Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Apps like Workout Locker and SweatPass and Fit Locker force you to complete physical exercises like pushups before unlocking social media apps like Instagram.
I haven’t tried them but I’m curious.
Have you?
See I Have to Do Five Squats Before I Open Social Media
The Canada women’s national rugby union team plays world-champion England today at BMO Field in Toronto as part of The Rugby Rematch Tour, and Sarah and I have tickets! Woohoo! See Canadian women’s rugby aims to deal England its 1st loss in 41 matches during upcoming double-header.
A few years ago, I blogged about the controversy over the proposed smaller ball in women’s rugby and tonight, the women will use the smaller ball. The game is Canada vs. England but the real experiment might be the ball size.
World Rugby introduced a trial using a size 4.5 rugby ball (about 3% smaller than a standard size 5, but weighing the same) across the women’s Sevens circuit and the 2026 WXV Global Series—featuring high-profile matchups between England’s Red Roses and Canada.
Against, read Smaller balls for women’s rugby ‘worst decision ever’.
You can read my older post to see why I’m not convinced.
Until this year, I had never registered for an organized running race. They had seemed intimidating. But my partner signed up for an early fall 10K, so spontaneously I joined for the 5K as well.
My training schedule was inconsistent: I only made it out to the track a few weekends. But my plan, as a friend had described to me, was to complete, not compete. I focused on my playlist and my breathing and the sunshine.
On race day, everything was ready to go when we got there. There was water, snacks, and later fresh fruit and pizza. There was music, announcements, warm up stretches, a land acknowledgement, and the National Anthem performed by a live choir. The running path was clearly marked, with signs that read things like, Runners are sexy – Meet you at my pace, and a big inflatable start and finish line. There was a photography station and water stations and cheering sections, teenagers in orange shirts who clapped along the way.
It was corporate. Sponsors were thanked before each group left. Dominoes pizza flags flew. Someone was walking around in the Wendy’s girl costume. There were brand shoes and shirts and socks for sale. I got some free promotional lip balm, but I passed on a free promotional plastic thing that takes hair out of your drain.
It was also community. I saw families and prams on the route. I saw high school track teams lacing up together. I saw a group of laughing women wearing the same blue shirt that read Kinda Fit and Kinda Fat. I saw one athlete with running blades surrounded by her people. And I saw supporters with coffees and dogs and cardboard signs at the finish. At about 1000 people in attendance, it was big enough to feel like an event but not so big to feel crushed by a crowd.
Afterwards, the standings were easy to find at an online website: at just under 36 minutes I placed about in the middle of the 5K group (and my age group). I ran the whole way and didn’t fall, so that was a win for me.
My impressions
Acknowledging the race was also as a fundraiser, as a regular hobby registration fees would likely be a financial barrier for some. Although it seemed an easy day, I have no comparative experience: the route may have had less grade, the weather nicer, and the crowd much smaller than at typical races. Also, I had novice-level goals: I am not sure how the race day was for those running the half marathon.
But after the race, with my gratis water bottle in one hand and a pre-chopped half banana in the other and a giant Also Participated medal around my neck, I thought about how much planned encouragement there was. How much positive support, and how little negative pressure, I felt as a result of it as a first-timer.
If you’ve hesitated to sign up for your first 5K race, it may be less intimidating and more approachable than you might think.
When I was in my 40s, I spent a lot of time training for long rides, short intense rides, hilly rides, and yes, bike racing. Mountain bike racing was the most fun, and I also did some crits, some cyclocross races and a few road races (my least favorite).
For a while, I had a cycling coach, the marvelous and wise Steve Weller. He was in his 20s then, racing and also beginning coaching. He saw and appreciated my strengths (cornering, bike handling, general enthusiasm) and helped me improve on my weaknesses (sticking to a training regimen, developing high-end power and hill-climbing coping strategies).
I’m still on Steve’s email list. He sends out weekly posts about training, mental states and attitude, seasonal shift advice, etc. Last week’s post was about research on intense workouts featuring 30-second all-out intervals with 15 second breathers.
And then there was this one small mention of the grey zone. What’s that? Here’s what Steve wrote:
The grey zone is the intensity band between genuinely easy and genuinely hard. It’s not Zone 2. It’s not a threshold interval. It’s the moderately hard effort that feels productive — the group ride that’s too spicy on the hills, that solo endurance ride where you keep the power “comfortably uncomfortable” for two hours.
Those rides take some effort, they feel like a workout, and they’re definitely not easy.
But physiologically, this approach is a dead end. You ride too hard to truly build an aerobic base, but not hard enough to create a meaningful high-end stimulus. You accumulate fatigue without triggering the adaptations that will actually make you faster.
Yep, I can speak for myself that I’ve spent way too many minutes on the bike going harder than I might like, but not in a focused or intentional way with a particular goal in mind (other than to get this ride over with or keep up with folks who are faster or peppier than I am). All cycling coaches and all cycling training advice tells us that the grey zone is where motivation goes to die. We don’t get the benefits of focused threshold or top-end-power training, and we don’t get the advantages of long slow distance. We just get tired and then frustrated when we don’t see results.
Oh my god, I can so relate to this now, even though I’m not doing bike training.
Reading Steve’s posts, it was clear to that this is a thing I do in life as well. When I’m feeling behind or pressed by tasks and obligations piling up, I’ll often speed up a little, trying to catch up, but without a real plan or purpose or specific and reachable end point. Instead, it’s all about Go faster! Try to catch up! When will this be over? When can I take a break?
We all know that frantic flailing rarely works in any context, but it is an easy go-to move. Maybe there are other options.
Can I push myself to go hard for a short period of time, a particular goal in mind (e.g. finish that abstract, grade that set of exams, write that report draft, do that group family call)? Can I schedule in rest or relaxation or recreation for some amount of time (e.g. crafting, reading, watching a movie, calling a friend, taking a nice walk, swimming with my favorite toddler)? I’m thinking that yes, I can do that. I can do that more often.
The grey zone sounds scary, but really it’s just a place where we can’t see our way clear to resting or focusing. Let’s clear things up and see how that makes us feel. Thanks, Steve, for reminding me how to train for life as well as cycling!
This blog supports all kinds of bodies finding joy doing fitness activities. I like to think I do too. But recently I have realized that being truly welcoming to everyone is harder than I thought.
I take a jazz class every week. It’s a small group, and none of us are particularly good. This year there only four of us. Two have some sort of intellectual disability (they both compete in the Special Olympics and I recognize one from the Dragonfly program that the dance school runs for people with Down Syndrome).
This slows down the class as it takes longer for our teacher to explain the steps. I can feel myself getting impatient. The fact that I’m only doing the class for fun makes no difference to my competitive perfectionist self.
I’m working to shift my perspective. I love this class and my teacher. I’ll never feel the pure unadulterated joy of my two classmates because I’m just too self-conscious and worried about getting everything right.
But I can try. And I can practice being a little more patient while I’m at it.
I saw a reel recently where a cyclist asked her followers a simple question: do you always wave to other cyclists? She called the wave a small act of good vibes. Her view is that waving adds up to a better cycling community for everyone.
There’s different ways of waving, of course. There are different levels of comfort with taking one’s hand off the bars. Some of us just lift two fingers off the handlebar. Some people just nod. And then there’s the full on very enthusiastic wave below.
There is some hierarchy in the world of waves. Mostly it breaks down along predictable lines. Some riders in full kit on expensive bikes don’t wave at people on rental bikes or everyday bike commuters.
It’s a credential check. Are you a real cyclist or merely someone riding a bike?
I wave at everybody on a bike out on the open ride. It’s a bit weird in the city where there are so many people on two wheels.
And I think waving matters. There’s lots of social science behind why it matters so much explained in the Instagram reel linked below.
Sociologists call this kind of contact a “weak tie”: not your close friends, not your family, but the loose, low-stakes connections with people you’ll likely never speak to again. A wave between strangers on bikes is about as minimal as a weak tie gets, and it still counts.
There wave sends a message: I see you. You’re one of us out here.
So my advice? Wave. Wave at the kid on the BMX. Wave at the person on a wobbly rental bike. It costs you nothing, and for someone, it might be the whole reason the ride felt okay.
H/t to the Instagram reel that got me thinking about this and for the explanation of the work done by waves.
Why? Because that’s where the adventure lives. I love this message, and it’s a great fit for my word of the year EXPAND.
What are you going to try this year?
I’m thinking maybe curling.
There’s learn to curl here in Guelph.
See also Queer curling league Out on the Ice expands to Guelph.
Curious about why people love curling? Check out this guest post by Karen Houle.
Today (Tuesday, October 13) is Train Your Brain Day so I thought I would find a few fun ways for us to celebrate.
Don’t worry if you struggle with these activities or videos though because October 13 is also the International Day For Failure – a day to celebrate the important role that failure plays in the learning process.
So, even if you make a total mess of the brain training, you can console yourself with the fact that you ARE learning and that you are celebrating both Train Your Brain Day and International Day For Failure at the same time.
That would be pretty impressive, don’t you think? There’s really no downside to giving this whole thing a try!
So, let’s get started with the whole Brain Training/Day for Failure cycle then, shall we?
I’m giving you a big list of links and a bunch of videos but I don’t want you to break your brain.
Just pick one or two things to try, pretty please. No need to overwhelm ourselves!
13 Brain Games for Adults to Help Keep You Mentally Sharp (from HealthLine)
6 Powerful Brain Exercises to Help Sharpen Your Mind (from Prenuvo)
22 Brain Exercises to Improve Memory, Cognition, and Creativity (from Medical News Today)
Why Dancing Could Be the Ultimate Brain Workout (from BBC)
Since these specific activities get mentioned a lot when you search from Brain Training, I thought I’d link you directly to crossword puzzles, logic puzzles, Word of the Day, Sodoku, thinking creatively, mystery games,
And, finally, here is just a sample of all the fun videos I found about training your brain.
Blogger buddy Diane shared this NBC News article on our blogger group page, “The secret to a good night’s rest? Let sleeping dogs next to you” The article discusses a University of Toronto study that found that dogs do not interrupt human’s sleeping patterns. In fact, the human is more likely to disrupt the dog’s sleep than the other way around. Also, “we feel safer with our dogs, hinting at “a deeper evolutionary history” between humans and dogs, said study co-author Ming Fei Li, who was a graduate student of evolutionary anthropology during the research.”
This doesn’t surprise me. I commented that, “My dogs used to sleep with us. Unfortunately, with my senior dog, he can’t sleep in our bed anymore..I miss it so much.”
When I first adopted Barley, our shih tzu, I was single, had never had a pet, brought him into my bed the first night I brought him home and woke up to him licking my face. The thought of him not sleeping in my bed, never occurred to me. I hadn’t heard about crating them or that letting them sleep in your bed might cause control issues and I’m so glad that I didn’t know about the “rules”. Besides waking me up with kisses, Barley used to nestle behind my legs while I slept. Sometimes, it felt as though he was trying to get as close as possible, or closer than possible, and, it was a sure-fire way to ensure he was firmly nestled in my heart.
When Gavin (husband) came along several months later with two dogs – Miggy (Miigwetch) and Callie, Miggy hopped into bed with us. Callie, who was a bit bigger, would plant her face on the bed and insinuate she wanted to come up. Gavin has suggested I wouldn’t let her up, but I don’t think that’s true.
There were the logistics of having two dogs in the queen size bed at my place. Gavin had a king size bed at his apartment, at the time, and that certainly made it more comfortable with the dogs. That depends on what is meant by more comfortable. Sure, there was more space for two humans and two dogs. However, having the two dogs cuddled in the middle of us, was quite comfortable for me, even in the queen size bed, thank you!
Gavin used to joke about it (the dogs in the bed) being too much but I don’t think he ever really minded. Callie left us in that first year together (about 11 years ago). Barley left us about a year and a half ago. Miggy (mini schnauzer) is still with us (poo poo poo) but with age and the loss of many of his senses, fear of him falling off the bed or tumbling down the stairs, plus his incontinence which requires doggy diapers, has relegated him to his doggy bed downstairs. He is no longer in our bed. Have I mentioned I miss it?
I can see why the University of Toronto study found that humans can feel safer with their dogs in their bed. If a snuggly, warm, little, love bug, that doesn’t ask for anything in return other than your body heat, doesn’t make you feel safer, calmer, more relaxed, then what does?!
Does your dog (or cat) sleep with you? Do you think it affects your sleep in a positive way? I hear some cats get a lot of their steps in at night. Sometimes “over” their humans. Is that right, Cate?
To be clear, I love my job. I still find lots of what I do for work energizing and important. And I plan to work for quite a few more years yet.
But as friends start to retire– here’s looking at you Nat, Tracy, and Diane– I’m a little jealous of the freedom and flexibility that comes with not working.
It strikes me especially in the fall when we have glorious days but the evenings get dark so early. Wouldn’t it be nice to go for more weekday rides?
I suspect the challenge will be, when I get there, finding other people to ride with. I’m not a big fan of riding alone. I envy Nat who is both retired and who prefers solo riding.
Are you a cyclist retired from paid work? How did you find people to ride with? Is it really as good riding on weekdays as I imagine?
