fitness

Fresh air and fresh thoughts about fall riding

Even before our changing climate made summer riding intolerable and sometimes just plain dangerous, I’ve been a fan of riding bikes in the fall. Yes, I struggle with the lack of daylight in the evenings, but I love the fall colours, the fresh feel in the air, and the cooler temperatures.

If you’ve been thinking about buying a bike or starting a regular bike commute, do it now. Don’t wait until spring. Fall is better.

It used to be that my preference for fall riding was primarily a comfort preference. Nobody wants to ride up hills in 35-degree heat with bonus humidity if they don’t have to. But that’s not what summer riding looks like anymore. It’s not just hot. Now, at least here in Ontario, we have heat warnings that stretch on for days, air quality alerts that turn a ride into a genuine respiratory risk, and those strange orange-grey scary skies that mean somewhere, hundreds of kilometres away, forests are burning. I used to plan summer rides around traffic and daylight. Now I plan them around smoke alerts and the air quality index, the way I’d check for rain.

Fall gives us that freedom back, at least for a while. The air clears and the heat breaks. It’s not just that fall is pleasant, it’s that fall is safe for riding distances in a way summer increasingly isn’t. That’s a genuinely new reason to love this season, and not one I would have thought about five or ten years ago when summers were more livable.

So here’s what I think, whether you’re four years into commuting or you haven’t bought a bike yet- don’t let the bad summer air or the very hot days talk you out of riding this autumn. You don’t need to put off your riding resolutions until spring. Fall is short but it’s a great time to ride. We’ve got clear air, rideable temps, and good light in the mornings before the time change. It’s time to get the lights and go now, while the getting’s good, instead of waiting for a spring that leads into another steamy summer we’ll need fall to recover from.

fitness · food · nature · season transitions · vacation

Late summer’s local pleasures: the produce edition

A friend of mine just got back from a vacation on Long Island with his family and in-laws. He writes for a weekly newsletter, and shared this about his investigations at local farm stands:

At my favorite stand they sell “sugar plums,” a small, sweet fruit I haven’t seen anywhere else. Each one’s about the size of a fig. They’re more pit than fruit, but absolutely full of juice. When they’re ripe, the skin will peel off in your fingers. You can eat three or four of them in a row, ideally standing over the kitchen sink. (You’ll need a mop to clean up if you eat them anywhere else.)

I wasn’t familiar with sugar plums, and you might not be, either. Check them out.

Last summer I spent a week or so in Ontario, visiting Goderich, where my friend Norah had rented a cottage on Lake Huron, and then Guelph to visit Samantha, Sarah and the whole crowd there. At Guelph I learned about musk melons, which were in peak season exactly when I was there.

Musk melon was a new term for me. Turns out it’s what Canadians call cantaloupe. The term also refers to a family of melons that includes honeydews and persian melons. We bought what looked and tasted almost like cantaloupe, and I made melon agua fresca with mint for everyone. Yum.

I have not had very satisfying melon experiences in New England. Nor peach encounters, either. Luckily, there are options, all of which involve going right to the source.

I traveled to South Carolina about two weeks ago and, on my way to my mother’s house from the airport in Charlotte, stopped at McLeod Farms in McBee (pronounced MAC-Bee). They have many varieties of perfect peaches (forget Georgia– SC has the best peaches, says the great-granddaughter of a SC peach farmer). But there are hidden treasures to be found in their supply of the fresh and limited supplies of hyper-local produce. That included large, perfect, not-expensive cantaloupes.

I squeezed and sniffed candidates until I found one that suited me. It rode the rest of the way to my aunt’s house, sitting on her counter for a couple of days until it achieved cantaloupe perfection. I then cut it in long, thin wedges to serve to happy family members.

Some add salt, which they say enhances the flavor, but I prefer to take my cantaloupe straight up, no salt.

At my McLeod’s stop, I also bought muscadine and scuppernong grapes. They have tough outer skins, and very sweet green flesh, with seeds. They make you work for it. But the work pays off in a combo of sweet, juicy, and bitter that brings me back to my childhood.

My great aunt Mae used to make a scuppernong cordial that was (once I was old enough to taste it) absolutely vile. But the grapes themselves (grown in an arbor outside her kitchen) were delicious. 

Boiled peanuts were a staple of my childhood in SC, and they don’t travel well, either practically or gustatorally– I’ve brought them back to Boston a few times and people were notably underwhelmed. Hmphf. Their loss.

I bought green peanuts (different from raw peanuts) fro McLeod’s and boiled them for 75 minutes in an InstaPot with a lot of salt and a little Cajun spice (I recommend the Slap Yo Mama brand). They are basically Southern edamame, great warm and perfectly good cold as well. The best way to eat them is in the backyard, throwing the shells into the bushes. We forbore, though, and disposed of them more responsibly. 

Fresh green peanuts and freshly boiled peanuts have a very minimal shelf life. They should be cooked right away, and then eaten right away. I always comply.

Now that I’m back in New England for the time being (school starts in two weeks), I’ll be keeping an eye out for concord grapes– the locally grown ones with seeds and tart outer skins. They are available generally late August to early October, depending on the weather that year.

I couldn't find a picture of a disembodied hand holding New England concrod grapes, but I think this will do.
I couldn’t find a picture of a disembodied hand holding New England concord grapes, but I think this will do.

Pretty much all of hyper-local and hyper-seasonal produce is like this– available for short period of time and good for eating NOW, not later. This means we have to stop what we were doing and turn to the preparation and subsequent massive enjoyment of these tasty treats of nature. And can you think of a better pastime for mid-late August? I can’t.

Dear readers, what are some of your late summer produce delights? Or other seasonal pleasures? I’d love to know and file away the info for when I’m at the proper time and place to enjoy them with you.

Happy late summer!

cycling · goals · Sat with Nat

Nat’s reasons for riding

My post last week about how my 100 km ride did not go as planned generated a lot of discussion across my social media platforms. The conversation is ongoing!

I have marvelous friends who are supportive, encouraging and unapologetic when calling me out on being mean to myself. I’m very lucky.

There were several gems I have mined from those discussions. Today I am looking at a question my gym buddy Rob asked me.

Why did I want to ride 100 km?

The first answer that came to mind was that I wanted to test if I was ready to ride longer than 100 km.

I’m very comfortable completing the MS Bike Tour. The two days of 80 km supported every 20 km felt great. It’s a different challenge to ride continuously in 50 km blocks. I underestimated that gap and was disappointed.

The myth of linear progress

I wanted to complete a 100 km ride as part of a story of physical fitness that showed progress.

When my results were similar to the ones I had 12 years ago it felt like a set-back.

In chatting with my friends in Randonneurs Ontario they shared stories of struggling to have consistent times on a given distance.

We spoke about routes, conditions, health, training, age and injuries.

There are a lot of variables that affect how long it takes to complete a route. Only some of those are under my direct control.

Is that the real reason?

Rob invited me to push against the first answers to validate if that is really why I wanted to ride 100 km.

Hope

What I wanted out of the ride was some evidence that my longest distances are ahead of me.

Ten years ago I completed the People with AIDS Bike Tour from Toronto to Montreal. It was 600 km over 6 days. The longest distance on a given day was around 135 km.

2016 Me, in Montréal, embracing a volunteer at the finish line.

Between then and now I quit cycling in 2020 (during the pandemic) then re-started in 2023.

I’ve been inconsistent. Without a capstone event after the MS Bike Tour my distance peters off each year. I have not used the indoor trainer in the winter.

New goals

What I really want out of cycling is more adventures with Michel. We are getting ready to try some rail trails this fall. I got a trailer to bring our dog Lucy along.

Active living

My big picture goal is an active life that supports my physical and mental wellbeing. I really enjoy shorter jaunts and I want to extend that to longer rides.

Consistent Riding

There is no secret to going longer, faster and happier on a bike. It’s time in the saddle on a consistent basis.

Training for the PWA ride had specific milestones to meet in order to be allowed to ride. There were distances to hit, an average speed above 20 km/hr and a deadline for back to back 100 km days.

Unstructured fun

In the shoulder season my focus will be fucking around and finding out. I will try some wider tires and some rail trails. I will get on my bike 2-3 times a week in addition to my utility cycling.

Folks jumping with joy by the waterside.

Thank you

I wanted to wrap this up with a giant thank you to my friends and family. I never imagined my writing about being disappointed with my 100 km would illicit a tsunami of responses. Texts from Nova Scotia and British Columbia and every province in between!

Messages from folks showing they had read every word and could relate. Thank you for reading my posts and connecting over our shared experiences of try to keep these bodies doing all the things.

A coffee with ‘thank you’ dusted on the creamy froth in cinnamon.

The Future

I’m still thinking about my mid and long term cycling goals. I’ll be sure to let you know once I settle on them.

Whatever the future holds, I suspect it will include my dog!
aging · cycling · fitness · Guest Post

50 States! (Guest Post)

by Winnie

I got my first road bike when I was 51. It felt so great that I signed up for an AIDS ride from San Francisco to Los  Angeles that was to take place a year later. I trained hard and made it to LA, and as I held my bike overhead in celebration, I was thinking, “Well, I’ll never do that again!”


Got that wrong.


First I found myself doing another AIDS ride, this one 100 miles per day for 5 days. Yikes! Then a couple more. And some organized centuries.


Next major surprise: I decided I wanted to ride across the USA, and hoped my husband would join me. (He didn’t really want to all that much, but he agreed, so I let him choose the route. Fair trade, right?) We rode the Adventure Cycling route called Northern Tier, which is the longest of the organization’s cross country options. Anacortes, Washington to Boston. I only skipped a few spots, including the one where there was a hurricane looming off of Vermont, where we were headed. Yes, that was the one that actually caused some serious flooding right where we might have been. I rode 4200 miles in three months. This was in 2011, the year we turned 60.


By then I had figured out that I really did like touring, and fairly long distances, and I started thinking of places I might like to see by bike. We went to Europe and did some famous climbs, and some leisurely rides. We saw parts of northern Italy, Slovenia, France, England, and a bit of Spain . We were with friends in the French Pyrenees; we rode to lunch in Spain. Australia. New Zealand. And there was an infamous Costa Rica ride. I LOVE Costa Rica, but it’s not a cycling paradise if you’re not a fearless mountain biker. And Nova Scotia & St. Johns/Labrador (Newfoundland). Prince Edward Island. British Columbia. Even a very brief ride as part of our Galapagos tour, so Ecuador, I guess. And one bit at a time, I began to ride in various US states.


A few years back I realized it wouldn’t be that hard to ride in all 50 so I started keeping track. Hawaii is easy for me; we have relatives there and visit fairly frequently. Haleakala from the beach to the top – 36 miles, 10,000 feet, is not so simple, but I have done it a couple of times. We made a trip to Chicago & rode in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky. I rode the Southern Tier, and spent my 70th birthday in Suwannee state park in Florida. I was mostly on my own, and when Bruce joined me & we drove home together to  California, we stopped in Arkansas and Oklahoma & rode some miles.

Last fall I acknowledged that I had not treated Iowa very well. I had only ridden across a pedestrian bridge to Iowa when I was doing some work in Omaha (Nebraska), and gone around a few blocks. So last fall we took a train to Omaha and focused most of our riding on Iowa, then went on to Des Moines & rode some more. And all the other states – we generally had a relative, or a park we dreamed of visiting, or some attraction, so they happened.


But Alaska…


I don’t love cold. My daughter-in-law’s 50th birthday approached. She planned to celebrate by taking a cruise through the Inland Passage. I figured I could rent a bike at some of the stops & get Alaska done. In the summer of 2020. That was not meant to be.
It kept nagging at me, though, and we decided this summer was the time to do it. I did some research and found AlaskaBike. It’s a father & son bicycle touring outfit that takes you to places most tours don’t go, so you get a good look at the back country of the state. It has an amazing amount of back country. We learned that the population of Anchorage, the largest city, is about 300,000. The population of the entire state is about 700,000, less than San Francisco. And the size. Alaskans like to say that if you put Texas inside its borders, then another Texas, you’d still have room for another half-Texas. So we went. A few of my cycling friends joined us, and two other women, one of whom was actually riding in her 50th state, too.


Pictures speak louder than words. I don’t have any with bikes, but I really did ride about 125 miles of Alaskan roads!:


In the lobby of our first hotel. This enormous brown/grizzly bear was stuffed many years ago. Fortunately, we saw none of his descendants outdoors.
Canoe trip down the Maclaren River. Peaceful.
Spectacular views

Bio: I am a lifelong Californian. My mother and father were not born here but moved to the state as small children. I have two grown daughters and five wonderful grandchildren. I spent my working life working at, and eventually running, the family insurance business. My father had introduced many employee benefits – sabbatical starting in 1970, optional four-day work week in 1972, elimination of all official work time rules in 1974. Adults like to be treated as adults, and people tended to stay a long time, so it was a very pleasant working environment with key elements of trust and respect. I also served on a couple of independent school boards, one a strong academic school serving grades 6-12, one a school designed to start helping city kids who had suffered the ongoing effects of racism & poverty to find opportunities they might not as easily discover without support. I live at a Lifetime Care Community where I serve on the finance committee and chair the sustainability committee. I also plan to join the newly formed fitness committee. And for fun, I have ridden my bicycle across North America. Twice.

fitness

Menopause Ambassador?

Picture it. 50+something, medium-build, short stature, blond highlighted curly hair that “may” be self-trimmed, growing bunions, feet comfortably plodding along in the latest UGG sandal/slipper hybrid, estradiol patch peaking out of her Knix brand running/bike shorts. She is half-smiling. Perhaps, she was beaming a moment ago, after a brief moment of joy, because she had witnessed a kind interaction between strangers on the sidewalk. Her mind harkened back to familiar such exchanges from the 90s, when pedestrians weren’t walking while texting their adult children/doctor/elderly parent who lost their hearing aids. It’s possible the moment of joy had to do with noticing the picturesque sky on her walk home from work or being happy she made it home without feeling like she had to stop somewhere to pee.

The brief tinge of joy is interrupted by a reminder by her right hip that she needs to do those static stretches this evening while watching TV with her husband. She was reminded by her fitness coach the day before that, in addition to the active pre-running stretches, it’d be best to also add in static stretches in the evening. The coach also suggested toe spacers to where around the house for those bunions. This was before she PR’d her dead lift and felt momentarily indestructible.

After feeling indestructible, she went to the office, where she was reminded, what indestructibleness looks like in one’s late 20s and early 30s. She wondered where those young professionals, with impressive resumes, would take their skills next, when they deemed it a good time to move on. She wondered if there were any places left to take her skills and “use her full potential”. She also wondered when she would next be able to lie on a grassy field and stare at the blue sky for an indeterminant amount of time.

She wondered again, as she had dozens of times this month, whether she should rip the estradiol patch off and forget the whole HRT business. She is never quite sure it’s making much of a difference. She’s still cranky as shit, sometimes, depending on what day the patch was stuck on her butt. She feels bloated 3 or 4 days a week, for no apparent reason, probably from the progesterone to offset the estradiol, but also, maybe just because she’s in menopause. If she goes off HRT, but keeps the vagifem, because the benefits of the vagifem seem to make more sense than anything else, will she get the head spins back? The vertigo that makes her wobble when walking or running and which may or may not have anything to do with menopause. Will her moods get better or worse? Should she take an SSRI? Should she re-think her understanding that alternative methods are not adequately studied and can carry significant risk, because, what IF those alternative methods would make her feel better and put her mind at ease about cancer risks, but really, we are all at risk of cancer if we live long enough anyway.

What if she’s actually doing just fine? What if she spent more time looking for quiet spaces to think (about love, creativity, agency, new ways to use her brain, new ways to make a living, her growing belief that the mechanism of boycotting small businesses about larger issues is classist and not effective for the intended purpose) – maybe there would be no need for patches or alternative supplements? She reminds herself of all the people who inspire her and which inspiration has nothing to do with their appearance and wonders how they managed this stage of life (if they’ve reached it yet or ever did).

In the meantime, she’ll keep being grateful for experiencing all these changes. She’ll seesaw between being happy with her changing face and wondering if she can get a facial that will freshen her eye area so she doesn’t look tired but that doesn’t look like she’s had work that just needs to be done over and over and over again. She’ll continue to find lots of moments of joy with her husband, with her family and friends and when she gets those endorphin rushes from exercise.

Catherine wrote about The “Menopause Gold Rush”: a boom for telehealth, still largely a bust for the rest of us today and this inspired me to put some of these thoughts down.

What do you think? Should I be a Menopause Brand Ambassador?

fitness

Swimming for Cancer

A few weeks ago, Sam posted about her cycling challenge to raise funds to fight childhood cancer.

My challenge is a little different. The goal is to swim 10 km in August to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Why? Over the years, my dad had prostate cancer, then melanoma, and eventually died from colorectal cancer. My sister has had thyroid cancer. My grandpa died of lung cancer and my grandma of breast cancer. My best friend from university died of ovarian cancer.

Far too many other friends have been diagnosed with various forms of cancer. Some have survived. I would like fewer friends to have it in the first place, and all of them to survive.

I’m swimming whenever I get the chance: at my pool between shifts, at my cottage, at a small private lake where I have been invited as a guest. If the weather holds today, I’ll be doing short swims in all four of the open water river spots maintained by the NCC in Ottawa.

My Strava map from a swim at my friend’s lake; me at the pool where I work after a quick swim; my friend Florence and I midway through exploring the little lake at my cottage.

I still have 4 km to swim. There is still time to sponsor me and help the Cancer Society achieve its $400,000 goal (it’s currently at $309,000). You can do so here. Thanks!

aging · fitness · health · menopause · pseudoscience · research · Science

The “Menopause Gold Rush”: a boom for telehealth, still largely a bust for the rest of us

NOTE: a number of the articles cited have paywalls, so I linked them to open archive.is sites. You can click and get there from here…

For decades (well, centuries, really), menopause was not considered a topic for discussion, much less an issue to be addressed medically for half the world’s population that goes through it. Menopause brings with it a lot of physical and emotional changes and health risks that have not been acknowledged, understood or treated. Women have had to suffer with little or no support. No news there.

Fast-forward (very fast–past the development, backlash, misinformation and correction periods for the use of hormone replacement therapy — HRT; read more about it here and here) to now: 2026.

Menopause and perimenopause are now the hot topics for social media influencers, podcasters, writers, and telehealth companies. You can look here for a list of the top 70 (Why 70? no idea) “menopause influencers of 2026”. Tressie McMillan Cottom, social scientist and NY Times critic wrote here last month “Ladies, we’re entering our Crone era. It’s about time.”

In that same publication, Melinda French Gates noted:

Our society’s approach to menopause and perimenopause reflects the deep flaws of a health system that has long treated women as an afterthought. Consider the staggering fact that, according to one survey, less than a third of American OB-GYN residency programs offer a menopause curriculum of any kind.

We need a menopause revolution in this country. Better training is an obvious place to start. By including menopause care in both foundational and continuing education for health care practitioners, we can equip more of them to support their patients. Medical schools and residencies need to embed menopause care in their curriculums, and accreditation bodies and licensing boards need to make it a required part of training — not just for OB-GYNs, but for anyone who treats women in midlife.

And Cottom readily concurs, pointing out the intersectional health disparities experienced by non-white women:

Unfortunately, those greater expectations [of increased research and clinical care] have not necessarily resulted in a consistent, effective women’s health care system. Most women experiencing menopausal symptoms still do not receive any medical treatment for them. As is often true, that bad news is even worse for Hispanic and Black women. Despite entering menopause earlier and having more health-related consequences (like fibroids), Black and Hispanic women are least likely to have medical support for menopausal symptoms.

So, isn’t it a good thing that the podcasters and the social influencers are spreading the word? Isn’t it a win for healthcare equity and access that telehealth companies are offering a variety of new treatments and approaches to managing the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause?

Well, it’s complicated.

No, with research and training and actual interest in women's health and well-being, it needn't be so complicated. By Jon T for Unsplash.
But with research and training and actual interest in women’s health and well-being, it needn’t be so complicated. By Jon T for Unsplash.

In a JAMA Women’s Health article from last month (newsflash: JAMA started a Women’s Health journal. In September 2025. Uh, better late than never?) Kate Schweitzer writes that the “explosion of products and providers following decades of neglect represents a long-overdue investment—a gold rush fueled by growing awareness and demand for better care.” But, she warns that it has”created a rocky menopause landscape akin to the lawlessness of the Wild West, in which bold claims often reach patients before clinical evidence does.”

I couldn’t agree more. We are being pummeled with ads for products that promise no more hot flashes, less fatigue and brain fog, easier and better sex, and (Content Warning here) even no weight gain (as if that’s the worst thing that can happen to a 40- or 50-something year-old woman).

Using another favorite Wild West theme, Stephanie Faubion, MD, MBA, medical director of the Menopause Society and director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health, cautions us:

“The pipeline has expanded significantly, and that’s a good thing,” Faubion said. “But you have to consider when it’s not actually creating value for these women.…You’ve got a lot of people out there selling snake oil, too.”

I’m happy to report that snake oil was outlawed after the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (thanks, Wikipedia, for the info!), but for reasons way above my pay grade, not in my area of expertise and utterly beyond my ken, current US telehealth companies are not regulated such that we can trust that the products they market are 1) tested; 2) effective, or 3) safe.

Hence the Wild Wild West talk.

If you’re interested in a deeper dive into current and emerging interventions for menopause, read the JAMA article; it’s got evidence-based information on what we do and do not know about them.

Here’s my bullet-list takeaway:

  • In addition to the much-tested HRT, there are compounded hormones, testosterone therapy, and loads of untested supplements on the market.
  • Influencers are out there extolling the virtues of every potion you can imagine, backed by slim to no evidence.
  • Telehealth is offering to fill the gaps created by lack of access to primary care, offering similar potions from non-medically-trained folks with little to no evidence basis.
  • Dr. Nanette Santoro, an investigator on many studies over decades with the Women’s Health Initiative, summed it up: “What this [boom in menopause treatment products] does is it tells people, ‘You can get ahead of this curve,’” she said. “But because we don’t have enough good evidence, it’s really saying that you are being part of an experiment.”

All I’m saying is, watch your back out there, okay, pardners?

With researchers and clinicians sidelined by lack of results, the gunslinging influencers and telehealth marketers are out there. Watch your backs.
With researchers and clinicians sidelined by lack of evidence, the influencer and telehealth gunslingers are everywhere. Watch your backs.
advice · fitness · Go Team · meditation · motivation · rest

Go Team 2026: A Gentle Reminder To Give Yourself What You Need (When You Can, Of Course)

Hey Team, 

Here’s the short version of this post: It’s ok to give yourself the movement, the peace of mind, and the rest that you need.

I know this is not the first time I have given you (or myself) this advice but since I always need reminders about this stuff then I assume you do, too.

So, to reiterate:

Whenever you can, please, please, please, give yourself the things you need. 

If you need rest, then please get some rest

And please do that in a way that lets you meet your needs the best way you can in your current situation.

Resting doesn’t have to mean taking a nap (but a nap is great if you are able to take one!) It can mean resting in small increments, taking some deep breaths, pausing between tasks, choosing to limit the scope of some tasks, doing some yoga or stretching, or picking a restorative activity.

If your thoughts are feeling tangled and you need to meditate or journal then please meditate or journal. 

And please do those things in the way that meets your needs. 

Journaling doesn’t have to be pen on paper, it can be typing on a screen or drawing on an envelope or using voice to text or creating a collage or anything else that makes your thoughts more tangible and organizable for you. 

Meditation doesn’t have to mean sitting still (but that type of mindfulness is totally cool.) It can mean colouring, or doing walking meditation, or drawing a series of small lines, or doing a task with great care. It’s more about the nature of your attention than the specific activities involved.

If you need to get moving, then please get moving.

And please do that in the way that meets your needs.

If you need intense exercise, then push yourself hard in whichever ways are available to you right now. 

If you need slow movement, then take your time. 

If you need to lift heavy, lift heavy. If you need to lift light, lift light. 

And please don’t feel like you need to limit yourself to doing some sort of established routine. It’s totally ok to put on some music and flail around like a fish that got washed up on the beach. It’s totally ok to head to the playground and swing on the swings. It’s totally ok to do squats while you watch TV.  And it’s totally ok to stretch while you talk to a friend. 

As long as your movement meets your needs, then forge ahead.

If you need something, then please do what you can to meet that need. 

Even if you feel you *shouldn’t* (I still hate that word!) need it.

In fact, ESPECIALLY if you feel you shouldn’t need it. 

Your needs matter. 

You matter. 

And if you need some sort of permission before meeting those needs – in whatever way you are able to meet them at the moment – then consider that permission granted. 

I may not be the boss of you but I am perfectly willing to boss you into being kind to yourself. 

(Yes, I *am* the oldest sister, how did you guess?)

So, Team, please, please, please take good care of yourselves out there. 

And here is your gold star for your efforts to meet your needs – whatever they happen to look like right now. 

Go Team Us!

a small drawing of a gold star with a happy face on it
This little gold star cheered me right up. If you have a minute, draw yourself a gold star – you won’t regret it!

Image description: a drawing of a cartoonish gold star with a happy face on it. The drawing is on a piece of white index card and the background behind the star includes a bunch of small marks (some dots and some are a little more like lines) and five short lines that are near each point on the star like it is either glistening or in motion. The piece of index card is propped up between the keys on my computer keyboard which is black with white letters.

fitness

Art and Health Together Again

I’m a feminist scholar, a fitness blogger, and a dean of a college of arts. So naturally, I end up thinking about the ways in which art and health fit together.

See Is looking at art really the new running?

I’ve also love the idea of yoga in art musems, like yoga in the Louvre.

But this is definitely a first!

Lifting sculptures! Count me in.

fitness

The art of falling

In the past month  two women in my family have fallen.  They didn’t hurt themselves seriously,  nothing broken,  but we’ve all been thinking a lot more about falling and how to fall well since those falls happened.

I’ve also been missing Aikido and the falling on mats, that’s part of martial arts training. It’s one of the things I love about Aikido.  When I was training regularly I thought it would be fun to offer seniors classes in Aikido that were focused on the falling part.

Lately classes on falling for seniors have been showing up in my social media newsfeeds and I want to share them here with you.

Here’s two examples:

I’m not sure about my future and falling on mats, but I still wish there were an Aikido for seniors class.