Month: December 2014

Guest Post

I punch like a woman! (Guest post)

n000o1 Comment

I’ve always been a very physical person. Ever since I was a little girl, around 4 or 5 years old actually, I’ve always been fascinated by martial arts. I remember watching action movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean Claude van Damme. I would spend countless hours with my brother trying to replicate the moves we saw on television. At one point I actually wanted to physically be like Jean Claude van Damme. Five years later I was still committed to martial arts that I even drank raw eggs because I believed that would help me build muscles. Needless to say this phase completely ruined my relationship with raw eggs.

Although I had been involved in various sports throughout, I discovered that I was mostly drawn to American football. I pursued some employment as a referee for Intramural Flag Football at Western University. During my tenure, I refereed women’s teams, co-ed teams and men’s teams. As I was refereeing, I realized something fairly quickly. Whenever I made any calls that teams wanted to contest, they would usually send the men over. Being barely 5’4” tall, these men would usually tower over me. In fact sometimes they would try to intimidate me by:

  • entering my personal space
  • being sure to stand very tall and push their chests out and
  • use loud voices to try and prove their point.

While doing all of this they would question whether or not I even knew the rules being a female referee. I soon realized that these guys did not respect me as a referee because they assumed I did not know the rules nor did I follow what they considered a stereotypical “man’s sport”. Well, pish posh to that! I knew American football enough to know the NFL and CFL rules and also the rules for the intramural leagues. Even with this, I constantly had to prove myself at almost every game. Yet when my male counterparts refereed the games, there was rarely as much talk-back as when I did.

The attitudes that these men on the intramural teams displayed are not at all foreign. Often from a young age females are socialized to be feminine and to avoid physical sports or any physicality really. Females are socialized to be gentle. Luckily for me, I never ascribed to that sensibility. I always believed that I could do “anything a guy can do”. Does a guy want to spike the volleyball hard at me? Fine, give it your best shot! I will receive that spike and I might just spike hard right back at you. I have carried this attitude with me for every sport that I have pursued.

Fast forward a couple of decades and some later, here I was again rekindling my love for martial arts. Yet somehow when I entered a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym here in London almost 2 years ago, I completely lost my confidence. My friend invited me to join him at the MMA gym where he worked out. I remember the first day: I walked into the gym with my friend and immediately noticed two things:

  1. the girls were all together in one section of the mat and
  2. the guys were spread out all around the gym.

I thought, ok, maybe these girls are a bit shy and would rather socialize together. As time went on and I became more comfortable in the space, my coach would actively segregate the girls from the guys. Girls were encouraged to do Zumba as a warm up, while the guys had some skipping, push-ups, squats and crunches to do. When getting us ready for sparring, he would say, “fighters get ready, and girls you can partner up and roll on the mats”. For those not in the know, rolling refers to free practice of Jiu Jitsu moves on the mat. Listening to Coach constantly separate the girls from the guys drove me insane! A few months later, I finally could not stand it anymore. I approached Coach and explained to him that I would prefer we were all referred to as fighters in the space and that no separation be made. I told him that when I signed up there I came to train, not to dance. I asked that he treat me much like the other “fighters” and push me as much as he pushed the others. If I could no longer handle the training, then I would let him know.

It amazes me just how certain spaces, particularly any exercise spaces that involve weights, physical strength and/or aggression. It shouldn’t, especially considering how children are sometimes socialized, but it still does. Girls and women, are often not considered strong enough to compete. Yet when women do excel at these physical sports, they are considered too aggressive. It seems there is no happy medium; either the women cannot not do it, or they do it to an extreme. Sometimes these women are seen as being butch, or being close to what a man is supposed to look and act like. For example, any time I would prepare to get in the cage and spar with the guys, I would be told I “punch like a guy”, and that they should be careful. Instead of always comparing women and men, it would be wonderful for women to also be recognized for our strengths. So NO, I do NOT “punch like a guy”. I punch like a woman…a strong woman!

image

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Beckxsm is an MMA enthusiast. You can find her watching UFC fights, Invicta fights and some kickboxing on the weekends. On good days, she heads to the gym because she loves the feeling of a solid workout. When she is not doing that, she is either thinking about how to make the world a more positive place. When she is not off in her head somewhere, she likes to compose music, play guitar and sing.

Uncategorized

Let’s Be Realistic! It’s Okay to Scale Back

Tracy I14 Comments

70percentOver the last week or two, I didn’t get in all of my workouts. I skipped a couple of swim sessions. I missed a bike class. I didn’t attend all of my run clinics.  I did virtually no weight training.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I moved.  So in the run up to moving day, I spent many days packing. And in the days following the move, I’ve been many more days unpacking and trying to figure out where to put things in my new, smaller space.

The decision to move from a house to a condo is part of a larger plan that my partner, Renald, and I have to simplify our lives.  We feel positive about the change. But it’s also brought with it some emotions.

After I packed up the last box of stuff (oh, there was stuff!) from my cozy home office at the house, complete with a gas fireplace and lots of windows that looked out onto our treed lane way, I sat on the floor and wept.

When I went downstairs to make myself a cup of tea, I stood in the kitchen that I had played a major part in designing over a decade ago, insisting on an island large enough to accommodate any dinner guest who said, “what can I do to help?”  Again, while the kettle was boiling, I sobbed. I will miss that place.

Downsizing can come in all forms. What Renald and I are doing is a rather big picture shift for us. We are going from living in a house and having tenants in other units to living in a condo on the 23rd floor with a tiny storage locker in place of the boundless storage we had in the basement, two garages, and a shed. It’s putting us in touch with how much useless stuff we have, a good deal of which is now in the hands of others.

The impact the move has had on my workout schedule forced a different kind of paring down for a couple of weeks.  It’s not realistic, at least for me, to balance work, a major move, a full workout schedule, and — lest we not forget what is just around the corner — holiday prep and think that it’s all going to get done perfectly.

I want to be kind to myself.

This week I’m experimenting with getting in the full slate of swim-bike-run workouts. That’s two swims, three bike sessions on the trainer, and three runs. But what that has meant, and that I need to be realistic about going into 2015, is that it probably means I can’t do three weight training sessions a week. I could squeeze them in, but then I get no recovery time. That strikes me as inviting in injuries and the exhaustion of over-training.

Sam has blogged about the impact that life events can have on your plans.  Sometimes we have to make tough choices in order to free ourselves for other things.

A lot of us face this over the holidays. I have seen so many bedraggled, frantic looking people rushing from here to there over the past month. And I haven’t even stepped foot in the mall yet! People are making quick appearances at parties so they could make it to the next event.  Sometimes, friends I’ve talked to about fitting in all the holiday commitments are close to tears with fatigue.

I felt heartened by a recent article Sam passed my way, “Why giving just 70% can be better for your life.” 

I’m a big advocate of doing less, and not just when life happens. See my post “On Doing Less.” Life is always happening.  No, we’re not always moving and it’s not always the holidays and a family member isn’t always sick. But in a typical week or month there is an early morning meeting that disrupts the finely tuned schedule or a vacation or a wedding or a car accident or a crisis at work. We face deadlines — taxes, Christmas, work assignments. Or we just feel tired and need to take it easy.

So the idea that doing 70% might be better works for me. Author Adriana Barton writes about the 70% rule:

The idea, promoted by fitness and work-life-balance gurus, is to stop “giving it your all” in every area of life and see what it feels like to devote 70-per-cent effort in most areas, most of the time. And since the pressure to be all things to all people is linked to anxiety, sleep disorders, irritability and other forms of psychological distress, a 70-per-cent approach could be a strong defence against these all-too-common health concerns (when there isn’t an underlying mental illness).

The 70-per-cent rule, based on a somewhat arbitrary ratio, is not the same as the Pareto principle, well known in business circles, which dictates that 80 per cent of the outcomes come from 20 per cent of the inputs. It’s better aligned with the principle espoused by fitness gurus who know their clients are more likely to stick with a goal, and less likely to get injured, if they give up the idea of pushing themselves to give maximum effort all the time. With the 70-per-cent rule, the focus is not on maximizing returns but on achieving reasonable goals, with well-being top of mind.

As you can see, one of the main motivations for the 70% rule is that it is achievable.  I have seen myself and others set themselves up for failure by basing their goals around unrealistic expectations.  Just the other day I counseled one of my students to stop treating every waking hour as if it was a time that she could be working. That is a soul-destroying approach to work that often brings out the defiant procrastinator in us.

It leaves us feeling like failures, stressed out all the time, and generally unhappy.  According to the article:

Constantly pushing ourselves to go the extra mile can have a negative impact on all areas of life, said Scott Schieman, a University of Toronto professor who researches the interface between work, stress and health. People who never take the time to recharge tend to feel overwhelmed and inadequate both at work and at home, he said. Stress may cause us to disengage from the people we love, and “you need those quality relationships to offset the demands and pressures of everyday life,” he pointed out.

This idea works for me. I like to think about the areas where “good enough” will do.  I find that approach promotes consistency and allows me to enjoy what I’m doing (even Christmas shopping, even unpacking, even writing a book review that is — wait for it — over a year late).  This “good enough” mantra can reduce stress:

As daily demands send more of us to the brink, the concept of living “smarter, not harder” is dovetailing with the mindfulness movement and a new proliferation of life-balance books, such as Christine Carter’s The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work, due for release in January. Common themes include scheduling mini-breaks, defining the limits of a project at the outset, being clear about what you won’t take on and identifying areas where a B-plus effort is adequate, saving energy for projects that demand an A-plus.

Even before I read this article, I didn’t feel bad during that hectic week when, for both of my early morning swims, I shut the alarm off and went back to sleep.  Not one blink of guilt.  And when I backed out of a bike class the day after the move, I rather wondered why I hadn’t made that decision the week before (remember: let’s be realistic!) instead of waiting to see how things were going just 24 hours after the movers left and I was still surrounded by towers of boxes.

I’m giving myself a break on the holiday expectations too. The tree is up, but only because I love it and I find it gives me joy. But nothing else is on deck yet. I’m venturing into the mall today, but I noticed with relief that my wonderful nephews all included “money” on their Christmas lists. So if it comes to that, money they will get.

Keeping things simple and manageable will continue to be my mantra for 2015. I feel much better about life when I play the long game — consistent effort, not trying to do the impossible.

Not everyone agrees with this approach. When I was searching for a good image for this post, I came across several versions of “Be Realistic. Demand the Impossible” and “Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.”  I’m not sure I believe that realism leads to mediocrity. I’ve achieved far more since I started taking small, consistent steps and adopting a forgiving attitude towards missteps than I ever did when I drove myself into the ground as a younger woman.

To read the rest of the article about giving your 70%, go here. Doing less and lowering your expectations may seem counterproductive, but in fact, it’s not. It’s good for your health.

 

 

 

 

aging

Feeling Fifty? What does that mean exactly?

Sam B6 Comments

With my 50th birthday behind me, I’m getting asked a lot how it feels. What is it like on this side of 50?

On the one hand, I have lots in common with teen me. I feel childlike in a bunch of ways.

On the other hand, I’m not shocked or surprised that I’m now 50.

I think having children around helps. Children are little mortality markers. When they’re growing up so fast it’s easy to see the years ticking by. It’s also nice for me because I’ve got my parents next door and I can see my place in the generations. Right now, I’m 50, my mother is 72, and my oldest child is 22.

Oddly it helps too that I’ve always liked older people. Even in my teens and early twenties I preferred the company of much older people. They seemed more interesting, more confident and self assured, less self obsessed. I hope I have some of those qualities too.

Despite that, my comfort with being 50 and my like of older people, I’m not sure if I’m ready yet to call myself “old.” And “middle aged” sounds yucky too even though I’m clearly there.

Do we need new language around aging? Or should we just reclaim the terms we’ve got, make them our own? I enjoyed reading Mary Beard on reclaiming the label “old.”

Mary Beard calls for a grey revolution: ‘Let’s reclaim the word old’

“Professor Mary Beard wants to reclaim the word “old” in the same way as “black” and “queer” were turned into positive words.Speaking at Cheltenham Literary Festival, the classicist said reaching old age should be a source of pride and suggested Agatha Christie’s character Miss Marple could be a role model. The 59-year-old also said attempt to pay someone a compliment by saying they did not look their age was “one of the weirdest bits of double-think in our culture”. “I’m really trying to do that to reclaim the word old. I think about it in terms of other kinds of reclamations of vocabulary we’ve had over the years, such as ‘black’ or ‘queer,’” she said, according to The Daily Telegraph.“I’m rather keen for a campaign to do that for old, instead of ‘old’ instantly connoting the hunched old lady and gentleman on the road sign, or the picture that you get on the adverts you get for senior railcards.“I hope by the time I die, old will be something that makes people fill with pride.”

 

Old is beautiful, and often wise – Mary Beard is right to reclaim the word, Michele Hanson writes, “It’s so deeply ingrained. I’ve been banging on about the wonders of being old for about 20 years now, and it hasn’t made a smidgin of difference. Back then, people would say “You don’t look 52!” On and on it went, and now it’s “You don’t look 72”, but it’s a backhanded compliment. As Beard says, what’s wrong with looking 72? Why not just say “You look fabulous today,” and then shut up? You young pillock. I blame our culture. Elsewhere, wrinkles would be rightly seen as a sign of wisdom and experience. Here they mean dreary, unattractive and an increasingly ghastly burden, who’s going to require your time or money or both to look after, as he/she turns inexorably into a dribbling, toothless, demented nothing-person.”

diets · eating · holidays

Eat! Don’t Eat! Holiday Magazine Mixed Messages

Tracy I7 Comments

xmas-dessertFor over a month now Canadian magazines like Canadian Living and Chatelaine, similar to Women’s Day in the US, have featured holiday recipes–from baking to appetizers to Christmas dinner and Boxing Day brunch (that’s the day after Christmas, for those who live south of the Canada-US border)–these recipes don’t skimp on sugar, fat, chocolate.  See Chatelaine’s “Nine candy recipes to sweeten up the holidays” and Canadian Living’s “Seven easy and impressive trifle recipes.”

And then there are the magazines, sometimes the very same magazines, that tell us how to navigate the holiday parties and buffet tables, the lunches and the dinners and the cocktail hours and the potlucks, the special treats left out at the office, free for all takers.

These articles prime us to deal with the excessive amounts of food available through the holidays. And they’re usually put in terms of survival, like “Survive the Holidays without Gaining Weight” and, on the Chatelaine website, “The Twelve Days of Fitness.”

“The Twelve Days of Fitness” is a program designed to help us “beat the bulge” through the holidays:

Get ready to beat the holiday bulge! Together with celebrity trainer Ramona Braganza, we’ve designed a 12-day pre-holiday workout challenge to get you through the indulgent festive season and kick-start your fitness routine for the New Year. With Ramona’s 3-2-1 Method, you’ll get a full-body workout that combines three minutes of cardio, six minutes of circuit exercises and a one minute core exercise — for a total of just 10 minutes a day. Plus, every day Ramona will share a fitness or nutrition tip in an exclusive video (the same tips she gives to her star clients Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johansson). Get ready to follow along with our handy workout chart, below, and feel your best for the holidays.

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but to me these mixed messages — about indulgence on the one hand and keeping things in check on the other hand — are just annoying.

First of all, the whole idea of decadence and indulgence is irritating. As I’ve said before in my post on “Why Food Is Beyond Good and Evil,” if we don’t demonize certain foods they’re not as attractive.  But these foods are always set up as temptations that must be resisted.

I’m a big fan of intuitive eating, which encourages people to be mindful and pay attention to their hunger when eating. I find that if I am able to pay attention, I can pretty much eat what I want at holiday parties. The only thing I need to be aware of is the quantity.

For me, one of the worst feelings I can have is the feeling of having eaten too much. I’m not talking about the regret of it all. No, I mean literally the physical feeling of having put more food into my tummy than it can comfortably accommodate.

The idea that you can counterbalance day after day of mindless eating beyond comfort by doing a few workouts is also misleading. It just doesn’t work that way.  You can work out all you like, but eating more than feels comfortable is still bound to cause…well…discomfort.

My own approach to holiday eating is still a bit haphazard. As I said before, if I pay attention, then I can eat what I like and stop when I’ve had enough.  If I don’t pay attention, that’s less likely to happen.  I’m probably going to switch to auto-pilot and go beyond my comfort zone.

But I certainly don’t approach particular foods with the “I shouldn’t” attitude. And I like to think of the holidays as another one of those occasions, like vacations or illness or travel or being too busy at work, that can throw me off of my routine.

Rather than clinging to a workout schedule in order to “undo” what I did at a party or a dinner the day before, I like to stick as closely to my regular schedule of swimming, biking, and running as possible because it grounds me and makes me feel good. Sometimes, it’s the only part of my routine that I can keep in place.

The more grounded I feel, the more likely I am to take care of myself at all of the different events.  Stopping eating before I need to undo my belt is one way of taking care of myself.

But back to the mixed messages we see in the media at this time of year.  I think it’s worse for women. “Eat!” and  “Don’t Eat!” are just another version of the double bind that feminists have called our attention to for decades.

No different from “be sexy but not too sexy” and “be assertive but not aggressive” and “be career-oriented but not at the expense of your children,” the magazines encourage us to cook elaborate, high calorie foods, mostly for other people. We are either not to eat them, or, if we do, we are supposed to “reverse the damage” through exercise.

I understand that all of the festivities can be stressful and that tables full of food can overwhelm people. Of course, there’s a very good chance that mindfulness will elude us at times. But it’s a much more self-nuturing to approach the season with confidence that we can look after ourselves and slow down enough to make conscious choices about how best to do that.

Instead of getting caught up in the whole “eat” and “don’t eat” narratives, why not try instead just to “pay attention”?

pay-attention

 

 

Guest Post

Have Diva Cup, will travel? (Guest Post)

natalieh (she/her)16 Comments

Have we blogged about periods? I feel like someone must have…Sam?

(Editor’s note: No. We haven’t. We’ve blogged a bit about menopause. See here and here. But not menstruation. That’s because we’re older than you!–Sam and Tracy)

This is making me yearn for menopause! Anyway, as I’m running, swimming and cycling for longer periods of time I’m noticing the advantages of using a Diva Cup to manage the fluid dynamics of an ever unpredictable period. The great thing is, even during longer races or workouts, I don’t need to bring extra supplies, just empty that cup into to johnny-on-the-spot, wash my hands and away I go. Going away for a weekend to run a race, have Diva Cup, will travel!

I’ve also recently become a fan of Lunapanties with their extra absorbent gusset. I’ve had random bladder incontinence walking into work and I can never tell when that will strike. I wear them all the time, they are comfy, look great and help deal with all kinds of moisture issues and they come in sizes that fit me. Heady times.

(Editor’s note: But hey, I have written about incontinence before. See http://fitisafeministissue.com/2013/07/03/peeing-during-workouts-not-just-an-older-womans-issue/)

Does menstruation or bladder stuff impede your workouts? Make you plan a bit differently?

yoga

Animals doing yoga better than me

Sam B

I should say “non-human animals.” Because us people, we’re animals too.

cycling · Guest Post

How to ride your road bike up really, really steep hills – with minimal weeping (Guest post)

Kim Solga

kim12

 

Regular readers of this blog know that Sam is not a hill climber, and that Tracy, while she has been assured she *will* be a hill climber, is not one yet. Hills are in short supply in the part of the world where Sam, Tracy and I ride our bikes together: the flat terrain and gently rolling slopes of farmland surrounding London, Ontario (100 miles west of Toronto).

I didn’t learn to ride a road bike in little London, however; I took to riding after my husband and I moved to (the rather larger) London in south-east England in 2012. That means I cut my climbing teeth in the short, sharp Surrey Hills, on the ridges in Kent, and in the South Downs, which features the gut-busting Ditchling Beacon, among other gems. While training for our epic London-to-Paris 24-hour challenge ride (read about it here), Jarret and I also did some riding in the Alps, where I learned the difference between “punching” 12% grades for 1/2 to 3/4 miles, and sustaining 8%-12% grades for more than 5 miles up mountain switchbacks. All in all, I’ve ridden up a lot of hills. I’ve learned what it takes to make it to the top, whether quickly or slowly, tightly and neatly or messily, with plenty of crying en route. But I have gotten up every hill I have ever attempted – though in one recent, brutal case that necessitated me going back down again immediately after a failed first attempt in order to maintain my unbeaten-by-the-hill streak. That hill (Yorkshill, in Kent) was by far the steepest thing I’ve ever climbed, and it has inspired me to write this post.

I want to stress that I am not, like Tracy, physically built for climbing: I weigh more than the average female cyclist, and though I’m extremely lean and strong I’m simply not light. I’ve got a sprinter’s body, and as anyone who watches the Tour knows, sprinters don’t climb hills willingly. So my fondness for the hills is perhaps a bit out of (physical) character; what I love about hills is that I have the mental toughness as well as the physical skills – which I have worked on over time, since they did not come naturally – to climb, and I get tremendous pleasure and satisfaction from reaching the top. The hills are a fun challenge for me, and I love a fun challenge on my bike.

I also want to stress that I know I’m a minority in the cycling world, or at least in the cycling world in which I live: most people I ride with groan at the sight of a big hill in the distance. (Jarret, my husband, is not one of these: he kicks hill arse.) But the truth is that a hill isn’t ever going to be as physically challenging as it is mentally and emotionally daunting; people who hate hills mostly hate them because they fear them. I know what this fear feels like; I felt it on Yorkshill last month, encountering what seemed to me a truly unclimbable grade for the first time in a very, very long time. So what I’m going to do here is tell the story of that encounter, and then I’ll offer five top tips for those who want to work past the hill fear and see what they really can do.

kim13

Jarret has this book that features the top 50 climbs in the greater London (UK) area; for those who have never ridden in southern England, let me assure you there ARE 50 proper climbs (more, in fact), and they pretty much all suck. Most hills in the ridge-filled terrain near the Thames and the Channel feature grades in the teens and even low 20s; Yorkshill (henceforth known as The Climb), with two shots of (the book claims – reports vary) about 25% and an average grade in the mid-teens spread over just 500 yards, is one of the hardest in the region. When Jarret told me that he, our friend and coach Jo McRae, and I were going to do this hill on a 60+ mile ride through Kent, I didn’t think he was actually serious. But, alas, he was.

The Climb appeared about 2/3 the way through our ride. We hadn’t been hitting it too hard and I wasn’t that tired, but I was jet lagged from my recent flight over to the UK, bike in tow, and I was well aware that I hadn’t been doing a lot of hill work over the autumn in Ontario. So as we approached The Climb, I wasn’t feeling my usual confidence. If anything, I was feeling an unusual level of apprehension. Jo, who had done the ride before and knew what to expect, talked us through the terrain leading up to the really tough part of the hill, and she warned us that there would be mud and slick bits (it was late October). Then, we took a photo at the bottom near the sign marking the start of the climb, agreed it was every rider for her/himself, and set off.

The road was pleasant and barely inclined for the first portion; the tree canopy was lovely, and I let myself think, briefly, that this wasn’t going to be so bad. Then the road narrowed, the trees closed in, and the wall of road that is 25% steep reared into view. I panicked. I could not imagine making it. Nevertheless, I knew I had to try; Jo and Jarret were up ahead, their climbing bodies slipping from view. I did what I always do when I climb a tough new hill: I grabbed my handlebar tops, settled back on my saddle, started breathing deeply and rhythmically, and repeated my hill mantra. Every Hill Ends. Every Hill Ends.

Jo had warned us that this was one of those rare climbs where you simply cannot reach the top without standing. Many climbers stand, of course; it’s easier to use the weight of your body to propel your legs around the pedal circle. But climbing is also high-intensity cardio; you will hit your VO2 max heart rate quickly if you don’t moderate your time off saddle. (This is why lots of inexperienced hill climbers punch and then blow up, struggling desperately to finish the job.) Personally, I prefer to climb on-saddle, keeping my heart rate under control, with very brief bursts out of the saddle to get speed and power up. I knew that this hill would necessitate me getting up when *it* dictated, and not when I chose, which made me even more nervous. As I saw what looked like the worst bit approaching, I rose and rode; I hung on for as long as I could, watching my HR hit 180bpm, very near my max. Then, as things levelled a touch, I sat, imagining the worst was over.

But I was wrong. I’d misunderstood Jo’s description of the hill; there was another very, very steep bit coming. I panicked again and started to cry a bit; there’s no shame in the crying, but it doesn’t exactly help the heart rate or breathing. I knew I was in trouble. I rose, and at that minute my back wheel skidded out; I hadn’t kept my body positioned far enough back over my saddle, and thus there wasn’t sufficient weight over the back wheel to maintain traction. I put my foot down.

This was the moment I had a choice. Keep going, or start walking. I’ve never walked a hill; I didn’t want to start now. But I was also realistic about the situation: this would be the ugliest hill start ever. I was on a slope with at least a 12% grade at this moment, if not a higher; I might fall off again quickly, especially if I couldn’t clip in immediately. I made a deal with myself: we get on again and ride as well as we can. If we come off again, we walk, and that’s ok.

I made the hill start. I got another 50 yards or so before skidding out again and coming off. That was it; I could see the top but couldn’t imagine getting there on the bike. I walked, feeling defeated but knowing it was the only option.

Jo and Jarret hadn’t been at the top long when I got there; it turned out Jarret had also skidded near the top and walked the last few yards. Jo knew we both had the skill and the fitness to make the climb; what we needed was to psych ourselves up and talk ourselves through the technical bits, the bits with the traction-challenging standing climbs. She encouraged us to go back down and tackle it again right away; we both knew we’d likely never attempt this hill again if we didn’t do it immediately. Before I had a chance to rethink the idea, we were on our way. Jo stayed at the top; she would coach us as we came into view around the last bend, the most mentally gruelling part of any climb.

The ride down was terrifying; I leaned into my brakes the whole way, riding my drops with gritted teeth, body well back on the saddle for balance. When we reached the point where the trees opened into a wider canopy we turned around. Jarret went first; I let him ride out of sight before I started, knowing that otherwise the climb would become a race rather than a personal challenge for me, and it wasn’t a race I’d win today. I also took a moment to remind myself of everything that would be different this time: I knew what to expect; I knew there were two hard standing climbs and that I’d have to moderate my exertion on the first in order to make the second; I knew what the top looked like and what the bend before it looked like; and I knew, most importantly, that this hill ended. It really ended.

I made it. Here’s how.

(NB: this is an impressionistic list for those with The Fear, not a technical one for those very new to climbing. I recommend looking here and here for some thoughts on gear choices, shifting while standing, different cassette options, etc. All these practical things matter – especially if you haven’t really climbed before.)

1. I talked to myself the whole way up. Mostly silently, but sometimes out loud. I reminded myself of all the steep climbs I had already done, and that I knew I could do; I reminded myself that this hill was no different, just a bit steeper in spots. I reminded myself constantly that this hill ended – that in a couple of minutes it would be all over. Every. Hill. Ends.

2. I took my time. Sure, I’ve raced up hills and nearly puked at the top, but mostly hills feature on races because they separate those who can climb from those who can’t – they aren’t, except at elite levels, about speed. I worked on rhythm, on balance, on breathing. I focused as much as possible on the road immediately ahead of me – not on the road around the bend. (This is Jarret’s trick, too, and I think it’s crucial on really steep climbs.)

3. I didn’t speed up when I stood up. I kept one eye on my heart rate monitor, which is incredibly useful in situations like this. I saw my HR remain steady in the low to mid 170s – high, but nowhere near the puking stage. If I could keep it there, I knew I’d be fine. With my HR mostly in check I could focus on the technique required when standing: a low push-back climb, with a flat back. (When I got to the top Jo reminded me that I need to practice moving my body side-to-side across the handlebars, using the bike like a lever as I climb. Also good advice: that’s a skill that will need some practice but, Jarret assures me, will really help with really hard gradients.)

4. When I felt myself about to panic I talked myself right back down to my mental pace line. I spent a moment with the panic – it’s a natural reaction to having to ride your bike up a 25% incline! – but then I reminded myself again that I was going to make it. I just was: I kept telling myself that I was, and that made it, in the moment, true enough for me to keep going. (When, near the top, I started to doubt my own voice, Jo took over for me. And then I was there.)

5. I made it because I was ready for it – in all respects. This isn’t a hill I could have done 18 months ago. I have ridden a lot of intervening hills, all of them increasingly challenging, so this one was a natural progression upward for me.

Everyone with hill fear has an ascent they believe they cannot do but feel compelled to return to, because somewhere, deep down, they know they can, they will, make it up that hill, someday. My best advice is to use your own version of The Climb as a medium-term personal challenge. Set a day or a week to make it happen. Be ready to fall off, go down and try again, maybe more than once. If you don’t make it, spend some time thinking about why, dissecting the ride both technically (were you in the right gear at the right time?) and emotionally (when was the moment you felt yourself giving up?). Perhaps bring a friend along who has made it up that hill, and who can watch you from the top and talk you through it, like Jo did for me. That person will also help you see trouble spots in your technique that you can’t focus on when you’re really exerting yourself hard.

Above all, don’t get stuck in your belief that you can’t ride up that hill. You can. I know you can! It’s just a question of time, patience, practice, and faith – in yourself.

kim11

cycling

Orange is the new bike

Sam B16 Comments

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My new challenge is riding my bike on the trainer. Believe it or not, it’s something I’ve never done before. I’ve ridden rollers. I’ve ridden my track bike at the velodrome. I’ve ridden in the cold and the snow. But using a trainer to get winter kms in is new to me. And it’s official. Winter is here.

I’m good doing hard intervals on the trainer, it turns out. That requires concentration and effort. But the warm up and cool down and bits in between are well, boring. I’m in my house and there’s laundry to do, and dinners to make, and It’s just a bit too easy to stop.

“Mom, can you drive me to the Y?”

“Can you help me look for my climbing shoes?”

“Someone needs to pick up milk and dog food.”

You get the idea. There’s a reason I don’t work at home generally, though lots of professors do.

In the group class I’m doing Tuesday, it’s fun. There’s conversation. There’s a coach reminding me to to pedal. And we’re all in together.

But at home? More will power required.

I’ve started watching Netflix on the trainer. And I laughed when the next episode started automatically. When I’m watching with my partner on weeknights that’s our cue to exercise self restraint and remind ourselves that we need to be out and early. Sleep is valuable and it’s a bit too easy to binge watch.

But what to watch?

I needed an orphan show, something that I’m not watching with anyone else in the family.

Right I’m watching The Hundred with a teenage son. Jeff, my spouse, and I are watching The Bletchley Circle. We’re eagerly awaiting more House of Cards. I watched Once with my daughter but now we’re out of episodes so we’re back to rewatching old episodes of Dr Who.

I’ve settled on Orange is the New Black. Lots of my friends like it and I haven’t seen it before. I also want to finish Stargate and I think there might be a season of Red Dwarf I haven’t watched yet.

Recommendations welcome.

My favourite shows? Buffy, Angel, Veronica Mars, Star Trek, Dr Who, Firefly, Eureka, Torchwood….

I can’t watch very much violence and some really great shows just depress me. The Wire and Mad Men both fall into that category. Truth be told, House of Cards, is on the edge for me but it’s so good I’m sticking with it.

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competition · Guest Post

Fighting with competitiveness: on the squash court and in my head (Guest post)

catherine w

After reading Tracy’s blog posts about doing the impossible, I was inspired to try something I’d been thinking about for a while: returning to playing women’s competitive squash. I played in a Massachusetts women’s squash league in my 20s and loved it. The camaraderie, the competition, the rush from intense physical activity—it was all great. After finishing grad school and starting my first faculty job, I played recreationally with male coworkers, but it wasn’t as fun or organized, and I gradually stopped.

About 2 years ago my boyfriend Dan and I started playing squash together (he’s a tennis player and all-around zippy athlete), and we both enjoy it. However, I became curious about how my current skills would stack up against other women in league play after 25+ years. I found information on the Massachusetts Squash Rackets Association, contacted Lisa P, the local women’s league coordinator, played with her, joined her club and team at Boston Sports Club in Waltham, MA, and boom—I’m on a squash team!

For those of you not familiar with squash, here is the lowdown: squash is a racket sport played on a closed court (a bit smaller than a racket ball court) with different markings on the floor and walls. Squash rackets look like a tennis rackets on a slimmer scale, and the ball is a bit larger than a ping pong ball, made of rubber and not bouncy. You have to warm it up to play, and also hit it fairly hard. You play either to 11 or 15, score on every point, and must win a game by 2 points. Whoever wins 3 games wins the match.

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Squash is a precision game, with a variety of complex shots, using all 4 walls. It’s also a power game, with hard serves and low kill shots and deep forehand and backhand strokes. And it’s a nuanced game, with high lobs that die in the back of the court, angled shots (called boasts) designed to hit the intersection of wall and floor (called “the nick”) and roll, and drop shots that just dribble down the wall. Finally, it is a super-intense game—while not technically a contact sport, you’re very close to your opponent, fighting for dominance of the T, which is the middle of the court. Position is all-important in squash.

I love basically everything about this game. Except for one thing: I’m having a hard time with winning. Now, I don’t mean that I’m losing all the time and want to win more—that’s not it. I love playing. I love competing. I love the intensity of going all-out to try to win a point. And I like winning. As Tim Robbins said in the classic baseball movie Bull Durham, “it’s, like, better than losing.”  But I don’t love focusing solely on winning to the exclusion of all else.

Why not? Well, I think it’s complicated. I want everyone to have fun, and I don’t want my opponents to feel bad even if they’re having an off day. So when I’m on and the other person is off, I find myself easing up a bit—taking some speed or loft off my serve, or not killing the ball but instead just returning it. I don’t intentionally muff a shot, but I do find myself slowing things down. It’s not even always conscious, but it happens.

In bike racing (road and mountain), I sometimes had the same issue. In one crit and one road race, I pulled teammates when I could have gone much faster and dropped them. In a mountain bike race, I rode with a non-teammate for several minutes before accelerating to my race pace and passing her. Why did I do this? A combination of factors: I felt sympathy for the people who were tired, enjoyed having company in the race, and didn’t want to focus solely on myself. That’s not always the case: when there’s fierce competition, I turn inward and focus and really love that feeling of being one with my performance. But when others are more vulnerable or weak performers, it’s hard to focus on trouncing them.

So how was my squeamishness about being a squash killer going to play out, now that I was officially on a team again? I found out last Tuesday.

December 2 marked my official return to league squash play. Our team was playing at the Tennis and Racket Club of Boston. It’s a venerable old and fancy Boston club with a wood-paneled bar, locker rooms with 19th-century engraved prints on the walls, and a long tradition of court sports, including court tennis. I was playing fifth position (on a five-player team), pitted against a very nice woman named Magda. Magda told me she had just returned to squash from a brief hiatus, having played tennis and golf recently and having some wrist troubles. We warmed up, both of us a little nervous—this was her first league match this year, and my first in 26 years (I had actually played at this same club 26 years ago!).

In game one, my lob serve was on—it was lofting high and dropping low in the back corner. My serve is my biggest strength, and I tend to win a bunch of points with it. Also, I felt more in control of play, and had overall better position. Yay for me! However, even during the game, I started thinking: do I really want to destroy this woman in 3 games? Maybe competition like this is not for me. And I actually changed my serve a bit to keep the game going. I still won 15-10.

Game two was a different story. Madga had apparently warmed up by then and I am guessing was not harboring any misgivings about beating me. I lost that game 15-5, but it felt like 15-1. I had lost focus, lost control of the court, and was lucky to get out of that game with my shorts intact. Ack.

Game three was not pretty, either. I was castigating myself for my previous thoughts, finding them arrogant and self-defeating. Why in the world was I on the squash court in the first place, if not to compete for every point to the best of my ability? But having an internal argument with oneself is not compatible with focusing on actually playing, and I soon found myself down, 10-2. Well enough of this. Time to get serious. So I did, and clawed my way back to losing 15-9. Not great—I’m down 2—1, but am focused for game four. Which I won, 15—11. I didn’t ease up on my serve, didn’t hesitate to put the ball away when I could, and finally figured out how to read my opponent better. We were in deep competition, and it felt invigorating, tiring (we were both breathing hard), and all-consuming. Yesssss!

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Game five was fun and hard, and we traded points and control of the court. In the end, she beat me 15—12. I definitely would have preferred winning, but the last game was well-played by both of us; we left it all out on the court, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. All in all, a respectable showing for my first league match.

I talked with teammates and Magda about my hesitance during the first game. To a person they all said, “NOOOOOO! You have to focus on winning every point. That’s your job. You can feel sorry for the person later on.” I get that. But I don’t think it will be easy. I hope more experience in competitive play will help me develop some strategies for dealing with weaker players or exploiting weaknesses in my opponents and carrying it through to winning, while still enjoying friendly interactions with my opponents.

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So I open it up to you, dear readers: any thoughts on competitiveness vs. pulling your punches, so to speak? I welcome any stories or suggestions. And I’ll report back at the end of the season!

accessibility · Guest Post

Fit is a Financial Issue Too (Guest Post)

natalieh (she/her)11 Comments

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I’ve been trying to be mindful of my evolving privilege this year as my beloved and I enjoy a second year of both of us having full time employment. One thing that struck me over the past year is the privilege of pursuing my fitness goals is directly tied to how much money we make.

One example is registering in the Kincardine Women’s Triathlon. Great event, registration opens January 1 at 10am EST. You need a credit card to register and I think I remember it being $140 or so. Not a bad price but also smack dab in the middle of holiday spending. There’s the gas and access to a car to get to Kincardine and hotel stay not to mention wetsuit rentals and perhaps some gear purchases. I think my trip this past year cost me $600. That was registration, hotel & gas split with a friend, dinner the night before and lunch after plus I got a XXL trisuit for $90 and XXL cycling shorts for $40. STEAL of a deal in my size but WOW. That was all from 1 event within driving distance.

I look at my bicycle that I now know I must replace, the frame is bent. I got it on kijiji for $150 and it took grip tape, tires, tubes, a pump, spare tube, a wrench, a tire wrench, water-bottle and holder to be able to go on a 20km ride. That’s $150 just to be road worthy. As the temperature dropped I bought a pair of $20 light tights to go over my shorts, $120 for a fitted fleece jacket, $10 for gloves, $140 for a rain coat. Then there’s the rollers.We got them last year for Christmas for about $250. This fall we got a trainer, same price point. And I am doing lots of this on the cheap, especially the clothes for my top half, they aren’t cycling gear, they are multipurpose and I wear them even to work.

I got to thinking about the logistical tail of a gym membership to swim $40 a month. Goggles, a training suit every 6 months or so, running shoes, a really good bra. I can hear the old school till cha-chinging away. I’m not resentful, I’m thankful I can do this but there come a point when you realize that no one living in poverty could swing this. So no one on minimum wage could invest like this in their fitness and lots of women support themselves and their kids on minimum wage.

From “Poverty is making us sick:a comprehensive survey of health and income in Canada”

Prof. Lightman and his research colleagues Andrew Mitchell and Beth Wilson,
found that the poorest one fifth of Canadians, when compared to the richest twenty
percent, have:
•more than double the rate of diabetes and heart disease;
•a sixty percent greater rate of two or
more chronic health conditions;
•more than three times the rate of bronchitis;
•nearly double the rate of arthritis or rheumatism
The poorest fifth of our population face a staggering 358% higher rate of disability
compared to the richest fifth. The poor experience major health inequality in many
other areas, including 128% more mental and behavioural disorders; 95% more
ulcers; 63% more chronic conditions; and 33% more circulatory conditions
It’s not just the gear, it’s having the time to exercise and the network of support I get because I work a 35 hour work week. I know lots of women working 2 or more jobs, no time for working out.
It’s the food too though. I get local, organic, in season produce for $45/week. That same poverty report said that a healthy diet costs 20% more than the cheapest diet. The cheapest diet is 2 L of pop for $0.99 instead of $1/L for dairy or soy milk. It’s instant noodles with powdered flavour 3 for $0.99 because it goes further than the other options. So I can afford low sodium, high fibre, low fat options. I have time to pre-soak and batch cook beans because I don’t spend all my time in paid work.
The feminisation of poverty means that when we think about fit as a feminist issue we have to look at the financial bit too. I’m lucky I can make my health and fitness goals, it’s so much more than body image, motivation, and time.