I loved the feel of my body in the water, but I still lived principally in my head.

In my thirties, pregnancy made it impossible to keep ignoring my body entirely. I realised I was a mammal in a way only breastfeeding can teach you. And I took up yoga, which was the first physical practice that made me connect my mind and body. Having moved to rural Catalonia, I also started running for pleasure in our beautiful surroundings, and running for longer than half an hour because I wanted to.

Then, just after turning forty, almost by accident — watching my son do judo one afternoon and feeling something I can only describe as envy — I started jiu-jitsu.

I was terrible at it. I’m still not good in any conventional sense. I feel slow, awkward, and uncoordinated in ways that have nothing to do with catching a ball and everything to do with a body that spent four decades being treated primarily as a vehicle for a brain. There was also something about being brought up to be a ‘nice girl’ (hello again, Nana!): I had no siblings, had never experienced rough-housing, and rolling around on the floor trying to get someone in a submission hold – particularly a massive man – was new territory in more ways than one. There were sessions where I drove home feeling defeated not just physically but psychologically. My teacher recognised from the beginning that my mind was my biggest enemy and he still says to me ‘Don’t think! Just do!’

But something else happened. I discovered I build muscle quickly. I found that I liked feeling strong — something distinct from feeling thin or healthy or any of the other things women are mostly encouraged to aspire to. My body, which I had spent four decades ignoring and underestimating, turned out to have things to offer that I had never bothered to look for.

Nobody told me this was possible. Or if the capacity was always there, it had been buried under forty years of a story that turned out to be old data. Collected young, never updated, mistaken for fact.

The stories we tell about what we’re not tend to start early and stick, because we stop questioning them. A verdict reached in childhood, on thin evidence, shaped by forces we couldn’t see at the time, starts to feel like a fixed feature of the self.

I work in implicit bias research, which makes it particularly uncomfortable to admit how long I carried an unchecked assumption about my own physical capabilities without noticing it was an assumption at all. The hardest biases to spot are the ones we hold about ourselves. They don’t feel like biases. They feel like self-knowledge.

I’m still not good with a ball. But I’m more careful now about what I let that mean, and about which doors I decide to close without enough evidence.

And I love that my four-year-old daughter wants to be strong when she grows up, does judo, and regularly asks if she can feel my biceps.

Black and white photograph of two women in jiu-jitsu gis sitting on a training mat facing each other. The woman in the white GI is laughing, her hair loose and dishevelled. The other, in a dark GI, has her back to the camera. Photo credit: Arte Suave Photo / Miriam Gironés.
Black and white photograph of two women training jiu-jitsu. The woman in the white GI stands upright controlling her training partner, who is on the mat with one leg raised. Taken in a training space with a wooden board wall behind them. Photo credit: Arte Suave Photo / Miriam Gironés.
Black and white photograph taken during a jiu-jitsu training session. A woman in a white GI is grappling on the mat, laughing openly, her curly hair loose around her face. She is in a dominant position over a training partner in a dark GI. Other practitioners are visible in the background. Photo credit: Arte Suave Photo / Miriam Gironés.


Chloë FitzGerald is an academic turned coach and facilitator. She helps people and organizations navigate uncertainty — whether it’s a career transition, cultural adaptation, or learning to work sustainably with new technologies like AI.

https://www.chloefitzgerald.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/chloë-fitzgerald-phd

Photos: Miriam Gironès

fitness · habits

The bloggers and our best habits

Sam BLeave a comment

What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?

Martha

Planning our meals for the week: before the pandemic, we had a vague idea of what we would eat but once we were limited to a shop once a week, we planned everything. We saved money, had fun trying new recipes, and most importantly reduced our collective stress as a family. We did order in on occasion to give everyone a break. Not having to think every day what would be for dinner was a game changer. We also got better at balancing options, and having more variety. It’s a habit we’ve kept ever since.

Nat

Practicing sleep hygiene. Having a steady wind down routine that is simply charging my phone away from my bed.
I then go brush my teeth and put my night guard in.
I hope into bed and slap my CPAP on. I usually fall asleep within a couple minutes.
I don’t use my bed for anything other than sleep and sex.
I have a do not disturb mode on my phone at night. All of this has helped me sleep better and feel more focused and calm in my waking day.

Elan

I have next to no regular habits, which means I cannot compare their relative value to my life. But once a year, on New Years Day, I write in a journal. It used to be annual goals but now it’s just lists of memories and things I am grateful for. I limit myself to one page per entry per year. I cannot say how it has improved my life: perhaps that it is a living record I look forward to adding to each year is enough.

Diane

When my kid started his food snob stage as a teen, I promised him I would make a new dish from an actual recipe once a week. He moved out for university in 2012 but I kept it up. I have discovered so many interesting recipes: historical, vintage and modern, and gotten really good at using everything in my CSA basket. I think my meals are healthier (certainly higher in fibre), and there is almost no food waste.

The image is a Russian mushroom and potato soup with carrots, leeks and lots of dill.

Soup

Tracy

Daily meditation every morning before I interact with the world.

Nicole

My decades-long morning exercise practice. Whether it’s a run, going to the gym or a walk, it’s my most precious time of day.

Sam

Sleep! It’s boring but true that everything is better when you’re well rested.  I’ve been an early to bed,  early to rise person since I had babies and small children in my life.  There’s a lot of hard things in my life and a lot of joy and fun too and I feel like sleep helps make it all better.

A person in silhouette in a marsh area at sunset. BY Antoine Gatien for Unsplash. Catherine’s plans for July and August involve both sitting and pedaling
cycling · fitness · meditation · vacation

Catherine’s plans for July and August involve both sitting and pedaling

catherine wLeave a comment

It’s almost mid-July, but there’s plenty of summer left (I keep telling myself). And in fact, my two biggest getaway plans are ahead of me.

This week I’m going to Boone, North Carolina for a 4-day meditation retreat with my favorite meditation teacher Jeff Warren. It will be held at the Art of Living retreat center, which I’m looking forward to exploring. But I’ll be sitting a lot, which is kind of the point of being there.

I’m really looking forward to a dedicated time and space for stillness and quiet, and also walking and experiencing the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I doubt we'll be meditating here, but I'm hoping for coffee or ice tea on this terrace. Picture from the retreat center website.
I doubt we’ll be meditating here, but I’m hoping for coffee or ice tea on this terrace. Picture from the retreat center website.

Naturally, I’ll report next Sunday on how things went.

In early-mid August, I’ve planned another getaway– this one to Quebec with my friend Felicity for cycling Le Petit Train du Nord cycling route. We are driving up together with our bikes and parking at the southern terminus of the trail, where bus service takes us and bikes and luggage to the northern terminus. We’ll ride at a leisurely pace down the 234-km trail, staying three nights and ending our trip with an overnight celebration in Montreal. I’m so looking forward to this trip! It’s easy cycling along with opportunities for swimming, strolling around little towns, experiencing nature, and breaking out my creaky French. In case you weren’t already envious, here’s a little Youtube video to help you along.

This trip will be more active and interactive and engaged, which is also just what the doctor ordered.

Dear readers, what getaways or dedicated staycations do you have planned for the rest of the summer? I’m always looking for ideas and inspiration.