Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Not much new to say except I’m getting faster, and enjoying working with a timer. (See Measurements, counting, and motivation.) Not sure yet if I’ll make it to 100 but I’m not ready to quit yet!
If you want to find out more you can read past posts about burpees and our summer challenge:
Burpee summer challenge! We’re in. Are you?
My Scaled Back “Burpee Challenge” and Why Scaling Back Can Work
Loving and hating burpees: A midseason report on the 100 day challenge
As Sam said the other day, WE DID IT! But the “it” we did isn’t the “it” we originally set out to do. But what a rush it was anyway, and I’m now hooked on triathlons (without even having done one!).
Leading up to the day of event was a nerve-wracking time. It felt like there was too much to remember. I lamented the challenge of attempting to train for a multi-sport event.
I felt woefully under-prepared for the cycling portion of the triathlon but knew I could finish the ride. For all my running aspirations and fairly consistent training, I’ve never managed to sustain a good pace without needing walk breaks. And though I was more than prepared to do a strong swim, even with a wetsuit the lake was mighty cold.
As it turns out, it was too cold even by official triathlon standards. That meant that on the morning of the event, just as I approached the bathing cap table to pick up the pink cap for the 45-and-overs, they announced that they’d made the difficult to decision to cancel the swim.
The water was a chilly 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) and fell under the regulation minimum of 13 C with a wetsuit and 14C without.
Now, Sam had already changed her registered event to the duathlon a couple of days before. My friend Tara was elated at the announcement because the swim was the part that was scaring her the most.
But Sam’s daughter Mallory and I were kind of bummed. Both of us are strong swimmers who’d been counting on the swim to get a head start.
For those who don’t know, a duathlon is a run-bike-run event. So, like the triathlon, it still involves two transitions. In the case of the Kincardine Women’s Triathlon, the duathlon was a 3K run + 12K bike ride + 3K run.
There was no way I was going to quit just because my strong event had been cancelled. At least, unlike Mallory, who chose to do the whole thing in bare feet, I had shoes!
It was a warm summer day and the sky was bright blue. The whole event took place along the water, and Kincardine has a beautiful long sandy beach along the shores of Lake Huron. My husband, Renald, and I had sailed up to start our summer vacation the day before and the marina was conveniently right beside the event site.
Tara drove up with my bike and spent the night on the boat. So in the morning we just wheeled the bikes out of the van and over to the transition area. On the way there I noticed I had a couple of screws missing from the rack (I know, I should have stripped the bike) that I use for my panier when I’m commuting. A generous man with an Allen key helped me out but in the end I discovered that thing is really on there and I’d have needed to remove the back wheel to get at it properly. So forget it. I rearranged the screws and asked Renald to grab me some electrical tape so it wouldn’t rattle around.
We arrived pretty early but there were lots of people there already. The buzz and excitement fills the air at these things. I loved the energy. A volunteer came around with a bike pump and offered to check my tires. A good thing because they needed air.
The announcers did a great job providing non-stop information about transitions. I guess they figure the more they announce about not touching the bike until you have your helmet on and not getting on it until your at the mount-dismount line the less likely anyone is to mess that part up. They were also upbeat and encouraging.
In the port-o-potty line-up I chatted with a few women about the cancelled swim. The swim clearly divides triathletes. Some were so relieved it surprised me that they hadn’t signed up for the duathlon to begin with. The other half felt like I did — sad that their strong event was not to be, a bit apprehensive about doing two runs.
We went in three waves–under 35, 35-44, and 45 and over. There were much more finer grained age categories, but at the starting line these three waves mattered. Mallory went in the first wave, then Tara three minutes later, then Sam and I.
You kind of get caught up in the thing in the sense that there is no time to think. Before you know it, you are running. By the time I got back to transition there were hardly any bikes left. Like, even fewer than I’d anticipated but off I went on my commuter bike hoping to make up some lost time! Renald cheered me on from the sidelines.
Sam blasted past me on the bike around the 4K mark, but I did manage to pass a few women. Despite my concerns about the cycling portion, I enjoyed it the most. I really felt good on the bike and wished for more of a performance bike.
They say to prep for the run in the last part of the bike. I started obsessing about how I was going to make it (not exactly prepping). A final brutal hill when there was about 1.5K left in the bike ride took my mind off of it kind of, but at the bottom of that uphill you can clearly see the half way point turnaround of the run, and there were so many people already on their way back, looking spry and game, that I had a brief moment where I felt disappointed in my performance.
The final run was challenging, but I ran alongside some other women, walked a bit, and managed to keep running, albeit slowly, for the final kilometre by using lots of positive self-talk. The volunteers and lots of wonderful onlookers were also amazing with their encouraging words. That really kept me going.
I felt really amazing when I crossed the finish line. I wasn’t the fastest person by any stretch, but it’s the most demanding physical thing I’ve ever done. Never in my life have I moved continuously like that for so long (it took me an hour and 22 minutes).
Here are the seven things I loved about the event, in no particular order:
1. The age, size, and ability range inspired me. Most amazing to me were the women in the 60+ categories who did this thing in an HOUR. I’d have to shave 22 minutes off my time to do that. Something to aim for by the time I’m 60! If I shave off 2 minutes a year…
2. The body marking. They wrote your number (mine was 200) on your left arm and your age and event on your right calf in black magic marker. I’m not sure why but it made me feel really badass — like a real competitor. It also gave me perspective, like when 62 year-olds flew past me on the bike! Or when I passed women who were younger than me (it happened, though not often!).
3. The timing chip. It was on a velcro strap around the ankle and you didn’t even know it was there. But it meant you could get your times on the different parts of the event. This helped me see that, despite how I was feeling, my first and second run times weren’t all that different after all.
4. The cycling part. This came as an amazing and pleasant surprise to me. I have never found cycling to be anything other than a leisure activity. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed it, but I don’t think that’s the only reason. I really was pushing myself and I wanted to go faster. My training and my bike limited me a great deal. But I felt like that was something I could work on.
5. The fact of being able to train for endurance where it’s not all about running. I have been talking on the blog quite a bit about wanting to increase my distance. But I think that my difficulty getting a good race pace even for a 3K tells me that running may not be my “thing.” I love the multi-sport idea now, where running is only a part of it. I’m sure I can aspire to a decent 5K or even 10K, and if I stick to triathlons those are perfectly good running distances that, when coupled with the two other events, give me an “endurance” experience.
6. The volunteers and people who lined the route cheering us on. There were even people with sprinklers and hoses cooling us off. I especially loved the older woman who stood on the running route high-fiving the competitors and telling us “you can do it!” Thank you! Her little pep talk is what got me not to take a walk break in the last 1K when all I wanted to do was walk.
7. That it was a women-only event. I found this really supportive and really moving. I totally believe in women-only events as a way of empowering women to try things that they might be too intimidated to try otherwise. It’s just really inspiring and a great opportunity for sisterhood. Having the guys involved in different supporting roles was also amazing. I know Renald had a fabulous time taking pictures. He found the whole event so wonderful that he spent much of the morning in tears!
So that was our duathlon experience. I still haven’t tried a tri, and I am determined. We are sourcing late summer events and will report!
I ride a Rocky Mountain hybrid and my spouse and I enjoy biking every time we can. Our minimum ride (the “quicky”) is a 30 km ride. But we often go for longer rides and have done as much as 110km in a day. We are not as serious about biking as a lot of readers of this blog are but we take it seriously enough. We have some bags for our longer runs and take what we need with us: water, snacks, tools, a spare tube, sunscreen, long sleeved t-shirt, money and a credit card. I am also fully equipped to ride to the office with a wonderful clip-on sturdy bag that can carry my books and binders.
We just came back from a 77 km ride and are both seriously exhausted. Why? What happened?
Yes it is 39 degrees with humidex. We left early to beat the heat but that was tough because at 10 o’clock, it was already pretty hot and the sun was shining in all its glory. But that was not the problem. The problem was: we made a rookie mistake! We did not fuel properly!
It does not matter how hot it is. It does not matter how fit you are. It does not matter what bike you ride. It does not matter how fast or slow you go. It does not matter how old you are. It’s all about the fuel!
We had plenty of water. That was not the issue. But water is not the fuel needed for such rides. Water is some kind of fuel and sufficient for a “quicky” but one needs more than that for a prolonged ride.
First step to our rookie mistake: a light breakfast low on protein. It was hot early and who feels like a hearty breakfast on days like this? I had fruits and 1/3 cup yogourt with sunflower seeds. Eric had raisin bread and fruits with one Ensure (dental surgery aftermath). We both had lots of carbs but very little protein.
Second step to our rookie mistake: we took only water with us. We had 3 litres of water between the two of us. We did not have any energizing drink with salt/sugar and other nutrients (yes, I consider salt a nutrient).
Third step to our rookie mistake: we thought we were going out for only 50 km so we did not bring snacks. We usually carry nuts and dry fruit bars when going for longer than 30 km.
Fourth step to our rookie mistake (which is connected with the previous one): we thought that 50km would take us to lunch time in Fonthill at our favorite fry truck in the area which boasts the best poutine in Southwestern Ontario. The plan was to ride 40 km to the truck, have a poutine, and ride the 10 km left back home.
At about 30 km into the ride we had a choice of turning left or right. Right was taking us back to Fonthill too quick and left was a small detour that would make the ride 50 km, what we were aiming for. The small roads in that area are populated by farms and there are no cornerstores or garages where to buy fuel. We were on our own with our water. A series of other detours (caused by us not wanting to ride on gravel roads because it hurts my wrists too much) made the ride much longer.
At about 50 km, we hit our wall: Muscles burning, slight headache, slight nausea. We were drinking water like mad but still that was not enough. I was hungry and my body was screaming for fuel. At some point I thought: “Man! I am pushing like crazy and yet riding at only 9 km/h on a flat road!!!” You should know that my normal cruising speed is between 22 and 25 km/h. Eric asked: “Are we that out of shape?? Our tires seem to stick to the road!” He even checked the tire pressure! The pressure was fine but we were not.
The problem was we ran out of fuel. Badly. No energy left, whatsoever. Well, a little I guess since we made it back. But at some point, walking my bike up a hill, I did feel like I was going to collapse, right there on the spot. We made it back to Fonthill and the fry truck after riding 56 km. We did not run out of water before getting there. But water was not enough. We were lacking proper fuel. This was remedied partly by purchasing one litre of iced tea (probably not the best but I can’t stomach energy drinks and sports drinks) and more water for the remaining 11km.
And then we did ourselves in… we had our poutine (after all, we deserved it by then, right?). Yummy as ever (did I mention it is the best poutine in Southwestern Ontario?), but poutine is what it is: it feels like a brick in your stomach once you have feasted on it. And that it did. I did have some chicken breast alongside it and Eric had a burger. But this further improper fueling just made everything worst. The last 11 km were long and hard. I normally ride 11 km without even thinking about it. Earlier today, I was thinking about every push on the pedals… and about the brick in my stomach. Improper fueling is what caused all this.
One shower later and trying to recuperate (I think it will take until tomorrow morning) I muse about this experience. Lesson learned: if it is not a “quicky” we got out for, bring proper fueling. Because a planned 40 km can morph into a much longer ride. Nobody needs to hit a wall as we did. All we have to do is plan ahead and care enough for our bodies to feed it what it needs: nutrients that will fuel it with the energy we need to enjoy whatever it is we engage in. Exercise should be fun and will be fun if we fuel properly.
It’s all about the fuel!
Christine is a feminist continental philosopher who lives with spouse and cat in the Niagara Region. Biking and training are favorite activities as is gourmet cooking and reading gore thrillers when she travels to conferences, taking a break from writing her monograph on Nietzsche.
I am not a morning person. But neglect of mornings impoverishes my day, I know. And damn it’s hot out now any time, except in the early morning. When else am I supposed to exercise? It was much easier to get myself running in the Fall, Spring, and even the Winter. I only gave up at -10C when my skin started to freeze. So I aim to get up at 7am – or maybe earlier? – to run for the next few weeks.
There are many benefits to morning exercise, I understand. I’ll be energetic throughout the day, I’m told. And yes, I do remember that from past experience, and I sure could use that energy. Plus it means that working out won’t complicate my day by throwing the need to bathe into the middle of it.
Can I actually feel refreshed enough to have the desire when I wake up in the morning to go running? I do have that desire sometimes in the evening, when it seems like a perfect way to create space for myself after the workday. Exercise in the morning demands a different kind of resolve, I find.
Today after a few days of failed attempts, I was up at 7am and out running. I only go about 3K and I walk about a third of that. I’m approximately on week 4 of the (9 week) “Couch to 5K” program. It’s taken me 2 years to get to that point! But it has made me feel better: more relaxed, energetic, and it actually helps my back problems.
It was tough this morning. I usually run in the evening, and it’s difficult to work out at a different time of day and especially in the morning. At least that was my understanding when I used to keep up on fitness information.
I’m holding on to the hope that my body will get accustomed to running in the morning and it won’t be quite so difficult as it was today. Running also was a lot easier when I was younger (I’m now 47) and weighed less.
However, when I have tried running in the past it was never so fun as it is now with my dog, Abbie. A husky may be the best running partner. She’s no lazy Labrador; a choice between exercise and food is really tough for her. A run with my dog is a fantastic thing to do any time of the day.
I was really surprised this morning how very many happy people I shared the path with: runners, dog walkers, roller bladers, cyclists, fishers. Oh yes, I get to run along the Detroit River which has a lovely multi-use path on the Windsor side, and my beautiful dog often earns smiles of admiration. However, today the people smiled as much at me as we all shared the luxury of early morning exercise along the river. I hold out hope that I’ll manage to do this again.
Our rowing coach told us today to think about improving the ratio of good to bad strokes rather than striving for perfection. I think that’s terrific advice in many areas of life. Rowing, yes, but writing too.
Don’t let your bad days define you.
The idea is to put bad strokes behind you instantly. They’re gone, they’re over, don’t dwell.
No one is perfect. I got a good reminder of this on the weekend when I worked one of the rescue boats at a regatta hosted by our club.
Our job is to help ensure the safety of rowers. We kept sailboats and kayakers away from the course. We also were charged with seeing if “flippers and tippers” needed aid. If they can get back in their boat and row on they can continue in the race so you need to ask if help is wanted.
Only one boat flipped on our watch. It was in a women’s single race, under 23, I think. Everyone assumed it was one of the novice rowers but no, it was a member of the national rowing team who’d flipped her single. She was in the lead at the time.
Thinking about performance in terms of ratio of good to bad, helps you think about getting better. Otherwise, we default to all or nothing thinking.
I sometimes think feminists need this awareness, maybe progressive people generally. We criticize most harshly ourselves and others for our mistakes when we’re getting it right eighty percent of the time.
Would it be better to get it wrong all the time?
One year ago today I drove out to a parking lot in Chatham, laced up a pair of quad roller skates, and joined Crow City Roller Girls. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I had no idea if I’d even be able to do it.
I was 41 years old. I’d not worn roller skates in over two decades. Everyone else in the league was younger than me. And they were all far, far, better skaters. They turned corners by crossing their outside leg over the inside one. They transitioned from forwards skating to backwards without breaking stride. They lined up in a column, each skater’s hands on the hips of the skater in front, and one skater pushed the entire “train” of eight people around the track. Even as a teenager tooling around the school playground in my high-heeled, blindingly-white, tall-booted skates I’d not been able to do any of that. Plus: there was the mouth guard.
I’d never worn a mouth guard before.
I’d lived through my share of accidental collisions in recreational soccer and ultimate frisbee leagues in my youth and knew well how to protect my ribs from the stray elbows of other runners on crowded race start lines. But a sport in which the other players were going to deliberately hit me? Hard. With the intention of knocking me down. A sport in which I was meant to attempt to do the same thing to them? While skating. Nope. I’d never tried that before. I wasn’t even certain that I wanted to.
But I needed to do something.
I needed to do something because I was 41 years old and not getting any younger. I needed to do something because a plague of injuries had kept me from running for the past nine years. I needed to do something because I was gaining weight and losing muscle mass at an alarming rate. And because, when I’d told my physician recently that I was still plagued with back problems from a weight-lifting injury I’d suffered nine years previously, he’d shrugged his shoulders and said:
“You’re forty, Laura.”
And that wasn’t acceptable to me.
Additionally: I was living in a new place where I had no friends and had thus far not succeeded in finding a community I wanted to be a part of. So when a facebook acquaintance sent me an invitation to participate in the skate practice of a nascent roller derby league, I bought myself a pair of roller skates, a helmet, knee and elbow pads, wrist guards, and that scary mouth guard, and I drove out to that parking lot.
I had no idea.
I had no idea I was going there to meet the most amazing, diverse, creative, hard-working and welcoming group of women I’ve ever been blessed to know. I had no idea everyone would be so supportive in helping me to improve my skating skills. Or that I’d soon be travelling to neighbouring leagues to NSO (volunteer as a non-skating official) at their bouts.
I had no idea I’d drive to London to learn how to penalty wrangle from a skater from Toronto or that the Head NSOs from both London’s and Windsor’s leagues would train me up to become the Head NSO for Crow City. I had no idea the leagues in Windsor and Sarnia would invite Crow City out to train with them (on their nice shiny arena floors) to help our skaters improve.
I had no idea that today my back would be pain free, my physical strength would be back at a level I’d not seen for a decade and my cardio-vascular health would be well on its way to returning to pre-injury levels. I had no idea that within one year I would lose 60% of the weight nine years of injury-plagued reduced activity had piled onto me or that so much muscle definition would return to my body I’d need to replace most of my wardrobe. Even my wrists—which were starting to show signs of strain from two decades of desk jobs—are pain free now, thanks to the upper body conditioning I’ve been doing for roller derby. And my body is finally ready to try running again.
I had no idea how much work it would take to present Crow City Roller Girls’ first public bout. (CCRG—like most roller derby leagues—is skater owned and operated. Nothing happens unless we make it happen.) I had no idea that referees and NSOs from Windsor and London would travel to Chatham at 9:15 on a Thursday night to help us. No idea we’d be playing a team from Windsor, or that skaters from Sarnia would drive down to fill out our still short roster. And I had no idea how amazing I would feel afterward, faced with the evidence that all of that hard work and wonderful community support had paid off, and we’d done it! We’d brought roller derby to Chatham, Ontario!
I had no idea when I first laced up my new roller skates in that parking lot in Chatham one year ago that today I would be on the Board of Directors of Crow City Roller Girls. I had no idea I’d be on the league’s training committee, helping other skaters to improve their skills. I certainly had no idea that I’d be the one saying, “We need to do more hitting in practice. We need to be hit more. I need to be hit more!”
I’ve been an athlete most of my life. I’ve participated in both team and individual sports. I’ve played in rec leagues and competed internationally. But I’ve never before found a sport as much fun, a community as welcoming and supportive or an experience as empowering as I have found with roller derby.
Is there a new experience out there waiting for you? An activity that intrigues you, that you think might be worthwhile to try… but you’re just not sure? I urge you to get out there and try it! Until you do, you have no idea.
—
Laura Rainbow Dragon writes, dances, cooks, runs, and makes wine–amongst other pursuits–in a way-too-small town in Southwestern Ontario. She skates with Crow City Roller Girls out of Chatham and plays roller derby wherever and whenever she’s invited. Laura has moved house far too often but found a home she loves in the roller derby community.
I’ve written here before that I missed my chance to play rugby (even though I think I’d be good at it) and that I play soccer with friends instead. But since I do martial arts and I’m not afraid of contact, I often find myself wanting more contact in soccer than is, strictly speaking, allowed.
Maybe “bubble football” could be my sport! Thanks to someone on my team for sharing this. It’s hilarious. And I know I’m late to the party so if you’ve seen it before, I’m sorry.
“Football players are regularly criticised for being over delicate and falling over at the slightest hint of a challenge.
In order to protect them more, as if they needed it, two Norwegians have come up with a novel idea for the game.
The new type of football, created by Henrik Elvestad and Johan Golden, sees players run around the pitch wearing giant inflatable bubbles.
The participants then have to try and play a match inside the contraptions, while trying to constantly collide with each other.”
From Footballers wear huge bubbles in game which actually encourages contact
I’ve been thinking about the role of measuring and counting in motivation today.
Since I posted about speed and the burpee challenge here, I’ve been wondering what’s a reasonable number of burpees to do in a minute. LiveStrong suggested 30 but that seems impossible to me. I said I thought 20 seemed like a good goal. So when the challenge is done that’s still only five minutes of burpees a day.
But what’s funny is that a minute of burpees seems oddly easier than doing 15, even though in my last minute I did 17. And that’s strange. I wasn’t about to stop. The clock was running!
I think I might be the same way if I were timing how long it took me to do 15 burpees.
But to just set out and do 15 with no timer…that’s hard! Sometimes when I just set out to do 15, I change my mind and settle for 10, putting off the additional 5 till bedtime. And that’s silly.
A few years ago I bought a simple timer for doing Tabata style workouts. There a good Guardian article about them here. They’re hard. But again, for me, without the timer they wouldn’t work at all.
CrossFit uses both these styles of measurement. Some workouts have a fixed time and you do “as many reps as possible” (AMRAP) in that time. Other workouts have a set number of things you need to do and then you do them “for time.” This helps you compare your past performance with your current performance and track improvement.
Now I have a timer on my smart phone and an android app for logging Cross Fit workouts. I always have my “Fran” time close at hand.
I’m not sure why measuring and counting has such a great motivational effect. With timing, I think I just tell myself that I can do anything for a 20 seconds or a minute and with more minutes, I try to pace myself.
Pacing is key in athletic performance. A flying lap at our local velodrome takes under 10 seconds but you want to have nothing left, to go all out for those seconds. A 500 metre sprint takes longer but still under a minute but you don’t want to run out of steam before that minute is up but you also don’t want anything left in the tank.
So measured workouts aren’t just motivational, they’re also educational as they teach you what your body can do.
How about for you? Do the numbers help or hurt your motivation? Do you like to count and measure? I see some people at the gym who cover up their treadmill information screen that gives them speed and timer data but those people kind of baffle me.
Try it and see what works. Compare a) just do 20 burpees with b) 20 burpees for time and with c) what’s the highest number of burpees you can do in a minute?
Which is most motivational? Which is the least?
I know that for me both options “b” and “c” beat out “a” big time. But then I’m a bit of a data geek when it comes to fitness. So is Natalie who guest posted on our blog about why counting makes her geeky heart happy.
We did it! Jarret and I made it to Paris in 24 hours and 18 minutes; our strategy of working stage by stage, breaking the ride up into manageable chunks, clearly worked, as we didn’t get on the bus at all. I felt good the whole ride through; I wasn’t even especially tired in the middle of the night. Better yet, while I was drained at the finish line (thanks and see ya later, adrenaline!), I felt completely OK the following day. I even got up early to hunt down my favourite Parisian pastries.
Now that we’ve made our goal and recovered (more or less) physically from the ride, it’s time to reflect on lessons learned and problems encountered. In the spirit of Sam’s “six things” posts (for example, here), herewith I give you three awesome things I learned while on the ride, and three things that troubled me – and are motivating my next bike-related labour.
Three Things I Now Know, Thanks to L2P24
1. My body is freaking amazing!
I’m going to say this loudly, and proudly: my body is brilliant, wonderful, strong, amazing. I’m a 38-year-old woman, and until I was in my mid-twenties I was overweight, not especially active, and definitely not as fit as I could have been. My whole young life I carried with me the same body-image problems many, many young women experience as a result of multiple, colliding factors and influences, from peer and parental pressure to photos circulating in the media. I constantly felt inadequate, I hated looking at my body in the mirror, and I wore baggy clothes to hide my body (NB: that never works). When I was 27 I lost a fair bit of weight, shifting my body from overweight to “normal” (aka, a size 10), and I’ve kept it off all these years; the secret hasn’t been dieting, but swimming, cycling, lifting weights, and making sensible food choices (which, by the way, includes rather a lot of cheese, and brownies. YUM). As I’ve become more fit, I haven’t lost much more weight, but I have become more lean, and I’ve become ever more confident in my body. I want to stress that this confidence has never emerged from becoming “thin”; for me, body confidence came from growing strong.
Now, after L2P24, I can say in all honesty I have never felt better in my skin: together, my brain and my body worked to keep me feeling good, feeling powerful, and feeling safe for an entire, solid, day and night of physical exertion. My back didn’t ache. My heart rate was low and consistent. My power levels rarely dropped. I felt like I could have kept going, maybe even could have pushed a bit harder. That is an incredible achievement; it proves, to me, that I am, indeed, an endurance athlete – something that, ten years ago, I could never have imagined saying about myself, or seeing in the mirror.
This week of all weeks I want to share this fitness-given strength and confidence publicly, because on the weekend we had a terrible reminder of how poorly we as a culture understand that strength and power are core aspects of women’s beauty. Yesterday, Tracy blogged about the negative media reaction to Marion Bartoli’s Wimbledon win; Marion is a phenomenal athlete, a really open and lovely presence in interviews, and by all accounts a woman with a very strong and healthy sense of self. She does not deserve to be mocked as fat, or as not a “looker”; rather, she deserves to be celebrated as a role model not just for athletic girls, but for ALL girls and women who feel “quirky”, who think they look odd or wrong, or who think they might be, maybe, could be be strong and fit, except they don’t look thin and sleek, don’t look “the part”. As a middle aged woman who weighs 70kg and just rode 281 miles on her road bike in one go, I’m here to tell all of you: you are strong, you are beautiful, and the stronger you get, the more beautiful you will become. That’s guaranteed.
2. Riding at night is glorious – and perfectly safe if you’re smart about it.
Four and a half hours of our ride was in the middle night dark; to light our way, we had powerful torches on our handlebars, blinking red safety lights on our seat posts, and some of us wore helmet lights. As we left Calais for the final 2/3 of the ride, I noticed immediately how quiet and peaceful the roads and the little towns along the way were; my group was five riders strong, and we moved swiftly through the night, single file, on perfect pavement, enjoying the cool breeze, the stars, and the shadows of trees and in the distance. I found the night ride meditative; it reminded me of my teenage years growing up in Edmonton, Alberta, and driving myself home from friends’ houses at night, through the quiet city to the northern suburb where we lived. I used to sing to myself, or compose poems in my head (or out loud!). I’d take the time to think, to wonder, to let my mind gently wander. To dream! Riding through northern France in the middle of the night brought all that back to me.
As a feminist and a scholar of urban performance, I know very well how easy it is for women not to be empowered in this way in the dark: city streets can be dangerous places at night, especially for women, in groups or alone. Walter Benjamin wrote the original “flâneur’s” guide to Paris in his Arcades Project, but feminist cultural geographers like Doreen Massey have explored the limits of Benjamin’s image of wandering for women. (In Benjamin’s place and time, for example, a single woman out walking on her own would not be revered as an urban pioneer, but could be denigrated as a prostitute.) I generally don’t fear walking at night, though I don’t go out of my way to do it in neighbourhoods I don’t know; I’m a tough chick, but I’m not invincible, and I do live in a patriarchy. As a cyclist, though, in a group of experienced riders, I felt protected as well as empowered to gaze around me and to be free. I also felt far less gendered than I do when I’m out walking – and not just because of the gender-neutral rider’s kit. Being on the bike demands a physically powerful posture: I felt a bit like I was ready for anything, crazy or calming.
3. Sometimes, it pays to come last.
OK, so we didn’t actually come last. We did take longer than I was hoping, though, to get to the finish line. Looking back, I know we could have made the 24 hour “cut”: we had a problem with our equipment as we got off the ferry, which slowed us down right when we needed the most momentum, and then one of our group punctured, slowing us down further. For a while, Jarret and I pushed hard to make up for lost time, but then the rushing seemed pointless, and unnecessarily tiring: this was not a race. It was an endurance test – a test of strengths, physical and mental. The mileage itself presented the physical test; managing our spirits, and shifting our expectations, along with the passing miles presented the mental challenge.
When we reached our second last rest stop, I realized that we could absolutely make the 24 hour cut if we began to ride just a bit faster. Jarret was less convinced: he wanted to ensure we arrived in Paris feeling good, not feeling utterly smashed, and he was a bit more tired than I was already. I had a decision to make: stick with his slow-but-steady plan, or drop him and make for the finish myself.
I decided that the latter was a pretty dumb idea. We were in the ride together: we had trained together, planned together, and we would ride to the finish together.
Then, just as I was making that call, along came a fellow rider called Andy who was on his own, and struggling with a bad knee. He asked to borrow my sunscreen, and then he asked if he could tag along with us, as he’d been lonely through the night and needed a boost to keep going. I remembered the lessons I took from riding in the Alps two weeks ago with Jo McRae, and the case was closed: we would ride alongside Andy.
In the end, not pushing the last 60 miles was hard for me – it was a fitting, and welcome, mental challenge. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll be ready, right out of the gate on our next race, to up my game. But this was not a race, remember. This was about teamwork, mutual support, and celebrating a collective, extraordinary, achievement. In that respect, we absolutely won the day.
Three troublesome things worth working on
1. This wasn’t a race, right? Nope. Scope, our charity sponsor, and Action Challenge, their ride organizers, told us this over and over. So why did it seem so much like a race at every rest stop? Why were we constantly hurried along by the Scope and Action Challenge gang? Why were they so quick to push us, and so insistent on marking pace and measuring time?
My guess is that their hearts weren’t really in the claim that this was no race, however much they wanted (or felt pressure) to pretend a facade of egalitarianism: they knew, given the make-up of the group (about 215 men and 15 women, give or take), that the majority of participants were well-kitted-out guys fuelled by peer pressure and testosterone and keen to get the very best time possible to Paris. Jarret and I found this atmosphere of “sort of but not really a race” very difficult to stomach; when you’re working hard to be in the best physical and mental place possible over the course of a very long period of exertion, the last thing you need is to have to parse mixed signals, and you really, really don’t need to feel in any way inadequate. I understand that Scope and Action Challenge were likely trying to find a way to support everyone’s goals – including those of the racing dudes – but I would have appreciated much more if they’d made a serious, sustained effort to reinforce how much this was not about speed, but about skill, patience, and endurance. The latter three we need much more of on the hills and highways of London.
Which brings me to item #2 on this list.
2. Lycra really chafes – figuratively and literally. I will spare you the details of my blistered rear end, except to say that the traffic lights (dozens!) we encountered on the route through suburban Paris were especially punishing, as I clipped in and out of my shoes and moved myself on and off my saddle. But lycra is more than just the stuff of which bike shorts and jerseys are made: it’s code, in big cities like London, for the bike riders who boss the roads. They are the men and women (mostly men; we need to be honest here!) who race up the bike lanes, cut off cars, push ahead of other cyclists and road users, flying off the curb as soon as the light turns green. They are the riders who grandstand at every red, and ignore most stop signs. They are the riders who ride to intimidate – and intimidate they do.
The vast majority of the riders on L2P24 were sensible and knew how to ride safely; some, however, were ill equipped to navigate the busy London and Paris roads, either because they did not understand proper road protocol or because they wilfully flaunted it, and they presented hazards for motorists as well as for us, their fellow cyclists. In a week when a woman riding a “Boris” bike in London’s east end (along my regular commute route, no less) was killed by a truck, this journey was a reminder to me of how hard we all need to work to ensure that we are riding properly, and safely, at all times. For some, that might mean taking some safe riding lessons at a local bike shop. For others, it might mean learning the zen lesson Jarret taught me when he reminded me to slow down, for heaven’s sake, because we were not riding a race. For me, post-L2P, it’s going to mean learning to change my own punctured tires in the next few weeks, so I can be more self-sufficient on the road. Safety first – really people.
3. “Sports nutrition” needs a rethink. Don’t get me wrong – there are some excellent sport nutritionists out there, and a good nutrition coach is hard to beat if you’d like to become more fit and physically efficient. But when I hit a rest stop on a 24-hour, 271-mile ride, and “sports nutrition” equates to energy gels and energy drinks, rather than to wholemeal carbohydrates and replenishing proteins, I worry. Scope and its caterer put plenty of fruit out for us at a number of our rest stops, and we did eventually see some porridge, but for the most part their notion of “refuelling” involved white breads, white pasta, sugared sweets, bars and gels.
Not good enough! If I’d had my way, the rest stops would have featured even more fruit, plenty of veg, sweet potatoes and brown rice rather than white rice and pasta, a wider range of thirst-quenching drinks, and far fewer sugary junk items. The food was fine, to a point but it certainly wasn’t excellent; sadly, however, it was still far better than what I normally see at amateur races in the UK. When will race and ride organizers wake up to healthy fitness eating? It doesn’t have to be expensive; it just has to be more thoughtful, more logical, and just plain better for you. I learned this, too, from Jo in the Alps: eating the best, healthiest food possible is better than carb-loading or gel-sucking any day: it won’t jolt your body, won’t make your stomach sick, and will keep you in a balanced place throughout your ride. Eating good food is about trusting your body, after all: that body, powerful and amazing, knows what to do with healthy, nutritious stuff. No junk required.
And on that note, it’s time for me to end this series of guest posts. Thanks to all of you for reading! I’ve enjoyed sharing my experience in the lead-up to this mad, illuminating journey, and I hope to see you over at my blog, The Activist Classroom, sometime soon.
With gratitude,
Kim
