Month: June 2013

family · fitness

What are your plans for the longest day of play?

Sam B7 Comments

I love this new government campaign to get people outside and active on the longest day of the year. All that light equals more time to play.  I was chatting with philosophers at the recent meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association about arguments for the view that adults need to play more and now this campaign comes along. I love it.

I’m going on a bike ride (of course)! My daughter and I are riding about 50 km to our church’s family camp. People have offered us drives and we’ve been busy explaining that we’re doing it for fun.

I also love that they used the word ‘play’ in this campaign rather than ‘exercise’ or ‘physical activity.’ I’ve wondered before if thinking of an activity in terms of ‘exercise’ makes us think more negatively about it. Read Is it time to ditch exercise? . I also love summer and daylight and I really struggle with getting outside enough in the winter months. Sometimes I feel like I want to avoid the indoors entirely during the summer season and soak up the rays while I can.

You can read more here about this day of celebration here and here.

Canadians from coast to coast are invited to participate in the “Longest Day of PLAY-CANADA”. This initiative (originated in Grey and Bruce counties, Ontario in 2010 -www.playbrucegrey.com) encourages all Canadians to be more physically active. Making a commitment to “get active” during the first day of summer and the longest day of the year increases personal awareness, community spirit and encourages all Canadians to consider being physically active all year round!

Participating is easy and it is fun! Every Canadian is encouraged to log as many PLAY hours as possible engaging in one or more activities during the first day of summer and the longest day of the year! Whether you log PLAY hours on your own, with a friend or colleague, in a group or create a community challenge – all physcial activity counts! How many hours can YOU log? Have fun and thanks for participating in “The Longest Day of PLAY-CANADA”!

The photos below are of my daughter (above) and me (below) on the Otago Rail trail last year. This longest day of play won’t be such a big adventure but I always love riding bikes with her!

cycling · inclusiveness · racing · triathalon

My Bike Ride with Sam

Tracy I4 Comments

cartoon-bicycle-6Awhile back, Sam posted about how she likes to ride her bike with all sorts of different people at different levels and for different reasons.  She said somewhere else (was it here? was it on Facebook? I can’t recall) that when she rides with someone less experienced (I read that as: slower) she adjusts her pace to suit them.

With this assurance in mind, I finally decided to go cycling with her.

If you’re new to the blog, let me just acquaint you with two pertinent facts. Sam is a serious cyclist.  She has posted plenty about cycling here and here and here and here and etc.  So that’s fact number one. Fact number two: I ride for leisure and just bought a new bike in the fall. My old bike was over 20 years old and I hadn’t ridden it in about 5 years.

So: Sam, cyclist. Tracy, not so much.  But there is a third pertinent fact: we have both signed up to do a triathlon in July. And of course, one third of a triathlon is on the bike.

I realized that the bike portion of the triathlon would be my biggest challenge last week when I rode on the bike path to work.  I felt like I was riding along at a fairly nice pace. It felt like work. And yet quite a few people pedaled past me, moving so quickly and pedaling in such a manner that I honestly felt as if it would be physically impossible for me to do the same.

And these weren’t people decked out in cycling clothing and riding fancy lightweight road bikes. No, nothing like that. The folks who passed me on the path were commuters on regular bikes with paniers and fenders, some of the riders had backpacks on their backs.  And they sped past me like lightning.

I’m not sure what I’ve been thinking re. the bike portion of the triathlon. I think the fact that this part of the race hasn’t been something that I even thought to train for is testament to the extent to which I regard it as a leisure activity and nothing else.  I’ve been training for the swim and the race for a long time, but it only just occurred to me as I watched those people streak by me on the path last week that I had better do something more in the cycling department.

So today I met up with Sam and off we went.  She promised that she would bring her slow bike (!) and would wear her “regular clothes.”  We took to the path, heading out to the south west of town and back, about 15 km.  She gave me a few tips, like not to brake on the down hills, and to find a pace that I could maintain consistently without wearing myself out.

We went “fast” twice, on flat straightaways. There were a few hills and she made sure that I could shift going uphill (I can, but that’s more because of my fancy click-shifter than because of any skill I’ve learned).

We also established that I’ve got some reasonably good safety skills from my years of owning and riding a motorcycle.  I’m good at having a sense of what’s happening around me and checking over my shoulder. I can lean into turns comfortably. That sort of thing. I rather missed having a throttle though. Sam urges against coasting, which I understand but it’s hard work.

She also helped me feel better about using my bike for the triathlon. It’s really just a sporty commuter bike (I love it!).  Unless I plan to train on a faster higher performance bike, there is no benefit to trying to use one on race-day.  Why? Because the bike might be able to go faster with the right rider, but if I don’t know how to ride it that way then I won’t be able to get those benefits. I compared it to snowboarding — moving to a racing board doesn’t turn you into a racer!

I’m sure today really just qualifies as a fun ride, but it made me comfortable with the distance that we’ll be doing in our try-a-tri in July.

There were some cyclists who passed us (most of them in riding gear, so I didn’t feel so bad, though there was one couple in street clothes who sped past us with the useless warning “watch out!”  I prefer “passing on your left” because it’s much less alarming and gives you a clear sense of what’s about to happen). But we also passed a few people, which always amazes me.

Sam’s extra work leading up to next month will be in the pool. Mine will be on the bike path.  She also suggested practicing riding for a while, then ditching the bike and immediately starting to run (as we’ll have to do on race day).  Apparently it feels odd and your legs don’t exactly love you for it.  So I’m going to add that to my list of things to do before the triathlon.

Meanwhile, I really enjoyed getting out on the bike, but it certainly wasn’t the “suffer” approach that I’ve heard Sam talk so much about.  It was sort of challenging–my legs are tired and I worked up a sweat–but mostly fun.

Thanks for the company and the tips, Sam. I’d love to do it again sometime.

athletes · men · stereotypes

Dangerous sports and assumptions about gender and risk

Sam B15 Comments

I have a teenage son who loves team sports. You’ve read about him in an earlier post about sedentary athletes. He hasn’t met a team sport he doesn’t like. He also likes tackling so his fave sports are football and rugby. He loves basketball too but it’s the other two I get the most grief about from friends, relatives,  and other parents.

They’re dangerous sports. I’ve read lots about the risks. My partner and I exchange journal articles on the subjects of concussion and the long term impact of head injuries. You might think we’re making a bad call letting him play. But it’s an informed bad call at least.

For me, I compare it to what his friends who don’t play sports are up to, computer gaming and television mostly. I think about the risks of not getting enough physical activity. I know there are other sports but he won’t play them. I know some kids prefer music and theatre. I have some of those kind too. But that’s not him.

In fact, I’m thinking about dangerous sports and risk while drafting this post at a coffee shop near the try outs for the Ontario rugby team on which he hopes to play. I even called up one of my favorite philosophy papers on this subject to remind myself of the “pro-risk taking” arguments. If you’re interested in the value of dangerous sports for children, read “Children and Dangerous Sport and Recreation” in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport Volume 34, Issue 2, 2007 by J.S. Russell.

It’s behind a journal pay wall so you won’t be able to read it unless you have access to a university library. (Insert rant about the need for open access publishing here.) But here’s a sample of Russell’s exploration of a view he dubs the “uncommon sense view.”

The uncommon sense view “asserts that at a certain point in child development physical risks should be tolerated, and children’s choices (and adults’ choices on their behalf) to engage them should frequently be respected, even if the risks of such activities are greater than necessary to promote the developmental goods sought by the common sense view—and thus represent unnecessary threats to the goods that the common sense view aims at securing. I call this “the uncommon sense view” because although I think it is pretty obviously correct, it would appear to take uncommon philosophical sense to recognize it, for the most prominent official and philosophical positions about obligations to raise and care for children oppose it in principle. The uncommon sense view, however, is reflected widely in our institutions and practices of children’s sport and recreation. Consider popular but risky young persons’ sports and recreations such as American football, rugby, horse jumping, gymnastics, cheerleading, freestyle skiing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, hockey, diving, motocross, and the like.”

When I heard Russell give an earlier version of this paper as talk at the International Philosophy of Sport meeting one of the things that struck people in addition to the arguments were the injury rates of  sports such as gymnastics, figure skating,  and cheerleading. Lots of head injuries, no helmets. It’s a familiar theme.

And then today while waiting for my son’s try outs to end, this news story came across my Facebook news feed, Doctors to vote on whether cheerleading is a sport.

You might wonder why the American Medical Association cares whether cheer leading is classified as a sport or just a physical activity. It’s a good question. And here’s the answer.

“Cheerleading has become a competitive activity in its own right, and there’s a considerable risk of serious injury, including concussion, spinal damage and broken bones. So it ought to get the same attention to health consequences as other sports, including the training of coaches to minimize injury risks for cheerleaders, proponents say. A 2011 report from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research found that “high school and college cheerleaders account for approximately two-thirds of the catastrophic injuries to female athletes.”

Yes, you read that right: High school and college cheerleaders account for approximately two-thirds of the catastrophic injuries to female athletes.

I don’t know if this is correct but I once heard someone claim that the head injury rates for figure skaters were worse than that of hockey players at the junior level. I can sort of see why they don’t compete wearing helmets, grace and beauty and all that. But why don’t they practice wearing helmets?

I think there are a whole host of gendered assumptions in our collective worries about danger in sports. Why are we so concerned about football players but not cheerleaders, hockey players but not figure skaters? I think part of the story is that the public face of one set of these activities is all beauty and coordination, grace and team work, while the others are more combative and injuries result from athletic competition and conflict that’s built into the game.

Head injuries in figure skating and cheer leading result from mistakes, from accidents and failed moves. In football, rugby, and hockey they happen as part of the game played well. But that doesn’t make the former injuries less real. It just means we tend not to think about them as they’re not part of the ideal of the sport.

And I’m not claiming that sports such as rugby, football, and hockey aren’t dangerous. I know they are. But I think we ought to worry too about some of the sports more traditionally associated with girls, though of course I know girls who play rugby and loads of boys who do gymnastics.

I especially worry that some of the beautiful sports such as cheer leading and figure skating don’t get protective gear because to do would a)remind those watching of the risk and danger involved and b)take away from the beauty of it all. I think not seeing the danger is connected to our view that these activities aren’t really sports at all.

I was persuaded of cheerleading’s athleticism watching Western’s Mustang Cheer Squad. They’re amazing. They’ve won the Canadian Championships 1985 through 2012. I’ve seen them often at Western football games (much prefer rugby, less downtime). There’s a lot of footage of them on YouTube. The one below is from the 2011 championships. Visible ab trigger warning!

I also love the segment Rick Mercer did with them a few years ago, in 2006. It’s very funny about Western, about cheer leading, and about Mercer’s potential to make a spot on the squad.

athletes · competition · Guest Post

Rousey and Carmouche in the UFC: Can we bring un-sexy back? (Guest post)

Audrey6 Comments

“Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else (and it hasn’t), it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports like hot oil wrestling, and foxy boxing, and such and such…” — Homer Simpson

Many many thanks to Sam and Tracy for giving me the chance to guest post on their blog, and to the always articulate Homer Simpson for starting me off talking about women and combat sports. When Sam asked me if I’d be interested in writing something, I’d just caught up on my fight-watching with UFC 157, the first time women had been the title match-up: Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche. Now, most of my familiarity with women’s combat sports has been as a competitor rather than a spectator: taekwondo as a kid, and then again in graduate school, and wrestling in high school. So I hadn’t really been following the competitors’ careers before that point, though I did know Rousey was a former Olympic medalist in judo. And to be honest, I wasn’t really sure how it would all play out for the TV audiences.  But what made me optimistic from the start was that their title fight would be run using the same rules as the mens’ fights, with 5 rounds of 5 minutes each (and let me assure you that this is a VERY long time to be fighting).

But let’s back up a minute, so I can tell you what made me apprehensive in the first place.

First of all, it’s the UFC, where there are very few women, except as ring girls. Those are the girls who walk around the ring in bikinis between rounds with a number card so you know what round number we’re on. And the title holder Rousey herself has a pretty sexy image. I just didn’t want this title match to be played as, well, foxy boxing. Most men in the UFC, with the notable exception of Georges St-Pierre, don’t have much of a sexy image. And most of us couldn’t care less.

Because let me tell you, images of hair-pulling and shredded clothing aside, fighting isn’t all that sexy. And that’s not me telling you that violence isn’t sexy, or anything of the kind. I’ve just fought enough matches (and seen photos of myself doing so) to come to the conclusion that you generally don’t look all that great when you fight. Your hair’s a mess, you’re covered in sweat (not all of which is your own), and you’re probably bruising up already. And if you’ve got a solid opponent, looking hot should be pretty low on your list of priorities.

Watching Rousey and Carmouche in the ring did not disappoint. It was a good fight with two obviously skilled competitors.  The referees and announcers took them seriously. There were obvious mentions of this being the first women’s title fight, but nobody I heard said they looked hot in the ring, nobody said they fought well – for girls, that is, and from what I could see, everyone gave them the respect they were due.

Carmouche and Rousey

So I’m hopeful. UFC is a sport that people watch. The exciting thing isn’t knowing who got submitted and how fast, but it’s seeing them do it.  Lots of people endorse seeing skilled women in the ring. I want that too. But I also want to see them looking sweaty, exhausted, and in pain, like real fighters do. It’s our right to look as bad as we want when we’re busy kicking butt. So come on, UFC. Let’s help bring un-sexy back to women’s sports. Please?

_____________________________________________

Audrey is a logician, feminist, martial artist, and rock climber (in no particular order) happily living on a large Canadian island with her boyfriend and their pack of wild dogs.

cycling

Six Things I Love about Cycling and Six Things I Wish Were Different

Sam B12 Comments

Or, really, honestly, this post could be titled “Six Hundred Things I Love about Cycling and Some Grumbles” but I’ve started a trend with “six things” posts about Aikido, Rowing, and CrossFit so I’m sticking with the formula.

What do I love?

1. Speed: I love going fast on my road bike. (Okay, I love going fast on any bike but it’s best on my road bike.) Speed feels good. I think that’s why I can push really very hard on the flats but much less hard on hills. I’ve compared heart rate, speed, and incline data lots wondering why I can’t work so  hard on hills. It’s not just that I’m physically unsuited for hills (I’m too big) I think it’s also that I’m psychologically not a climber. I like the quick rewards on the flats better. I’m not the Queen of Patience. Zoom!

This puzzles people who know me well, my love of speed on the bike and my willingness to work for it, because I’m not naturally a speed demon. I drive slowly for example and motorbikes have never tempted me. I have no good explanation for this but it’s fun so I enjoy it.

2. Different people can be good at different things: See above. I’m no climber. Hills hate me and I hate them back, especially long hills. Short steep hills I can power up and over but long climbs suck the life out of me. I know I’ll lose a race if it has hills. It’s that simple. I’ll be battling to finish. But what I love is that some of the people who beat me on hills, I can easily beat them in a crit race or a flat time trial. Even within  events we can be good at different aspects of that event. When I was racing crits with the Vikings cycling club in Canberra, I found there was a role I could play.

I like this passage from a race report on a crit race in Canberra: “Women’s C saw a few attacks come from Bike Culture girls Katie Conn and Amy Eichner, but the Vikings crew had everything covered, with domestique Sam Brennan saying “uh-a”. Megan Pitcher winning the sprint over fantastic debutante junior Alice Wallett, watch out for Alice in the last part of the season.”

I wasn’t our team’s best sprinter but I was pretty good at bridging the gap between packs, leading our faster riders up into the breakaway. In this style of racing it doesn’t matter so much where I personally finished in the race. What mattered was getting our faster riders up into the front pack so that someone from our team was in the final sprint.

3. Lots of sports within cycling: There are lots of different tribes within cycling and you can move from one to the other. Read the Bike Snob’s Guide to Cycling’s Tribes. I’ve competed in criterium races and road races and time trials. I’ve ridden on the track too and raced a bit there. I haven’t done much with the mountain bike I own but I’d like to ride in a cyclocross race sometime in the future. Moving from one sub speciality to another is also a great excuse to buy another bike. And cyclists always want more bikes. I’d love a funky pastel cruiser, a cargo bike, and a time trial or tri bike. See How many bikes is too many?

4. Commuting and everyday exercise: Bikes are versatile. They aren’t just for fitness or fun. The are also an environmentally friendly way to get about in the world. I also love the time on my bike between work and home. It’s a real de-stressor in a way that driving is not. It’s also green exercise and everyday exercise and I’m a big fan of both of those things.

5. Holidays with bikes: My favorite holidays have been on my bike. It’s just the right speed at which to see a new part of the world. There’s fitness arguments and training arguments sure, but really it’s just a very pleasant way to get around on holiday. You meet more people and see more of where you’re visiting. I’ve ridden all over the place: Amsterdam, New Zealand, Newfoundland, Arizona…read more about that here and here.

6. Coffee and friendship: I also love bike rides as a great way to spend time with friends. Ride into the countryside, drink coffee and eat brunch and ride home. Is there a better way to spend a Saturday?

What do I grumble about?

1. Attitude: There is a kind of smugness among cyclists that can be a bit wearing. On behalf of us all, I apologize. There’s also a tendency to make divisions and create hierarchies that serve no useful purpose other than creating in groups and out groups. See Road cyclists are to bike riding as analytic philosophers are to philosophy: Discuss

2. Hills: Sigh. It’s not them, it’s me.

3. Cars: Sigh. It’s not me, it’s them.

4. Male egos and cycling sexism: Pro cycling is horribly sexist and that attitude and culture can permeate all the way down to the club level. Read Bike races and podium girls: Time to kiss goodbye? to get a taste of this. I will say though that I’ve encountered very few men with bad attitudes to women riders. That’s partly self selection, I know. Feminist philosophers tend not to attract sexist riding companions. At the level of the local club I’ve met some incredibly supportive men who devote a lot of time, energy, and thought to creating an inclusive environment for cycling. (Hi Simon, Hi Mark) I hate seeing their hard work undone by social sexism and I’m sad to say that still exists.

5. In group spats and feuds: If I was going to be snarky on my list of things I don’t like, I’d add “triathletes” and all my roadie friends would chuckle knowingly. Triathletes have a bad rap among road cyclists for their bike handling and group riding skills.  (Don’t believe me? See Why Cyclists Hate Triathletes and watch Road Cyclist Meets Triathlete.) But, you know, bike handling and group riding, aren’t really elements of the triathlon. So there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why some triathletes aren’t good at these things. If this were the only instance of feuds between the tribes it wouldn’t be so bad but I’ve also heard mountain bikers mock male road cyclists for their shaved legs and fear of rocks on the road.

Here’s Eldon Nelson, the Fat Cyclist, explaining to mountain bikers who want to ride on the road sometimes what they need to know about the difference between the two activities:

“The terrain is different.When you are mountain biking, you naturally are inclined to look for interesting obstacles to ride over — roots, rocks, fallen logs are all part of the fun. On a road bike, on the other hand, anything but perfectly smooth pavement is a potentially life-threatening danger, and must be avoided at all costs. Further, if you are ahead of another cyclist, you must use elaborate hand gestures to indicate that there is — horrors! — a pebble 75 metres up the road.”

He’s actually a very funny guy. You should read the rest of Tips for Becoming a Roadie. I think it’s kind of hilarious.

So I get that it’s good natured banter, very funny ribbing of the other guys, and yet, it’s often tinged with something more. I like lots of different kinds of riding and I try to stay clear of this stuff. Except Eldon Nelson. I eat his stuff up.

6. Flat tires: I love bikes and mostly I love the gear. But having to inflate my road tires each time I ride is a pain and fixing flats is a bigger pain. I think all cyclists hate flats.

How about you? What do you love about cycling? What aspects of cycling aren’t your cup of tea?

accessibility · disability · inclusiveness

Fitness and Accessibility

Tracy I7 Comments

vanc010I went swimming at the Y the other day. The swimmer two lanes over from me has been lane swimming at the Y on a regular basis for years. She has no arms or legs and she is a strong swimmer who makes her way up and down the lane for a good, solid half hour or more several times a week.

The Y pool is always equipped with the machine that helps her in and out of the water. It does not need to be special ordered or brought out of storage when disabled people require assistance. In other words, the Y does not just accommodate, it does what it can to be accessible.

The difference between accommodation and accessibility is enormous. Accommodations are case by case and require those who need them to step forward, case by case as individuals, and make (what are regarded as) special requests.

An environment that accommodates disability is designed to be enjoyed first and foremost by non-disabled people. If my fellow swimmer needed to call ahead and arrange the means to get safely into the pool every time she wanted to go swimming, that would be an accommodation. Instead, the lift is always there. The pool is accessible.

Another example: when airlines provide wheelchairs or other types of mobility assistance for passengers who need assistance in airports, that is an accommodation. The people must make arrangements ahead of time and are dependent upon the airline staff to meet them and get them where they need to go. Moving sidewalks, which also provide important assistance for people who cannot walk the long distances airports often require, are examples of accessibility. No special request needed.

Accommodation is better than nothing, but it’s not ideal. What we ought to aim at and what many jurisdictions are starting to recognize, at least on a policy level, is a commitment to barrier free accessibility for all community members.

Aiming at equity with respect to accessibility recognizes that access requires a structural and systemic analysis. Feminists are aware of this type of analysis since they regard gender inequity as involving systemic, deeply entrenched relationships of unequal power. For example, when I was at the recent Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, a motion was gaining support for Congress to supply daycare for scholars who needed it. Having daycare facilities would make Congress accessible to those scholars, mostly (but not exclusively) women, who have young children.

Physical accessibility of our spaces is not simply about wheelchair access, but that’s a start. Moving sidewalks in airports are great examples of making the space manageable for people who might otherwise be unable, for whatever reason, to get cover the frequently long distances between parts of the airport.

When we look at our workout facilities, gyms and yoga studios, how accessible are they? It’s safe to say that in the majority of cases, they cater to non-disabled people. One of my yoga studios, for example, is on the second floor of a building where the only way up is by a long staircase. As a simple matter of fact, this poses an immediate barrier to anyone who might like to try yoga but who cannot easily manage that many stairs.

Is this a fault or a flaw? The point of this post is to make a first stab simply at drawing attention. Whether it’s a fault or a flaw, it’s most definitely a fact. If we value the kinds of lifestyles that encourage or at least enable people to be active if they choose to (and maybe this value is itself worth examining), then it’s worth thinking about how the facilities and institutions that are designed for this purpose might exclude people with disabilities.

Mobility issues are not the only barriers to access. Our world default setting assumes that people are sighted and able to hear, that they understand English, even that they are a certain height that enables them to reach elevator buttons, taps, and so forth.

And access is not only about physical access. Another thing I like about the Y is that they recognize financial need and make memberships available at a reduced cost to people who are unemployed or underemployed. They have access to the same benefits as any other regular membership. In this sense, the Y does far better than many other clubs. Indeed, in some places, exclusion is a positive value, re-packaged as “exclusive.”

I owe thanks to philosopher, Shelley Tremain, for prompting me to pay more attention to disability and ableism in general and my blogging about fitness in particular. Her expertise and willingness to engage in discussion has influenced my thinking on these matters a lot. The editor’s introduction that she wrote for a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly on the theme of feminist disability theory was especially helpful in showing me that a structural analysis of disability is required for an adequate understanding of it and of ableism.

For some more of my recent reflections on disability and fitness (early days, pretty rudimentary reflections), check out:

Fitness, inclusion, and Intersectionality

As Summer Approaches, Tracy Takes Stock

[photo: stairs at the Robson Square Courthouse, Vancouver, BC; from pinterest]

aging · body image · fitness · health · motivation · running · yoga

As Summer Approaches, Tracy Takes Stock

Tracy I6 Comments

Summer on a beachWe started the blog with a bold public commitment: to be the fittest we have ever been by the time we are 50 (that’s 14-15 months from now).

We’re not even a year into it, and my outlook, goals, and thoughts about this project have changed in some significant ways.

First, a bit about goals:

When we started, I wanted to: keep on weight training, stick with my steady yoga practice, and continue my transition from walking to running. I started (and have since dropped) tai chi, and included swimming only among my summer activities. Biking was (and remains) a leisure activity, but that’s a bit stressful for me right now because of an upcoming triathlon.

I also had an explicit goal of reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass, as measured by the bod pod.

I’ve had a troubled relationship with goals because, while for some people they are motivating, for me they can be demoralizing because of a hard-to-shake association with dieting and “goal weights” and because I have fought down a long-held tendency to set unreasonable and oppressive goals that I then fail to meet.

But my view of goals has shifted somewhat, both in terms of my willingness to set them and my ability to keep them reasonable. So, as summer approaches, I have been thinking about my goals in relation to our “fittest-by-fifty” project.

Sam and I have both written about long-view goals and short term goals (as well as challenges). Long view goals are the big ones.

I have whittled my fittest-by-fifty down to one long-view goal: I want to run a half marathon before my fiftieth birthday. And I mean RUN it, not walk-run it. I am training for endurance in my running, and I feel as if it would be a real achievement for me, a real improvement in my physical condition from what it is now (and certainly from what it was when I was just starting to walk-run), to be able to complete a half-marathon without taking walk breaks. In fact, if I can do that it will be the most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life. That, it seems to me, is an appropriate measure (along at least one plausible dimension), of my fittest-by-fifty challenge.

In order to get there I have a number of shorter term running goals, as follows:

  • Get to 30 minutes of continuous running as my minimum regular training, 3-4 times per week
  • Add some hill work and intervals to my regular routine, at least once a week, to increase my speed
  • Complete a timed 10K race by my 49th birthday
  • Be willing to re-think the half-marathon goal to a marathon IF that seems realistic, based on what the state of my running is by spring 2014. If it turns out that I can do a half in the spring, then it might make sense to train for a marathon in the fall of 2014.

So there you have it: I want to run at least a half marathon.

Other than that, my commitments are mostly to continue with consistent and regular practice:

  • Yoga 3-4 times per week
  • Swimming 3 times per week
  • Weight training 3 times per week

I don’t have specific goals that I am aiming at within those categories at the moment. It’s more about staying with these things that give me joy and make my body feel energized.

This minimalism with respect to my current goals could change. Sam has talked me into trying out Crossfit, probably in the fall. We’ll see where that leads.

Other things of note:

1. Yoga Sadana, June 22-28. I will be blogging about this more that week. This is one of my favourite things to do. Each summer, there is a seven day sadana at the Iyengar yoga studio I practice at. It’s seven days in a row of class from 6-7:30 a.m. Each day builds on the one before, and it has a kind of “pyramid” intensity to it. That is, intensity peaks on about days 3-5, with wind-up and easing in on days 1-2, and winding it down on days 6-7. It generates a real sense of community as well as a wonderful daily commitment. I always feel as if the world looks crisper and clearer that week.

2. Kincardine Women’s Triathlon, July 13, with Sam, her daughter Mallory, and my friend Tara. This is a try-a-tri, so I feel not quite as intimidated as I might otherwise feel about it. I’ve been training well for the swim, and can do the required distance in the pool in about 10 minutes at a pace that leaves me with steam for more. I’m not sure how much the lake conditions will affect my time and they may mean I need to use a bit more juice, but I am well-prepared for the swim and routinely swim significantly further, several times a week.

I just acquired a wet suit today and will be practicing with it, in the lake, on the weekend. I’m most concerned about the bike leg of the race, having no sense of strategy and no experience with anything other than leisure riding. At least I will not be tempted to “draft,” which is apparently against triathlon rules.

A friend who just did a triathlon and has been involved in a training group is going to meet with me soon to review some tips for making the most of transitions between the different parts of the triathlon. She also has some equipment suggestions.

And finally:

Blogging about fitness has raised all sorts of questions for me about what fitness actually is. At first, the challenge was to figure out what appropriate measurable markers we could use to determine whether we had, in fact, reached our goal. We bandied about all sorts of possibilities:

  • personal best times in running, swimming, and/or cycling
  • personal best distances in running, swimming, and/or cycling
  • stuff having to do with heart rate (talk to Sam — my goals are not likely to involve anything along these lines)
  • lifting heavy weights, heavier than ever before
  • being able to do more reps of something challenging, e.g. kettle bell swings or burpees (see the burpee challenge, which gets increasingly brutal by the day)
  • some yoga-related achievements, such as mastering poses that I haven’t been able to do adeptly in the past or maintaining good form in my headstand for longer than I have in the past
  • for Sam, advancing in Aikido
  • goals having to do with body composition (lean mass to fat ratio)
  • learning a new thing (tai chi, crossfit, rowing)

I’ve already noted how I’ve minimized my aspirations to focus on gains in my running and regular practice in yoga, swimming, and resistance training. So from an ambitious set of possibilities, the urge to simplify and do less has won the day (for me).

As we have vocally rejected the whole diet/weight loss mentality and spoken out against body-shaming, I have ditched the idea of objective body measurements such as body weight or bod pod readings as markers of my progress. Instead, I have embraced the intuitive eating approach and done all that I can to allow my body to guide me in all matters having to do with food choices. In this respect, my commitment to “fitness” has expanded to include a broader concept of well-being.

And finally, though this is subject matter for a future post, I have come to be concerned about the connotations of fitness as a central idea in evolutionary theory. Several people, including disability theorist Shelley Tremain, have called attention to this as a possible source of ableist discourse in our blog. The idea of the evolutionary superiority of those who are “fit,” as captured in the Darwinian idea of the “survival of the fittest,” is not of course a message we wish to perpetuate here, but may be implicit in the very language of fitness. And though I have felt defensive about it, I also think it’s an issue that warrants attention. I’ve only just touched on it in a recent post, and there’s a lot more to say.

advertising

Nestlé introduces pricey bottled water for fitness oriented women

Sam B1 Comment

It’s called Resource.

“Resource is more than just a beverage, it’s a reflection of who you are as a woman in the very deepest and most personal sense of your very being, as Cooper went on to explain to the New York Times: “We want to raise it to the level of a lifestyle brand,” he said, “where she’s proud to carry around Resource as her bottled water accessory, so to speak.”Who is the Resource woman, you ask? Well, according to the promotional video, she loves yoga, nature and controlled acrobatics set to ambient techno.”

Read the full story here: http://www.salon.com/2013/06/10/nestle_introduces_bottled_water_for_trendy_high_income_women/

I won’t be buying any. I’m with Evalyn Parry.

Words to Bottle This!:

“Just hold on before we go any farther –
I want to take a moment to talk about water.

That liquid that you’re holding, that bottle in your hand,
you though it was water you were drinking, not a corporate brand.
You thought it was cleaner and safer, and better for your health,
but were you thinking about who profits from the wealth
of the public water that’s been taken for free
and sold back to you for an exorbitant fee?
Listen my friends, listen up folks:
Aquafina is Pepsi. Dansani is Coke.
They’re selling filtered tap water and this is not a joke.
These corporate giants buy tap water
at a tax-free-super-discount,
filter it five times, then sell it back to you
for five thousand times the amount
you pay for running water from your tap,
and when I start thinking about that,
my blood starts to boil, my head starts to spin
as I try to understand where to begin.

That H20, the bottle you just tossed,
it represents garbage, safety and cost,
and water table depletion, which is all our of loss

……

Water must be public, water must be free,
clean water is a human right, not a luxury.
Think about what you drink.
Think! Think about what you drink.

evalyn parry (SOCAN) 2007, all rights reserved

Read the rest here. See dates here for her schedule, performances of SPIN mostly.

running

Is there life after running?

Sam B7 Comments

I know lots of people in the sports and fitness world who only do one thing. Sometimes it’s because they hold a view that you only need to do their one thing. They think this one activity is good for everything: balance, cardio endurance, strength, flexibility, you name it.

I hear this from people who run, who do yoga, as well as from weight lifters, cyclists, and cross fitters. For what it’s worth, I think cross fitters have the best case here. Just yoga? Just running? Really?

When I was a teen and into my twenties it was all cardio all the time, especially for women, though not for me.

I think of this view as exercise monism. Monism is a view in ethics according to which there is only one ultimate value. (See the Value Pluralism entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia for lots more explanation.)

But mostly exercise monists don’t have a theory, the explanation is closer to home and more understandable. They love that one thing to bits (my partner and sail boat racing) or they’re really good at just one thing. I lean a bit that way with cycling in certain contexts. I’m not even remotely a triathlete. I like bike races with wee bit of swimming and running thrown in as a warm up and cool down.

But then what happens when that one thing lets you down?

I’ve met lots of injured runners on cycling holidays, trying hard to like riding a bike. I mean if you can’t like bike riding when there’s a van with snacks following along, a hot tub at day’s end, and a person to inflate your tires to the correct pressure every morning, you’ll never like riding. (For more about my dream holidays, see Cycling holdays, Part 2: Organized tours in which other people carry the stuff.)

I don’t think it’s that  runners are more often injured. Rather, my view is that older runners have made running a life long habit and they’re pretty hard done by when running comes to an end. My own running career was short lived. I did a year of 5 km races, then a bunch of 10 kms, but when I tried to increase my distance I ended up with stress fractures twice. That took me out of all physical activity for 6-8 weeks a time and I won’t risk it again. Now I just jog with dogs, and I can run 5 km slowly without any problem.

The least successful former runners I met cycling were retired marathoners, a professor and a lawyer couple, heading into their 60s. She was very fit and lean but couldn’t keep up with the group uphill. She liked to keep her heart rate at a steady pace and cycling is all about the go hard intervals and then recover. It was clear for the whole trip that they missed running.

The most successful former runner I’ve met on the bike is a former extreme runner, an ultra marathoner, who’d had both hips and knees replaced. Liked to ride long distances (of course) and he seemed to be enjoying the change of pace.

I’m an exercise pluralist. I love lifting weights, and running, and cycling, and soccer, and Aikido, and now rowing….

Are you a monist or a pluralist when it comes to exercise? What’s your one thing? Do you have a list of things you’d like to try next?

body image · stereotypes · yoga

Power poses, feminism, and taking up space

Sam B15 Comments

One of the ways that women’s sports challenge traditional gender norms is by encouraging, indeed requiring, women to take up space and look powerful.

If you read my post Do ladylike values clash with the norms of sports performance? you’ll know that feminist theorists have written about the restrictions on the movements of the bodies of women and girls and on the pressure for girls and women not to take up space. And as Tracy has noted there are many different ways that fitness is a feminist issue but this is certainly one of them.

Those habits, being small and not moving confidently, can hurt women in a variety of contexts. As a counter measure, Tracy and I have both been impressed with the idea of power poses, postures that make one more confident.

Here’s the basic idea from a Huffington Post piece on how two minutes of power posing can have tremendous effects:

“Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy has documented how positive and negative body language shapes your self-perception and your hormone levels.In Cuddy’s experiment, done in collaboration with Dana Carney at Berkeley, one group spent two minutes doing low-power poses — head down, shoulders sunk, eyes averted, looking small. The other group did high-power poses – hands on hips, chest lifted, staring boldly out at the horizon a la Wonder Woman.Then they took a saliva sample. The high-power posers showed a nearly 20 percent increase in testosterone (the dominance hormone) and a 25 percent decrease in cortisol (the stress hormone). The low-power posers saw a 10 percent decline in testosterone and a 17 percent increase in cortisol.Cuddy says, “These two-minute changes (in body stance) lead to hormonal changes that can configure your brain to be either assertive, confident and comfortable, or really stress reactive and feeling shut down.”

That’s Ann Cuddy and Wonder Woman above.

Now Mark, of Mark’s Daily Apple, says power poses are the one thing he loves about yoga.

“Although the study only tested four particular poses, the overall expansive/constrictive principle is key. Those who practice yoga have likely observed these sensations. (Warrior pose and goddess pose – two “expansive” positions – have their commanding names for a reason.) Manipulating our physical posture, embodied cognition suggests, can have a dramatic psychological impact.”

Read more: http://dev.marksdailyapple.com/empowering-poses/#ixzz2VmWww3Na

And we both strongly recommend watching Ann Cuddy’s TED talk for the full effect. She’s amazing and she sold me on the idea.