Winter is here….there’s no more denying it. Yes, I know that calendar winter doesn’t start till the third week of December, still winter the season has arrived. Looks like there are negative high temperatures every day in the week ahead. – 4 C as the high for the day? -11 as the overnight low? Feels like -16? Really? Really? In November? Snow flurries too.
Photo credit: Friend, student and fellow cyclist Steph B.
Mostly for me, it’s a period of giving up the activity I love the most, road cycling, but there are some things I like about winter and I’ve been reminded of them this week.
Hot Yoga: I’m not generally a big yoga fan but I love getting hot, sweaty, and stretchy in hot yoga. There’s a small studio just a few blocks from my house and they opened a larger location downtown. Great instructors. I often think, once it gets really cold, that I could just move into the hot yoga room. Love you Yoga Shack!
Getting Sweaty: Lots of women say that getting sweaty puts them off exercise. Not me. But there is something especially lovely about getting sweaty when the alternative is shivering. I bought a trainer this year. I already have rollers. Coach Chris Helwig has designed a training program for me to do on the trainer and we’re getting together once a week with five other people for a trainer class he’s co- leading with Cheryl of Happy is the New Healthy.
Cross Country Skiing: I love being outside in the woods. For most of the year that means hiking but come winter, I strap on my cross country skis and zoom through the snow. It’s lovely to be outside in the cold and not be cold. Love cross country skiing and want to do more of it in the coming year, especially with my partner, Jeff.
My Hot Tub: This was a big surprise. For years Jeff had been trying to talk me into a backyard hot tub. Last year as part of a major kitchen and deck reno, I agreed. I’m totally in love. It extends the use of our backyard right through the winter. There’s something very wonderful about sitting in the bubbly hot water and cold snowy nights, wstching the stars.
Enjoy an album of snowy hot tub photos here. The one pictured below isn’t mine but you get the idea.
How do you feel in your body? At home, absent, at war, at peace, comfortable, uncomfortable? I ask this because, since my fiftieth birthday back in September, I’ve discovered that apart from doing a whole bunch of stuff that I used to think impossible (see my post about that here), the most remarkable change over the past two years is internal.
It’s not just internal in a psychological way. It’s more than that. Feminists talk a lot about our embodied experience. And lately, I feel that my triathlon training — all that running, swimming, and even the detestable biking (sorry — still not loving it) — have altered the way I feel in my body. For the very first time in my life, I have a sense of my physicality as belonging totally and 100% to me.
I own these activities–every endurance run, every early morning workout in the pool, every struggle on the bike. They’re mine. I do them for me. Not for you or for my parents or my partner or because someone else/society/my employer/Oprah thinks I should. Nope. None of that. No one would blink an eye if I never did any of this stuff again. And yet I do it anyway because they’re things I want to do.
How is that different from what I felt like before? If you’ve been a regular reader of the blog from the early days, you’ll know that despite my repeated attempts to let go of the need to look a certain way, I’ve experienced my share of challenges in the body image department.
I know it’s kind of big yawn for lots of people when small women with average sized bodies who can easily buy clothing off the rack at any store say they don’t like their bodies. But it happens and it’s painful and — anyway, I stopped blogging about it awhile back because I too find it tiresome.
A couple of weeks ago Canada had a shock when a well-respected and popular radio host from CBC radio was let go by the broadcaster because, in their words, they had learned something that made it impossible for them to continue their relationship with him.
And for the first time perhaps ever, Canadian news was dominated by discussions of sexual coercion and the importance of consent. We also had a national conversation about why sexual assault goes unreported so much (like this and this one, “I didn’t report because fuck you”). In every paper. On every television broadcast. On all the radio stations. On Facebook and twitter and in the hallways of workplaces, conversations over lunch, telephone calls with people who lived in different parts of the country.
So what does this have to do with a new way of being in my body? Well, you know, it just made me realize the extent to which it’s a rare thing indeed when a women feels confident ownership of her body — like she doesn’t owe anyone anything and she gets to say “no” and let it mean “no” (not “maybe” and not “let me talk you into it” and not “are you sure?” and not “maybe later” but “NO”).
And when we don’t feel that confident sense of ownership, it’s hard not to feel insecure about choices that may upset people or make them angry or, heaven forbid, disappoint someone or not meet their expectations. And hence the level of coercion and coaxing that lots of women endure (by the way, said radio host’s alleged actions were a lot more serious than coercion and coaxing).
And so to discover a domain where that shit doesn’t happen is like a small miracle, like finding an oasis in the desert or something like that.
And that’s what diving in with both feet into some athletic activity that I love has done for me. It’s like hello. Who’s been keeping this big secret from me?
Has discovering a physical activity you love changed the way you live in your body?
Instead, it’s our planet I’m worried about and the way our farming practices and our changing climate is affecting our food supply. Some of my friends have been pointing fingers and shaking heads in disbelief that it’s only now some of our favourite foods are in danger that people are waking up to the reality of our changing planet and our role in bringing this mess about.
Two thousand of you now follow us on WordPress. We’re pretty happy about that. Thanks to all of our readers, commentators, and guest bloggers. What a lovely community and a nice way to end the weekend.
Living with a changeable disability requires adapting to new and different things. Over the last year, I’ve been adapting to using a mobility aid. And while the most significant part of that change has been the shift from being (mostly) invisibly disabled to being (mostly) visibly disabled, it’s also brought with it a range of new and unexpected fitness challenges.
It’s funny – I never thought of using a cane as something that would have fitness implications. And it certainly isn’t presented that way. One day my rheumatologist handed me a cane and said “You need to use this now.” That was about it, as far as instructions went. What’s more, there’s a sort of lurking presumption that if you use a mobility aid to get around, fitness isn’t for you. In the world of exercise, there are non-disabled people and then there’s murderball. The in between is a vague no-man’s land.
But I’m disabled, I’m healthy, and I’m determined to keep my ass in shape, come what may. And I’m still a badass, cane notwithstanding. So I’ve spent the last year figuring out how to adapt to the current fitness needs of my body.
I need the cane because of my hip. I have something called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which means, among other things, that I have very loose joints. I’ve dislocated my hip a few times, subluxed (i.e., partially dislocated) it many, many more. The net effect of this, as I move into my thirties, is that the joint no longer functions well. The labrum is messed up, the cartilage is worn down, the joint is arthritic, and – the biggest problem – the joint doesn’t sit in its socket properly any more. This means that my hip is now very unstable.
If I’m going to navigate the spaces I want to navigate, my arms need to do a lot more work. (Honestly, going bipedal in the first place may have been a mistake for me. My parents say I was awesome at crawling.) But here’s where things get tricky. My shoulders are also unstable. I’m conscious of wanting to avoid falling into the supercrip! trope in what follows, so to compensate here is a very disgusting – and very honest – picture of my shoulder doing its best Alien impression:
When I took that photo, I accidentally popped my shoulder out of its socket. So here’s a picture of that too:
They are nice shoulders, but damn they are weird.
Given what my shoulders and hips are like, here are my basic criteria for successful, cane-related fitness:
(i) Strengthen and stabilize the shoulders. – Because of aforementioned weirdness, so they can do more weight bearing.
(ii) Strengthen the glutes, hip flexors and external rotators, and core. – Because my hip joint isn’t providing stability on its own, so it needs extra help from the surrounding muscles.
(iii) Keep good range of motion. – As I begin to deal with degenerative changes in my joints, the wide range of motion that comes naturally to me is my best friend. I need to keep it around.
(iv) Do all of (i)-(iii) with minimal weight-bearing on the hip. – Because weight bearing makes all sorts of things worse, and also tends to lead to subluxations, which are bad.
(v) Be disability positive. – It’s really important to me that my approach to fitness is one that celebrates my body and its idiosyncrasies. I don’t want to exercise to ‘manage my symptoms’.
(vi) Be fun. – This is related to (v), but is also just because I am lazy and easily bored, and if exercise is 3 set of 10 reps of whatever, I just won’t do it. It needs to feel like I’m goofing off.
I’ve been tackling (i)-(vi) via my yoga practice, which has been the way I’ve stayed fit through all the surprises of living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Yoga offers the flexibility (sorry!) to work with whatever’s happening in my body, and the creativity to keep me interested and having fun. Plus, my genes make me naturally bendy, so I love anything that subtly links flexibility with moral progress. Here’s what I’ve been up to.
Backbends – they work the shoulders, the core, the hip flexors, and the glutes, and if you pick the right ones put minimal pressure on the hips:
Handstands – Creative variations with handstands are a great way of building strength while keeping my shoulders crammed into their sockets. One day I will learn to walk on my hands, and then all my problems will be solved:
Fun stuff with walls – Creative use of the wall has let me work on strength across a wide range of motion while keeping to minimal weight bearing.
None of this is curative – my hip is still going to be weird. And as much as I get better at doing things like this, I’m still going to be pretty bad at walking (and will probably get worse over time.) But doing stuff like this is helping me to be the best, most fit cane-user I can be. And it’s also a lot of fun.
To possess a bicycle is to be able first to look at it, then to touch it. But touching is revealing as insufficient; what is necessary is to be able to get on the bicycle and take a ride. But this gratuitous ride is likewise insufficient; it would be necessary to use the bicycle to go on some errands. And this refers us to longer uses … But these trips themselves disintegrate into a thousand appropriative behavior patterns, each one of which refers to others. Finally, as one could foresee, handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.
The idea of a “fleet” comes from a colleague who refers to his bikes that way. He has them all custom painted to match.
What’s my ideal bicycle fleet?
This question came up on Facebook last week when I noticed the bike cage on our front porch looked low bikes. I checked with my partner and indeed, we’re below quota. Years ago when things were really getting out of hand, we set a family limit of fifteen bikes. This prompted a discussion of what I’d do if we lifted the quota and money wasn’t an issue.
So here are the bikes I’d own if money and space allowed:
1.Cruisy style fashionable funky coloured bike with bells, baskets and a kick stand. I’ll ride it to the market and to lunch with friends wearing colourful dresses and sandals and shades. If I lived in a European city, I’d ride this bike without a helmet.
2. Cargo bike for groceries because I can’t fit enough food in my panniers
3. Super nice racing carbon road bike, with electronic shifting
4. Rainy day/off season road bike on days when conditions aren’t perfect for taking out the super nice bike
Sigh. Last winter I hurt my left knee running on snow and ice. No dramatic injury but lots of pain. At its worst I couldn’t walk up and downstairs at all, sleeping was tricky, and I woke up every morning in pain. I left soccer, quit running, took a leave of absence from CrossFit and cut back on Aikido. Luckily cycling was just fine. Phew.
I started physio. Did lots and lot of glute strengthening exercises and a bunch of stability work. It got better. No more pain going up and down stairs, a slow return to jogging with my dog, and now I’m back regularly at Aikido (with plans to test even!) and slowly returning to CrossFit.
All good, right? Not so fast. I was on a waiting list for an MRI but since I work at a university campus with a hospital right there I was on their short call list. That’s the list for people who can make it for a canceled appointment in 15 minutes or less. I’d been thinking of canceling the appointment. I’m busy and I hate to waste in demand health care resources. But when the phone rang, I said I’d be there in ten minutes. I’ll run over, I said. “Really?” asked the nurse. “Is that wise?” I said I’d walk fast instead.
After a lovely afternoon snooze in the MRI (not so bad really when your head can stick out) I went back to work. A few days later the phone rang. It was my doctor’s office and they thought I needed to come in to discuss the MRI.
My doctor looked shocked when she saw me. “You’re walking fine? ” Yes, why wouldn’t I be? “Well, your MRI. It’s bad. Aren’t you in pain?”
I should pause and say that I have a wonderful doctor. We know each other well. She likes the blog! So the frankness is just fine.
She said there’s “a lot going on” with my knee. It’s kind of a mess. But most worrying is the “severe cartilage degradation.” That sounds bad. And apparently it is. You can’t grow new knee cartilage. But I was kind of fascinated by the gap between her reading of the results and my experience. I’m jogging with my dog sometimes, doing Aikido lots, getting back to CrossFit. All without pain. She’s referred to me to a knee surgeon to discuss my future and sent me back to physio. Given that I’m fine now I’m unlikely to agree to knee surgery but there is a wait for an appointment so I’ll keep this one in case anything changes. Fine.
Physio dude wasn’t so shocked. I showed up on his doorstep with the MRI results. I wanted to know what I should stop doing in light of these results.
“Nothing,” he said. “Run. Do martial arts. Ride your bike lots. Lift weights. Whatever.”
He went on: “Lots of research shows it’s not activity that causes cartilage degradation and inactivity is worse for it. Keep moving.”
“One thing though, soccer. How much do you love it?”
The thing is, I play rec league soccer for fun. I like the teamwork and I love the company. But I’m not good at it and it’s not my favourite thing. I can imagine a different life where I’d started earlier but I’m very late in life to soccer. See Indoor Soccer, Team Sports, and Childhood Regrets.
So I’ve agreed to part ways with soccer. Given the lack of cartilage it’s too risky. There’s too much stopping and starting and changing directions, all hard on knees.
Goodbye soccer.
One final thing: I was fascinated in my conversation with physio dude about his observations about MRIs. He claims that in his experience, and research backs it up, that there is very little correlation between how things look on an MRI and the knee pain and immobility that patients experience. Some people have incredible pain and limited mobility but their MRI doesn’t look too bad. Other people, like me, have really grim MRIs, but are running and jumping without pain. I’m off to find out more. In the meantime, I’ll be running and biking and doing CrossFit but no more soccer for me.
I am simply feeling overwhelmed at the moment by how much the entire community of senior belts at the Aiki Budo Centre seems committed to my next test. Each class there are different people helping and offering advice and working with me on aspects of it. I’ve been joking that after it’s done, pass or fail, I want to buy everyone a drink.
This doesn’t come naturally to me and I think the black belts have the patience of saints. I keep thanking people for their help and support but it doesn’t feel like enough. I like that everyone seems to recognize how hard I’ve been working and a large number of people seem excited about the test. Barring disasters such as illness or injury, it’ll happen on November 22nd.
Stop by and watch if you’d like. We train at the Carling Heights Optimist Centre in London, Ontario. The kids class is 9-10 and the adult class is 10-11 and then an optional second hour 11-12. Visitors are always welcome.
It’s the fourth kyu test in Aikido. It’s the one which after I pass, they’ll remove the white stripe from my green belt. I’ll be a “full green,” as they say.
An aside: This expression, “full green,” reminds me of the children’s book, Verdi.
Young Verdi doesn’t want to grow up big and green. He likes his bright yellow skin and sporty stripes. Besides, all the green snakes he meets are lazy, boring, and rude. When Verdi finds a pale green stripe stretching along his whole body, he tries every trick he can think of to get rid of it–and ends up in a heap of trouble. Despite his efforts, Verdi turns green, but to his delight, he discovers that being green doesn’t mean he has to stop being himself. “Cannon is on a roll, her gift for creating memorable characters and scenes on glorious display in this tale of a feisty python hatchling.”
Back to Aikido: There are two different things about this test. It’s the first test on which there is a choice on the examiner’s part on what techniques are called, after the mandatory techniques. That’ll be tricky. Did I mention that at this level the test is called in Japanese? But it’s not the thing about which I’m most nervous.
Instead, it’s the first test with the advanced number three break fall on it. With this break fall someone is holding your hand and throwing you. You don’t have that hand to guide you through your roll. It’s tricky. It requires some confidence. No hesitation they keep telling me. Just go. I’m getting there.
I’m spending time each class working on falls. I’ve been rolling over folded mats and over a “jo.” A jo is a wooden staff used in Japanese martial arts. In my case the ends are being held by large men in “angry white pajamas” and my job is to roll forwards over the jo. It looks the limbo except I’m going over the top, not under. They’ve also had me rolling over people, more large men. “Don’t worry, you won’t break them.”
Here’s the jo in action in this video, Aikido Advice for Women and a Few Men.
I’m the experienced one. I rode for a couple of years pretty consistently at the Forest City Velodrome in the years before my last sabbatical. (See some photos here). I attended the weeknight training sessions and even did some local racing . I raced in the 2007 Ontario Track Championships and finished 48.60 in the 500 m. ( See here. And here for my previous 500 m time.) It’s not that speedy in the scheme of things but not too shabby for a midlife beginner.
Once hooked I sought out tracks elsewhere while on sabbatical. In total I’ve ridden on four. Forest City here in London, Narrabundah Velodrome in Canberra, Australia (with added snakes in the infield, we might jokingly call FCV the “salad bowl of death” but it’s a snake-free salad bowl at least), Seddon Park in Mosgiel, NZ (see photos here) and Invercargill, NZ (see photos here). The two NZ tracks were both standard issue 250 m. That’s the Olympic size. Narrabundah is 333 m so long and flattish and Forest City is the world’s shortest permanent indoor track at 138 m. It’s also the steepest.
The first and the last are indoor wooden tracks, the middle two outdoor concrete ones. The wood ones feel nicer, they’re faster for sure, and it’s great to have an indoor training option when the weather is bad. I did like being outside though even though it seemed odd having wind be an issue on a track.
If you’re curious, they are all banked to be ridden in the same direction, counter clockwise.
The cool thing about having Forest City Velodrome’s terrifyingly steep track as your home base is that other tracks quickly waive their training requirements. Where do you usually ride? Forest City Velodrome in Canada. Oh, go on in, have fun. You’ll be fine here.
That’s part of the story about why I didn’t go back post sabbatical. After the 250 m tracks, Forest City seemed scary. I’m also not a big fan of late evening adrenaline. Coming home from the track late at night I couldn’t sleep for hours. It threw off my whole schedule.
So I was excited to get back inside the velodrome this week and give it a go again. I loved the idea of a field trip with friends and Tracy and I were there with guest blogger Nat and her clan, guest blogger Kim, riding friend Erin, and Tracy. But it turned out not to be so much fun. Something happened to the tires on my track bike during the year or more of non-use. They became slippery and I slipped twice, once on the concrete infield and once on the track itself. The first time I attributed it to trying to corner too quickly on the cement which is always slippery but the second time, when it happened on wood, I knew there was something up with my bike.
If there is a feminist lesson to be learned here it’s to check out your own equipment, take responsibility for routine bike maintenance. That said, truth be told, even if I had checked them I’m not sure I would have known to look for that. Yes, you roughen up bike tires with sandpaper before using them on the track but I’d done that. Turns out rubber gets weird and slippy left alone and that was new to me. If new riders learned a lesson watching me fall, it was that falls aren’t so bad when it’s just you. Yes, a few bruises, a scraped finger but mostly wounded pride and severe annoyance at my bike.
I was reminded how much I like track riding. I really enjoyed seeing my friends ride the track. Whee! Zoom! And Kim and I are headed back next Sunday for more.
Salad bowl of death, round two!
The Newbie (Tracy)
Why would I go to a place that people were calling the Velodrome “The Salad Bowl of Death”? Because, as with many of the improbable things I’ve done over the past couple of years, it’s an interesting new thing to try and had great promise as an intensely blog-worthy outing. Of course it was Sam’s idea, but she didn’t have to do a lot of coaxing.
She pulled a group together and gave us some tips — bring your own pedals, shoes, and helmets; be prepared for it to be freezing in the Velodrome. Since until Sunday I had no idea how to remove my pedals, she suggested I bring my whole bike.
This set me up for two rounds of mansplaining from more experienced track cyclists. When you walk into the Velodrome it’s not obvious where to go. There’s no front desk with people at it. I’m sure I would have found my way eventually, but I ran into a guy in full kit on my way in, so I asked him.
He looked down at my bike (both literally and figuratively) and said, “You can’t ride that in here.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that, but I need to take off my pedals.” That seemed to satisfy him, but I’m sure he was wondering why I hadn’t just done that at home. “Follow me,” he said. And showed me the way to the track. End of first mansplaining incident.
When I got to the track, I saw Sam in the middle. There were at least fifteen cyclists whipping around the short, sloped track (the salad bowl, because it’s a bowl and it’s made of wood). To get down to the middle, you have to wait until you get a space between the cyclists and then run for your life. That was terrifying moment #1. Finally another colleague of ours, recognizing that I wasn’t going anywhere, came up to help me out. He even grabbed my bike for me, carried it down, and offered to remove the pedals so I could put them on the rental bike. Thank you, Ben.
I should say that I would have removed my own pedals if someone had supplied me with the right tools and pointed me in the right direction. I’m pretty good that way. But I was happy to let others give it a go.
I’ve never tried to remove the pedals. Ben passed the task on to another guy. They were on there pretty tight, apparently. They also needed to be removed not in the usual way (with a pedal wrench) but with a very large allen key (I may have been able to do that at home, actually).
When the guy who helped to it but whose name I didn’t catch finally got them off, he said to me, “Next time don’t screw them on so tight. That’s why you couldn’t get them off yourself.”
This made me feel the need to explain myself: “I have never tried to get them off and I didn’t screw them on. I haven’t touched my pedals since I got the bike last year.”
All this goes to the same feminist lesson that Sam learned and that, frankly, I already know: be capable enough to handle your own equipment. I should have known how to remove the pedals and done it myself. Mansplain #2 over.
Track bikes are different from road bikes. A little bit scarier in that there are no gears or brakes and if the bikes moving, the pedals are moving. Once I got my pedals on the other bike, I felt a wave of fear at the thought of actually clipping into a bike that had no brakes. And the guys (because they were at that point all guys) who were flying around the track were really moving.
It was comforting that Sam, Natalie, and Kim were all there. And I was glad that I’d seen the Rick Mercer Report on the Velodrome. If you are not Canadian and are unaware of who Rick Mercer is, here you go:
Our instructor, Rob, has taught the Track 1 training class umpteen times. There were twelve of us altogether, including Kim, Natalie’s family, Sam’s friend Erin, and a bunch of people we didn’t know. The track cleared and our class started.
The first task was to ride on the flat of the concrete really slowly so that Rob could make sure our seat was the right height. We did that for about five minutes and I wasn’t willing to clip both feet in quite yet. I had to make a slight seat adjustment and try again. On the concrete, we moved slowly. And then Rob asked us all to dismount so we could review The Rules. These aren’t the same rules as the road cyclists’ rules.
No. These are more simple. There aren’t 95 of them. There are just four. 1. Don’t get hurt and don’t hurt anyone else (I think they’re rolled into one); 2. Shoulder check; 3. Always get on and off at curve #2; 4. I can’t remember rule #4, but I do know that in our class we weren’t allowed to pass anyone or to ride above the black line.
We also learned about the track. There’s a flat part called “The Apron” that is the first step above the concrete. It’s about a foot or so wide and you get up on that before you actually get onto the track. The blue area where it starts to slope up is called the Cote d’Azur (I don’t know if this is in all Velodromes or if it’s just a cute name for the blue part in the FCV). From there, there’s a few feet up until you get the black line. Our task for the day was to learn to ride the black line. Since it’s hard to stay on the line exactly, for most of us this meant riding between the black line and the next line up — the red line.
Despite my initial flashbacks to my hellish first motorcycle “learn to ride” class (where they said “anyone can do it” but in fact, I was an exception and kept dropping the bike), I actually got comfortable on the flat fairly quickly. By the time we finished the exercise where we did the pylon course on the concrete a few times at really slow speeds, I felt comfortable on the bike. I was especially comfortable while moving. I never did quite master stopping, but that’s okay. There is room to coast to a stop. I always unclipped in time and didn’t take any spills.
They built up gradually. After riding slowly around the pylons, the next step was to ride slowly around the apron. Then they set up pylons in two spots on the straightaways so we would ride up to the black line and then back down to the apron. It’s really sloped. If you’re not used to riding up on a sloped bank, as I’m not, it’s sort of unsettling. I kind of screamed a few times. I thought my bike would lose its grip and I’d slide down past the Cote d’Azur to the Apron.
Whenever I got the part where I had to bank up, Rob yelled “pedal faster!” If you don’t pedal fast enough, you will slide down. In fact, they impressed upon us that if you crash or fall or anything like that, you will slide. Hence, if you see someone in front of you crash, you always go around them by going above, not below. If you go below, they will slide into you. At the steepest part (the ends) the track is 55 degrees steep. You cannot scale it on foot.
Before I knew it, we were riding around the track in a group of six with the assignment of staying on the black line. I tried. But the bike’s steering is really responsive. I went by Rob. He hollered at me (he told us ahead of time that he would be hollering and it was nothing personal) to relax my elbow a bit. It was at that point that I realized I was kind of tense. I put some give into my elbows.
But for the most part I remained a bit stiff on the bike. I did the drills and held the line and, here’s where I’m thankful for my years on the motorcycle (I did finally become a skilled motorcycle rider), undertook the shoulder checks with a religious fervor. I even got a few “good job” reassurances from Rob, a high five from Natalie, and some encouragement from Sam who told me I looked good out there.
How does it feel to fly around the track? It’s an adrenaline rush. As you’re going into the curves at each end, it seems scary and treacherous. But I kept telling myself that as long as I kept pedaling, there really wasn’t anything that could go wrong. There was no one above or below me. The track is totally smooth with no hazards. The momentum of the bike kept me up on the slope as it should.
Our final drill we got to each get on and off the track and do a full lap all by ourselves, with no one else on the track. And then, at the very end, after we all got little cards confirming that we’d completed “Track 1,” we got to get back on the track and ride. I did a few laps as fast as I could and it’s exhausting.
The last “pointer” Rob gave me was to relax again. Even by the end, I was still looking kind of tense. And that comment ushered in a transformative moment — I think I’m always a bit like that on the bike, not just at the Velodrome. Maybe, just maybe, if I can learn to relax my shoulders and keep some give in my elbows and not hang on quite so tight I’ll feel more comfortable on the bike!
If I didn’t have so many other things on the go, I might go out on a Tuesday night and do the next level, Track 2. But as it is, I’m taking a cycling class that Sam’s doing with her coach on Tuesday nights for the next little while, I’ve got my swimming sessions twice a week, and at the end of the month I’m starting a marathon training session. So the Velodrome will have to wait. But I’ve got a taste for it.
Oh, and it wasn’t cold.
The Spectator (Natalie)
I had enjoyed a 30km ride the day before and was feeling a bit sore but mostly opted out of the Track 1 as I don’t feel I have the control and muscle endurance to do velodrome cycling.
I marshaled my partner and 2 teenaged boys, aged 13 and 15, to go for their first time at Track 1. What struck me first was the wide age range of participants from my 13 year old son to folks into their senior years, at least 2 in their 60s. I was also struck by the wide range of cycling experience and competency off the track from a young woman who is an accomplished rider wearing a full sponsorship kit, to Kim and Sam, both really experienced and skilled cyclists to people new to the sport.
I liked watching how the training rolled out and knowing the progression from getting familiar with a track bike to actually completing a few trips around the sprint line.
Watching my family do it I was so impressed with their willingness to try something new. Circumstances led to me being able to chat with Sam about cycling this fall and how I can totally see myself doing a 100km ride in the spring.
I’m intrigued by the technical aspects of track riding, the level of control, situational awareness and leg strength. I’m not ready to try Track 1 yet but watching a diverse group of folks all get it the first day out was very encouraging.
To feel ready I think I may have to get pedals and shoes, be able to click in and out, do some hands free cycling but mostly rollers, rollers, rollers. I have the terrible habit of coasting and rollers help me stop that. I also weigh a lot and need to work on my explosive strength to get up to speed before the first turn, all manageable. I never thought velodrome cycling would be something I’d want to even try.
Thanks Sam, Tracy and Kim for showing me what it can look like!
Now, blessings light on him that first invented sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even. ~Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605
Lots of recent fuss over getting enough sleep concerns links between lack of sleep and weight gain. As sleep goes down, weight goes up. If you’re not interested in weight or body composition, look away. Nothing to see here. I’m not interested in dieting but I am interested in changes we can make that have an effect on nutrition, metabolism, and ultimately weight and body composition.
With an ever-increasing number of studies finding a direct connection between sleep deprivation and weight gain, it’s difficult to deny the cause-and-effect relationship. People who get at least seven hours of sleep per night tend to have less body fat than people who don’t. There are, of course, other factors involved in determining who becomes overweight and who doesn’t, like food intake, exercise and genes. But sleep is a more integral of the process than most people realize. In a study involving 9,000 people between 1982 and 1984 (NHANES I), researchers found that people who averaged six hours of sleep per night were 27 percent more likely to be overweight than their seven-to-nine hour counterparts; and those averaging five hours of sleep per night were 73 percent more likely to be overweight.
People who are on a low-calorie diet will lose the same amount of weight whether they sleep an average of 8.5 hours or 5.5 hours each night. However, those on 8.5 hours will lose much more fat, while those on 5.5 hours lose mainly muscle, instead of fat, according to an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The researchers, from the University of Chicago stress that adequate sleep is a key contributor to managing body weight.
Most people know they should cut calories and exercise more to trim down, but there’s now significant scientific evidence that another critical component to weight control is avoiding sleep deprivation, sleep scientists say. “There is no doubt that insufficient sleep promotes hunger and appetite, which can cause excessive food intake resulting in weight gain,” says Eve Van Cauter, director of the Sleep, Metabolism and Health Center at the University of Chicago. She has spent 15 years studying the topic. Sleep deprivation probably affects every process in the body, she says. “Our body is not wired for sleep deprivation. The human is the only mammal that does this.” Her research and that of others may help explain why so many people who are chronically sleep-deprived also are overweight, and it could be part of the reason sleepy college students, new parents and shift workers pack on pounds.
Fourth, and this fascinated me, we’re the only animals who do this:
“The human is unique in sleep depriving itself.” According to Van Cauter, the only times that animals lose sleep is either when there is a shortage of food or a stressful situation. Such behavior can also be seen in humans, though much more frequently.“Our biology is wired to interpret sleep deprivation as either corresponding to a lack of food or corresponding to major stress,” Van Cauter says. Such behavior explains why the late-night bowl of ice cream can seem so appealing.
Hormones play a significant role in regulating the body’s food intake, and Van Cauter says that regulation of the hormones that control hunger and appetite starts in the brain, specifically the hypothalamus. In the hypothalamus are orexin neurons, which maintain wakefulness and become hyperactive when the body is sleep deprived. When the orexin neurons are more active, they stimulate production of hormones that are associated with increased hunger and appetite. When more of these hormones are created, humans tend to crave sugary and fatty foods. Van Cauter says the reason for such a dietary phenomenon is that the brain is fueled primarily by sugars and fats, and needs those to stay alert. Because of sleep’s profound impact on diet, Van Cauter says the success of any weight loss plan is dependent largely on the amount of sleep that the individual gets.
Many people may experience difficulty getting the proper amount of sleep and may be inclined to look for other ways to keep the weight off. Studies have shown that the hormone lepton can reduce appetite, but its use in overweight subjects is limited because they have a resistance to the hormone.
