July 2 is halfway day, the day the year is halfway over. It’s time to check in here at the Fit is a Feminist Issue Blog. What’s working for you? How is your Word Of The Year (WOTY) serving you?

Natalie

My WOTY is “create” and in things outside of my fitness it has served me well.

I have a beautiful little studio space for my arts & crafts. I write there. I love it.

I’ve not been great at creating space for consistent workouts.

I’ve been cycling more recently and am now looking for more opportunities for utility cycling with my commuter bike Myrna.

Michel and I make regular use of our basement gym. Our dumbbells, yoga mats and Peloton live there. We are aiming for 2-3 times a week for strength training.

Even after a few short weeks I’ve noticed a difference in what weight feels good for each exercise.

I feel like halfway through the year I’m finally finding my stride!

Nicole

As is typical, I had to look mine up:

My word for 2026 is Selfish. Selfish for peace. Selfish for fun. Selfish for vitality. Selfish for laughs. Selfish for fitness. Selfish for creativity. Selfish for ease. Selfish for inspiration. I tried to think of a more admirable word, but that’s what I’m thinking. Selfish.

Hmm — I don’t think I’ve been selfish enough. I am selfish for fitness. Sometimes, I wonder, am I selfish because I rarely let anything interfere with my morning workout routine? What?! Nah.

I don’t think I am selfish enough in my quest for inspiration. I am not selfish enough in my wish for peace. I have work to do for the remainder of the year on these things.

Diane

My word is acceptance in the context of learning to be satisfied that I can’t do all the things, but also that I will never stop trying.

How’s it going? About as well as you might expect from such a mixed set of goals. I still over-commit almost every day, but have learned that sometimes it’s okay to choose not to try and finish all the things. I’m writing this as I recover from spending the morning picking berries followed by an afternoon of digging test pits at a possible archaeological site, on the hottest day of the year so far. But I am going to leave the gardening until tomorrow and go to bed early, so that’s something, right?

(Image is of Milo the cat, who is annoyingly active but is learning to chill as he matures.

Catherine

I had to look up my 2026 WOTY, which may partly answer how (not) influential it’s been– oops. It was Stand and Deliver, meaning time to step up for what I think it right and important. I have done that in work and organization contexts this year. Now I’m doing it in my family, as my mother is needing more care in managing her life. My sister and I are working together and tag-teaming it. Man, it’s scary. But, when taking on a new regimen it takes a while to get into shape for the work it requires. I’m trying to be patient withe myself and my sister as we move into this new phase of caregiving. Speaking of caregiving, I decided to revisit and reenter the 226 workouts in 202 FB groups (I’m in two of them). I just ignored/avoided dealing with being anything other than haphazard about physical activity for months. But now, at the end of June, I’ve signed back on, adjusting for 113 workouts in the second half of 2026. Do I want to do it? Yes I do! Can I do it? Yes I can!

Sam

My word of the year is Expand, and I’ve been having fun with it, expanding into skating and swimming, for example. See Expanding Horizons: My Journey with the Word ‘Expand’

At the year’s halfway mark, I’m also walking more, having fun with TikTok’s viral daily movements, and I met my 226 workout in 2026 very early.

I’m back riding my bike and had a fun, successful Tour de Guelph. I’m looking forward to more charity bike rides in August and September.

Christine

The first half of this year has been kind of tricky. I feel like I have done a lot of taking one step forward and two steps back.

But the beauty of committing to process and practice this year is that I can (and do) see that forward/backward thing as part and parcel of developing better processes. So that has been a lot easier on my brain..

I can’t say that I have had a lot of tangible improvement (whatever that means) but I do feel good about the general direction I am taking.

Next up, I think I need to find some stuff to measure (or at least compare) so my progress will be clearer.

As for my practices, they are going pretty strong – erratic but strong – and my intangibly improved processes are helping.

How about you blog readers? What’s your word of the year and how is 2026 treating you so far?

I love the Emera Oval in Halifax. And a good part of what I love about it is that it’s accessible. It’s free.

And since then, I’ve had my eye out for other activity spaces like the oval.

Here are two in Toronto!

See Everyone is obsessed with Toronto’s most unique basketball hoops. It’s Orange Functional, a basketball-hoop sculpture by Cuban-born artist Alexandre Arrechea, installed at Biidaasige Park in Toronto as part of the new Lassonde Art Trail.

“Orange Functional by Cuban-born artist Alexandre Arrechea examines the politics of public gathering spaces through multiple sets of basketball hoops that double as a sculpture, turning the beloved sport into an interactive art experience. The installation is part of the new Lassonde Art Trail in Toronto’s Biidaasige Park, which is pronounced “bee-daw-si-geh” and means “sunlight shining toward us” in Anishinaabemowin. The park is located near Cherry Street on the island of Ookwemin Minising, which translates to “place of the black cherry trees.”

View this post on Instagram

And then there’s the Play on the Runway event which returns for its fifth year on July 11 and 12, from noon to 5 p.m. each day, and it’s free, though advance registration is required. This year’s theme is “Festival of Wind,” with giant kites, live DJs, food trucks and plenty of open tarmac to roam. It’s held at the YZD Runway at 10 Hanover Rd. in North York.

It’s exactly the kind of thing it sounds like: a play-your-way car-free zone where you bring your own wheels — bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, scooters, unicycles, strollers, whatever — and have the open runway to yourself. There are also rentals on site and you can try out the newest electric scooters and bikes, rent roller skates, or learn to skateboard.

The official registration is on Eventbrite (free, but advance registration is required): https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/play-on-the-runway-tickets-1987643436023

View this post on Instagram

If you go to either, please let us know how it went. Also, other suggestions of public play spaces welcome!

How many posts? A busy summer start — more than 40 posts across the month, even with so many of us travelling.

Who blogged? Sam, Catherine, Christine, Nat, Diane, Nicole, Elan, Mina, Tracy, Martha, and Cate

---

Doing what the algorithm tells us. Sam spent two weeks letting her social feeds run the show. Doing What TikTok Tells Me: A Two-Week Experiment set up the premise — the 9 morning movements, the 30-30-30, the after-dinner walk — followed by a day-three check-in and then The Algorithm Now Wants Me to Do 16 Morning Movements, as the feed kept escalating, before she tallied the verdict in Two Weeks In on Following TikTok’s Advice. Diane joined the trend-watching with Sardinemaxxing, a gleeful dive into vintage sardine-stuffed-lemon territory and the whole “-maxxing” craze.

Milestones, and what progress really means. Mina marked turning 60 with Flying & Falling into a New Decade — a fall on a birthday run, a wrenched shoulder three days before the Rockies, and a hard-won sense of arrival. Elan’s What Progress Means As We Age reframed a rained-out Guelph-to-Goderich attempt (now affectionately the “G2B”) as success measured by joy rather than finish lines. Nat tested the viral get-up-from-a-chair-hands-free benchmark and tied it back to real-world independence.

Grief, and where love goes. Two of our bloggers wrote through loss this month. Nat’s Nat Finds Comfort in Nature, written around her grandmother Joyce’s graveside service, gave us the line that stayed with many readers: grief is love with no place to go. Nicole’s It’s Just a Feeling. Don’t Take the Shortcut marked a year since her mother’s death, weaving running mantras through grief, vertigo, and gratitude.

Recovery and listening to the body. Diane’s cardiac-rehab arc continued in Listening to My Body — the “bad patient” cheerfully swapping prescribed walks for ballet, swimming, and short rides. Nat returned to the weights in Nat Is Back at Strength Training (heavy metal as working-class opera). And Catherine made the feminist case for in-person care in Virtual Physical Therapy: Not an Oxymoron Anymore, sceptical of apps that quietly replace qualified hands.

Free, open places to move. A small but lovely thread this month. Sam’s Going in Circles (On Purpose) at the Emera Oval celebrated Halifax’s free, all-ages skate-and-bike loop — no membership, no fancy gear, just showing up. Elan’s Celebrating a Birthday, a Community, and a Good Cause with Studio Cycling turned a Lost Cycle birthday ride into a pride-themed mental-health fundraiser.

Feminism, sport, and bodies in the news. Catherine took on the chorus of unsolicited opinions in Serena Williams Is on a GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drug and the NYT Commenters Have Comments — her message to them: mind your own business. Diane’s A Tale of Two Parents-to-Be contrasted the cruel reaction to a World Cup footballer leaving for his child’s birth with the warmth around a pregnant PWHL captain. And Sam celebrated Toronto Tempo and Queer Joy ahead of her first WNBA game.

The research thread. Catherine’s Research Roundup: Moving Makes Us Happy and Longer-Lived. Still. Yay! gathered new studies showing physical activity beats age as a longevity predictor — and that even small, light movement feeds a virtuous mood-and-energy cycle.

Summer plans and travel. We kicked the season off with What We’re Up to When the Sun’s Out, the bloggers’ plans and projects. Catherine logged her family beach vacation and the cross-training of family visits. Christine modelled self-care on the road in Christine Hopes to Follow Her Own Advice and its mostly-worked follow-up. And Nat began her four-weeks-out ramp-up for the MS Bike Tour, while Sam and her small-but-mighty Tour de Guelph crew hit their $1,000 goal for Guelph General Hospital on a hilly 50 km ride. Cate added a summer reading list — raving about Heidi Reimer’s novel What We Found Instead and sharing the audiobook stack she’s loading up for a solo cycling trip through northern France and Belgium at the end of August.

Counting, rest, and showing up. Sam hit her 200th workout of the 226-in-2026 challenge, started micro-walking under her desk (right on theme for her word of the year, Expand), and made the case for Some Days Need a Nap. Catherine closed the month with What’s Wrong with Showing Up Late to the (Workout) Party? Nothing, Really — on restarting, and the streak that matters being the streak of one. And Christine sent us into July with Go Team 2026: Keep Showing Up, a gold-star note celebrating every kind of showing up — the days you challenge yourself and the days you’re just treading water, both worth a pat on the back.

A note on climate and cycling. Sam’s It Feels Strange and Awful, But It’s Where We Are sat with ultra-cyclist Lael Wilcox’s heat-driven withdrawal from her round-the-world record, and the unsettling new reality of planning summer rides around the heat. We also marked World Bicycle Day with a romp through the archives.

---

Month-in-review posts are assembled by Claude with prompts from Sam and edited by Sam. If you spot any errors, let us know.