Catherine Womack made the case here recently for riding in the ride. She even manages to make riding in summer rain sound fun.
Of course, each person has their own idea of fun. I’ve written about each cyclist having their own limits when it comes to bad weather. (For example, when commuting, I’ll happily ride home in the rain but I don’t like to ride to work in the rain. I hate arriving all wet and soggy though I’m okay landing at home that way.) Tracy, on the other hand, when she rides her bike, is an unrepentant fair weather cyclist.
But there’s a good reason for getting used to riding in the rain and deliberately doing it some of the time. What’s the reason? Some time you have to ride in the rain and it’s good to know how to do it and see what your challenges are.
When do you have to ride in the rain?
Here’s four scenarios:
First, you get caught out on a training ride and it starts to rain. It happens.
Second, you’re doing a bike tour and have no other way to get from place a to place b. It’s raining but you have to ride. See my post on the rainy bits of the Bike Rally here.
Third, you’re racing in the rain. You show up and want to go fast but it’s raining. The photo above is me in the Kincardine triathlon, racing in the rain. It was cold and wet.
If you don’t know how to ride in the rain you might be in trouble.
Here’s sad footage of triathletes wiping out in the rain. “When conditions change suddenly in a triathlon then anything can happen. Here is a selection of bike crashes from the 2012 Auckland World Triathlon Grand Final when a torrential downpour made cycling conditions very challenging.”
Fourth, you plan an event, in Cheryl’s case the Farm to Forks Fondo, you register, you pay, you drive there and then the day of, it’s pouring rain. What’s a girl to do? Ride in the rain. She blogs about it here. Cheryl and I are friends and we have the same cycling coach. Today she showed up in different bike shoes. Why? The Fondo shoes were still wet!
I make sure there’s less air in my tires when riding in the rain. It’s nice to have a bit more rubber-road contact. Cornering is definitely not the same. See crash footage above! And allow more time to stop.
My personal challenge is my glasses. You can see from the pic above maybe. I’m not wearing them. It’s pointless. Rain streaming down the glass is worse than no glass at all. Also, running after in wet shorts was no run at all.
In the past two years, since I started my PhD studies, my research has focused on osteoporosis and how modifiable exercise programs can prevent or slow down its progression. A requirement for PhD, before starting the actual thesis phase, is writing a literature review. Rading a high volume of research articles (up to 400-500) for a critical synthesis of literature would be the most daunting part. However, the review of literature helps the students to identify the strengths, weaknesses and gaps in previous work related to their own topic as a base.
Being at this stage, I read about osteoporosis from different angles to learn about facts, myths and contradictions.
To me, it has been very interesting to read about osteoporosis and how sex and gender differences attributed to bone structure can be addressed through a feminism lens.
So, apart from expanding my overall knowledge on osteoporosis, its symptoms, causes and treatment and assessing exercise programs, I have noticed remarkable feminism involvements in the language of research studies.
Let me start with some statistical facts on osteoporosis:
Of the millions who are diagnosed or at risk for osteoporosis, 80% are women.
Osteoporosis affects 1 in 4 women and 1 in 8 men over the age of 50 years in Canada.
Approximately one in two women over age 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis.
Lowered estrogen levels in postmenopausal women leads to osteoporosis.
A woman’s risk of breaking a hip is equal to her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
Women sustain more falls and fractures than men.
And, just by a simple search in PubMed database, entering the keywords “osteoporosis AND postmenopausal women” gives you a list of 11,104 articles while changing keywords to “osteoporosis AND elderly men”, narrows the number of articles down to 344. (it is not an advanced search, I just wanted to give you a comparison between number of studies in women and men)
Also, the figure below might help you to visualize the difference in sex and age prevalence of osteoporosis. As you see, the figure shows the age-adjusted prevalence of osteoporosis at femur neck and lumbar spine 16% in women compared with 4% in men. Also, the ratio of bone density loss at either site is 61% in women versus 38% in men.
Osteoporosis & low bone mass at the femur neck or lumbar spine, by sex in adults aged 50 years & over
Source: CDC/NCHS, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005–2008
Now, imagine you are a woman (like myself), at the threshold of menopause, and have to read 50-100 pages about osteoporosis on average each day. How would it be? More probably, you think that you are at higher risk for developing osteoporosis because you are a woman. Or, you are at higher risk for falls and as a result, you have more fractures because you are a woman. You lose bone faster than men. So, being a pre or postmenopausal woman puts you at higher risk of broken bones. And not fun to conclude that, osteoporosis is just a “feminine disease” and a welcome gift for you who put your feet in the new world of menopause!
Fortunately, being a feminist reader and exposed to a large volume of osteoporosis research articles, I have noticed that something is changing from the oldest to the newest articles. and that something is the “bias in the language” used by the researchers. Although the language of many articles still needs sweeping revision.
But, not all my news about osteoporosis is bad news!
Looking into osteoporosis and searching through a feminism lens opens new door to the research world and I tell you how.
Recently, I read about a new research project called “Gender Innovations”. Gender Innovations is a peer-reviewed project initiated at Stanford University in June 2009, and aimed at developing practical methods of sex and gender analysis for scientists and researchers. Londa Schiebinger, the leader of this project is a pioneer in research on gender and science. She is well known for her writings on the impacts of feminism in the field of science.
In a case study called “Osteoporosis Research in Men”, she states that sex and gender analysis includes men in osteoporosis research, for having a better diagnosis and treatments. She states that osteoporosis had primarily been considered a disease of postmenopausal women, and as a result, this assumption has shaped its screening, practice, diagnosis, and treatment. She believes that more work is needed to “redefine diagnostic cutoffs” for both osteoporotic women and men.
So, based on what I have learned so far, this would be my argument:
There is a need for a feminist framework in osteoporosis studies, where osteoporosis re-definition would reveal the reality that risk factors are pretty much the same for women and men. For example, factors such as family history (genetics), taking steroid medications, sedentary lifestyle, smoking and drinking too much alcohol can increase or decrease the risk of osteoporosis in women and men. Or, malnutrition, deficiency in vitamin D and calcium intake can be risk factors of getting osteoporosis in women and men.
In addition, highlighting osteoporosis as a female disease can lead to a neglect and underestimation of this disease in the men population, specifically, the elderly men. This is another aspect lying beneath of many biased research findings and conclusions. So, it is really important to emphasize the fact that osteoporosis is not just a woman’s disease.
Of a more positive note, research proved that osteoporosis can be prevented and that exercise plays an important role in its prevention. Whether or not you have osteoporosis, whether you are a woman or man, regular exercise is beneficial in so many ways. Exercise improves physical and mental health, functional mobility, balance, strength and quality of life. People, who exercise regularly, can manage osteoporosis much better. Weight bearing exercises, resistance training, flexibility and balance exercises like Pilates, Tai Chi and yoga are good examples of dealing with osteoporosis. Higher impact activities like running, jumping and jogging are proved to be effective. However, they might not be suitable for everyone.
And last but not least, be happy if you are not thin. Studies show that small boned women are at greater risk for osteoporosis and it does not seem to be a myth!
I am a second year doctoral student in the Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the Western University, and a certified seniors’ fitness instructor with so much passion about the elderly women’s health and fitness. Besides that, I am a grandmother and a full time babysitter of an almost 2 year-old awesome grandson. Being physically active has been integrated into my busy life since my youth. I used to be a strength coach, so that weight training is my first priority but running, mountain biking, rollerblading, ice skating and yoga are activities that I love to do.
Of the three triathlon disciplines, swimming is more likely than biking or running to be on the bottom rung of the training ladder, just tolerated rather than loved. If you’ve ever been to a race where they had to cancel the swim because of water temperature or rough seas, you’ll have seen that at least half of the competitors feel relieved. It’s not like they would have signed up for the duathlon in the first place, but they’re okay with their race being changed to a duathlon.
In fact, swimming is so not-fun for enough people that duathlons are a popular thing in their own right. These run-bike-run events are easy to find, often happening at the same time right alongside triathlons.
That’s not me. I love swimming and don’t love the bike. I like the bike well enough on race day. But I’m not into the outdoor training. I’ve got my reasons and I’m okay with them, as I articulated here. When I posted about my tortured relationship with the bike, I said I needed to reflect on my future as a triathlete. How can you really do triathlon if you avoid training sessions on the road bike?
Well, there are a few ways. As I see, I’ve got a few options (most of these are from Sam, who seems to have “solutions” to my “bike problem” percolating in the back of her mind fairly consistently):
1. Indoor bike training. I got into indoor bike training over the winter. That’s where you use your road or triathlon bike and put it on an indoor trainer. I did it with a group led mostly by Sam’s bike coach Chris, sometimes by Cheryl from Happy Is the New Healthy. Here you get the benefit of a coach and a group to keep you motivated. In the winter, I actually loved doing this. Training inside takes care of my first fear of cycling: the road. It also taught me to work hard on the bike, much harder than I’d ever worked before when riding on my own outside. And using heart rate zone taught me a few things about zone work that I hadn’t known before.
I also learned, when doing a few extra classes with an instructor and Ironman triathlete named Jody, that some triathletes do most, even all, of their bike training indoors and only ride outside on race day all the time. The reason is that you’ve got a controlled environment and can just work on developing power. No traffic lights, road delays, or compromised surfaces to deal with. You don’t need to worry about where you’re going, how to carry enough nutrition, or what the weather forecast is. Meredith Kessler, a multiple Ironman Champion, does almost all of her training inside, as does Ironman Champion Andy Potts. See more on this strategy here.
You can also do indoor bike training on your own. I’ve yet to try that even though I paid Sam’s coach to give me two further workouts a week through the winter that I was supposed to do on my own.
I replaced one of these with another type of class, led by my triathlon coach, Gabbi, on Computrainers. Again, you use your own bicycle but this time Gabbi supplied the trainers, which are fancy computerized do-dads hooked up to the computer. Your power output shows in watts (I think they’re watts) on a big screen at the front of the room, and the training program runs on that screen like a video game. Your job: to keep your power within the specified range. They are tough classes. A brutal test, taken periodically through the winter, helps to establish your baseline and also to track progress.
And finally, there are spin classes. I have access to excellent spin classes at the Y and there is a spin studio nearby where Cheryl teaches at least one class a week.
My thoughts on year-round indoor training: Trainer classes always end when the weather improves because the groups head outdoors. But spin classes go year round because lots of spinners aren’t really cyclists at all. I can’t imagine doing the trainer on my own, especially in the summer. But I can imagine doing the occasional spin class. Of course, occasional isn’t quite good enough. In order to really train on the bike such that performance improves, it’s necessary to commit to at least 3 bike workouts a week.
2. Train outside, but in very deserted areas.Sam does intervals once a week at an industrial park after hours. She says it’s a rare evening that she’ll see any cars at all, and even if she does, it’ll be one or two cars and that’s it. She’s extended an open invitation to me to do that with her. So far I haven’t taken her up on it.
3. Screw the training and just go out and have fun. This is kind of where I’m at this year for Kincardine.
My thoughts on the “no-training” approach: It’s one thing to go into Kincardine untrained on the bike, with it’s not-so-challenging 12K bike leg. But an Olympic distance 40K on the bike is another thing altogether. 40K is far for me, and to follow that with a 10K run is work. Not only that, the slower my bike leg, the later my run leg. When I did Bracebridge last summer, I ran 10K in the heat of the day, right through the noon hour. That made it brutal. If I’m going to do that distance, I need to do more than nothing.
4. Suck it up and get my butt out on the road despite my fear. There are all sorts of risks associated with everyday life, so why single out the bike as particularly dangerous? I could just force myself out there and do it anyway. I did that last year and I made it through the season.
My thoughts on “suck it up”: The thing is, it’s a phobia, and so is resistant to reason. But also, there is a difference, to me, between risk and necessary risk. Biking on rural roads doesn’t have to be a part of my life. It’s supposed to be a leisure activity that I do for fun. I know people do risky things for fun: sky-diving, motorbiking, rock climbing. Go for it. I get to choose where I want to put myself in harm’s way. And I hate that feeling in my stomach when I’m getting ready to go out on the bike, forcing myself out the door. It just doesn’t feel worth it to me.
5. Give up triathlon. This is the saddest option. I do love race day. Multi-sport is fun and challenging. There are other things to try, like aquathon (swim-run), but those are few and far between where I live. I know of one aquathon this summer and I can’t make it.
My thoughts on giving up triathlon: Like I said, it makes me kind of sad to think about giving up completely. I’m not scared on the bike on race day (even if it’s not my favourite part of the day) because the course is safer on race day than on any other day with regular traffic, or at least it feels that way to me. But I’ve not totally ruled out this option. And when Kincardine is over, the fact is, I’m giving up on triathlon at least for this year. Then, when winter comes, I’ll hit the indoor trainer again and see where that takes me by next spring.
I don’t know anyone else who loves triathlon but hates the bike. As I said at the beginning, the more common combo is loving triathlon and just tolerating the swim. If you’ve had experience as a triathlete with unequal feelings about the different disciplines, please share about that in the comments. Most especially, I’d love to hear how you overcame (or if you overcame) your feelings about that one part of the race that you hated (or didn’t love as much as the others).
She writes, “Ethical buying and consumerism. Its a concept that has grown rapidly and something we have probably been doing unconsciously for most of our lives as customers. I’m sure so many people out there already subscribe to an ethos when they purchase their clothing, but I must admit that whilst I do it with my grocery items, I’ve never done it with clothing – until now.
Today I have decided that I am going to buy ethically for Body Positivity.
As we all know, one of the major issues in my Body Positivity advocacy is to encourage sporting brands who stock sizes 14-up to actually feature athletes 14-up in their gear. As someone who has previously worked in fashion and retail for many years, I know that by doing this, they will not only have people running to their stores or jumping online to buy the product they now know will fit them, but brands become immediately more relatable.”
Her post provoked quite a bit of discussion about sizes, cost, and the ethics of shopping.
I’ve just spent a few days in Toronto–not a small city!–looking for running shorts that fit. Usually, especially when it comes to tops, I can wear a size 12 or 14. But with my cyclist quads, that’s getting trickier when it comes to fitted shorts.
There’s also, as Leah notes, an ethical issue about shopping. The average woman in North America is a size 14. But lots of athletic wear–here’s looking at you Lululemon and Oiselle!–stop at size 12. That’s clearly sending a message. And I say this as someone who buys Oiselle bras–they’re not padded and they’ve got lots of support.
Anyway, I loved the message in the video. Watch even if you disagree about the ethical push to buy size inclusive brands. Watch even if you hate kick starter. I gave them $35 b/c I want the #feminist tee and it it succeeds I’ll buy the leggings. The kickstarter campaign is here.
“We believe in the power of fitness to help women build strength and confidence to succeed in all aspects of their lives. We are committed to helping women feel confident and supported in their efforts with high fashion, high performance clothing designed to make them feel like superheroes.
But do we really need ANOTHER brand of activewear? YES! Most major active brands only make high performance women’s clothing up through size 12. The average American women wears size 14. Superfit Hero is a size-inclusive brand of high performance activewear for women size XS-3XL. Join us on our mission to make fitness more inclusive, body-positive, and empowering for women.”
I’ve been thinking about the Kincardine triathlon that’s coming up. It’s a short, speedy, fun race. And it’s probably the event I’ve done most often in all its many variations.
Here’s the distances, swim 375m, bike 12km, run 3km. For the duathlon it’s run 3km, bike 12km, run 3km.
Starting way back in 2007, I did the full thing! I swam, I actually swam, and I finished in 1:10:01. 29/34 out of my age group. Not great but it felt speedy to me. Last out of the water of the people who didn’t require rescuing. 🙂 I actually had to talk people out of rescuing me. I’m fine, just slow. And then I got to pass lots of people on the bike and that’s always fun.
Swim 15:57, Bike 30:58, Run 23:07
In 2008, I did the relay. My daughter Mallory did the swim, my sister in law Susan did the run, and of course, I biked. That was truly speedy. We finished in 52:57, coming in 2nd of 7 relay teams. To be clear, it’s such a short course there’s not much interest in the relay option.
Mallory’s Swim 11:18, My bike 24:33, Susan’s run 17:07.
Go us!
Note: There’s also much less time taken up with transitions in a relay. The cyclist and the runner are ready to go.
And then in 2013 I did the duathlon: run, bike, run. No swim. It took me 1:18:55.
Run 23:17, Bike 29:23, Run 26:16
Mallory also came in at 1:18, but she was faster on the runs, slower on the bike. She’d been planning on doing the triathlon but was disappointed when the event got turned into a duathlon for everyone due to water temperature.
This year I’m back for the duathlon. I don’t think my run will have improved at all. I’ve been injured running wise for most of the two years between. But my bike time should be considerably faster. My fastest bike was in the 24 minute range (though with no swimming or running before) and I averaged just under 30 km/hr. I think I should be able to average 30 now. I do some longer rides at that speed and while they’re with a group, they are longer.
I’m also getting speed laces for my running shoes to make the transitions easier. And I’ve done a little bit of running right after a bike ride to make that feel less weird.
I’ve been thinking recently too about what I like about this event. Why I am drawn to it? Like the Pride run, this event sells out. It sells out in hours. Partly it’s for similar reasons. There’s a great party atmosphere, lots of community support, all ages and abilities racing, and like the Pride Run it does a great job for all sorts of participants, striking a good balance between the competitors and the completers, between those who aim to win or place, and those who just aim to finish the distance. I feel like there’s room for me no matter how much I’ve trained, no matter how fast or slow I am.
I used to think I could do it an hour even as a slow swimmer if I did a 15 minute swim, a 25 min bike ride, and a 20 min run. But then there’s those pesky transitions to worry about…
If you’re a regular reader you know that swimming isn’t my thing. I frequently joke that when I’ve been a triathlete I’m a “last out of the water, but not rescued” triathlete. My profile, when I did a few triathlons, went like this: last out of the water, speedy on the bike (pass all the people, whee!) and then a middle of the pack runner.
I’m very comfortable in the water though and I can swim. Fear of drowning has never been a thing in my life as I float pretty effortlessly and can tread water for days.
At the lake in the summer, I love spending time in the water. I grew up in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where swimming was mostly a lake thing but I loved spending time in the ocean. Very big waves would pick us up and throw us back into the shore. That was probably dangerous but I didn’t know it at the time. The water was also seriously cold. Tourists would never go in and those who did wore wetsuits. Breathtakingly beautiful empty beaches. The south island of New Zealand was the same actually. Gorgeous but too cold to spend very much time in the water.
But I’m slow.
I trained with the university triathlon club solidly for a year but never got faster. I was the anchor person for the slow lane.
I’m not sure what it’s about. I’ve always found the breathing tricky. And I hate getting out of breath in the water. Its hard to go fast at anything and not get out of breath.
My daughter, Mallory, who occasionally guest blogs here, mostly about cycling, is also a very good swimmer. She’s a lifeguard who occasionally lures me back into thoughts of swimming. I was inspired recently by reading Caitlin’s Fit and Feminist post about becoming a swimmer at the age of 35. 35? 50? What’s a few years?
So this summer I think we’re going to get a family membership at our local outdoor pool, Thames Pool pictured above
We are also planning some trips to the quarry in St Mary’s. It’s Canada’s largest outdoor pool, a former quarry filled with water. Very deep and clear, with some fish, and it’s low on children since you have to pass a swim test.
If all goes well, or even okay, I might move it indoors come the fall and try lane swimming again. I like multi-sport events and I can’t run that far. So one answer seems to me to be to swim. That’s one way to avoid the dreaded second run of a duathlon!
I’ve done something uncharacteristic of me this summer: I signed up for two Olympic distance triathlons and then I withdrew. Yep, Tracy of the “if I said I’d do it I’m doing it” mantra has bailed on Gravenhurst in July and Bracebridge in August. Following my own gut feeling and my doctor’s gentle advice, I had to face up the facts: I just do not have it in me to train for these events.
Changes in my life of late have left me physically and emotionally depleted. Renald moved away from London to pursue his dream of retiring on our sail boat. That’s great for him, and I’m in theory quite supportive of it because he’s 9 years older than I am and he’s worked really hard for many, many years. Liveaboard cruising requires good health and physical energy. Waiting at least five years until I can even think about retiring with him just seems ill-advised. No one can know what five years out will bring.
So we bought a condo, sold most of our rental properties, purchased a St. Francis 50 catamaran (our dream boat, truly), and in May Renald went down to George Town, Bahamas and sailed the boat up to Annapolis, which is where I am as I write this post. It’s the starting point for my only extended summer vacation (just under two short weeks) and we’re heading up the coast towards Long Island Sound and Martha’s Vineyard and Newport in a few days. But for most of the summer (and the next few years) we will be a part and that is a huge change that is taking some adjustment. So there’s that.
Then there is the new job. As of July 1st I’m officially going to be the Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. I’m on vacation at the moment. My first day in the office is July 6th. I’ve had a few different administrative roles at the University so far, including serving as Chair of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research from 2007-2011 and most recently as Graduate Chair in Philosophy.
I admit that I enjoy admin work. It makes me feel as if I’m making a contribution to the University. And I like that it enables me to work with lots of others who care about making a contribution because usually those people have values that extend beyond caring only about themselves. I can respect that and it resonates with me. And at the same time starting a new job with a lot more responsibility is stressful.
And the book is due at the publisher on July 31st. A book contract with a good press that’s enthusiastic about your project is the most exciting and wonderful thing in the life of any writer. And as the deadline inches closer, my stress over it increases. It’s not that I don’t think we’re going to finish. I’m at the stage in the writing process where I feel as if every word I write is shit. This is normal. It’s as inevitable as the five (or is it four) stages of grief.
As if moving, starting to live apart from my partner, and beginning a new position at the University one month before our book is due at the publisher aren’t enough, I’ve also been feeling exhausted much of the time and sleeping badly. This got so bad that my coach recommended I get some blood work to see if anything was up.
Now, part of this is I think because I planned my spring events badly, doing too much too soon with not enough time in between events. I did the Around the Bay 30K on March 29th after a winter of training with a group. And then just 5 weeks later I ran my first marathon at the Mississauga Marathon on May 3rd. I survived ATB well enough even though I didn’t love it. But with the rest and recovery, I actually didn’t have enough time to feel super ready for the marathon.
I know that everyone says they don’t feel ready and it’s a normal thing to feel jitters before trying something new. But I still believe that, in fact, I wasn’t adequately prepared. I would have had a much better day if I’d down-graded to the half. I contemplated it and my coach even recommended it at one point (because I sounded so tentative and she said that’s not a great head-space to take into a new distance).
The marathon wiped me right out. Not just on race day. Not just for a week after. Or even two weeks. No, for a solid month after the marathon I felt exhausted. Getting out of bed for early morning swims, which used to be a routine thing that I enjoyed, became impossible. Even short runs challenged me.
And the bike? Forget it. My fear of the bike intensified and I looked upon it with dread. That may be a different issue altogether (see my recent thoughts on the bike here), but it factors into the result: I wasn’t doing the triathlon training required to prep myself for an Olympic distance in Gravenhurst in mid-July.
I got excited about the Niagara Women’s Half Marathon and had a fabulous time. But overall, I’m not feeling motivated to train for Olympic distance triathlon this year. The energy isn’t there and the desire has left me.
So when despite the bloodwork coming back all fine my doctor recommended that I ease up this summer so as not to let the stress of these big changes wear me down further by forcing myself to do activities that feel more depleting than energizing right now, I decided to follow her advice.
It’s been difficult for me to feel 100% okay about this since it makes me feel like a quitter in some ways, and I hate that feeling. But at the same time, I’m trying to learn a gentler approach. I’m an advocate of doing less (see “On Doing Less”) but usually with the hidden motive of getting more done in the long run. This summer, it’s about doing less, period. Not to ultimately achieve more, not to rest so I can throw myself back into things with a vengeance. No. This summer it’s about easing up because that’s what I need to do. Drop the big races, let up on training, get back to yoga, sleep more, all those good things.
The funny thing is that as soon as I decided to do that, my energy bounced back a bit. I got out for a track workout with the triathlon club last week and have also been doing 3K as fast as possible, since that is the distance of the run portion of the Kincardine Women’s Triathlon on July 11th.
Far from thinking about the KWT with dread, I’m really excited about it. That is not how I was feeling about Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, both of which are exciting races in beautiful locations.
My new summer goal is as modest as they come: work on getting my 10K as close to 60 minutes as possible. Other than that, I want to enjoy myself with the swim training, workout with weights, and get to the yoga studio at least once a week. I’ve got the hybrid bike out for commuting, and it’s a pleasant ride on the bike path from my condo to campus.
But this week, I’m on the sailboat. I’ve got my running shoes and my resistance bands, but I’m not forcing anything. I’m sure that’s not the most inspiring attitude. Those who are into The Grind will be disappointed. I’ve had some grief for expressing this whole “doing less” idea because lots of people think they already do less and need to push themselves to do more. That may be. But if my spring is any indication, sometimes more can turn into too much. And when that happens, there’s nothing wrong with re-grouping and making some changes.
This past week was a big week in my life. So big that I couldn’t fit it all in and had to cancel cycling holiday plans. No Manitoulin Island for me this year.
While my father’s illness, badly behaved teenagers (it’s the end of the high school year, we’re all running out of patience) and travel plans on the part of my sister-in-law who usually does back up parenting for us were part of the story of competing commitments, it wasn’t all bad.
Here’s some of the good stuff: My son graduated from the Triangle Program. It’s Canada’s only publicly funded secondary school classroom for LGBTIQ2S youth from grades 9 to 12. That’s exciting. I was thrilled to be there for his graduation ceremony and to get to spend time in Toronto for Pride. Mallory and I also got to do the Pride and Remembrance Run. Guest bloggers Alice and Susan and Stephanie were there for the run too.
Susan wrote about the Pride Run last year: “There is one race, however, that motivates me best, the Pride and Remembrance Run, held each year in Toronto on the last Saturday of Pride Week. It was founded in 1996, The Pride and Remembrance Run has become an annual tradition promoting and fostering community spirit, goodwill, volunteerism and sportsmanship in the LGBT community.” For the complete list of reasons she loves it, read on here.
Stephanie says about this year’s event, “This was my fourth year doing the Pride and Remembrance Run. I love it for so many reasons: it’s close to home, the course is familiar (I run around Queen’s Park all the time), and it starts at a very reasonable 10am. It’s also one of the most fun races to run: confetti at the start, the Pride festival on the surrounding streets, people dressed in costumes and bright colours. It’s become a bit of a traditional race for members of my department. This year, I think we had about 14 people running – what a great turnout!”
I think between us this community of bloggers had the full range of speeds and experiences! Susan got a personal best for 5 km and Stephanie broke 25 min for the first time in awhile. Alice and Amy had a terrific fundraising year. They arrived late, 14 min after the start due to “toddler issues” and pulled up the rear.
Mallory and I were in the middle. Mallory wanted to do the 3 km walk and I was originally going to run. But after walking 16 km the day before I had a sore knee and started to worry about running in the upcoming duathlon. In the end I walked all but the final kilometer and started to run only when Susan came past us.
I loved the event. It was probably the best organized run/walk event I’ve ever taken part in. The serious runners got to start first and they were coming back in as the walkers were leaving. The best times were in the 16 and 17 minute range. Speedy!
Here’s how they organized the waves:
I loved the glitter/confetti cannon.
Here’s the start/finish line:
I loved the closed roads in downtown Toronto.
Here’s the route:
I loved the marching band playing Sesame Street and Muppets tunes. I loved all the costumes, of course. These guys won for best costume:
Glenn Bell photography
But most of all I loved the sense of community and the full range of ages, abilities, and ambitions. I’ll definitely be back, next year I hope without a sore knee, and I hope to run the 5 km. See you there!
Mallory and me!Susan and me!
Oh, and I also love that the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, does the run with police escorts on bike!
Like many of my friends I’ve been taken with the idea of minimizing, of owning less. It’s a rich person’s task, I know. I’ve been reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. She dubs her technique the KonMarie method. If you’re interested in tidying, and in organizing, you’ve likely heard of it.
I have a house stuffed to the gills with belongings and I want to own less of it all. Mostly it’s not my stuff and it’s the teens and twenty something’s stuff that gets to me. I’ve tried to persuade them that our continued happiness all living together depends on them treating it more like a rooming house, where your stuff stays in your room, but in a three story house there’s a certain inertia to stuff staying on the first floor.
But I’m doing my bit. Most of my excess stuff falls into three categories: aspirational clothing (not too small, not aspirational in that sense, but aspirational for a lifestyle I don’t have, lots of party dresses, not enough parties), sporting goods, and books. I’m keeping the party dresses and asking for more parties, and the books? Well, I’m a professor and we’re a family of big readers so most of the books stay. But the sporting goods for sports I no longer do? They’re going.
Key to the KonMarie method is the idea that you should get rid of things that don’t bring you joy and that you should celebrate who you are today.
Here’s her advice about the clothes you should ditch:
“I’m not talking clothes that are a little tight, or things that you might be able to wear if you lost five pounds. I mean clothing that you’re hanging onto from years and years and years ago, that you would need a whole new body type to wear. Getting rid of old things is a part of making peace with who you are now.”
“Keeping only what sparks joy helps you realize who you are right now. As you’re saying no to certain clothes that don’t spark joy, you’re also often shedding what and who you were — or who you thought you wanted to be. You get a stronger sense of and appreciation for who you are. It’s a healthy exercise in self-reflection and a gentle but powerful letting go of the past.”
I warmed right away to the “joy test” and the idea of celebrating who you are now.
The athlete I am now doesn’t play soccer. I’ve said goodbye to soccer.
So bye bye soccer cleats and shin pads and socks. Bye bye soccer ball.
A friend who used to row competitively let go of some of her old lists of rowing contacts. She realized she was already still keeping in touch with the people who had remained friends.
I’ve got a full bureau of cycling stuff with my helmet, shoes, and Garmin on the top. That stuff brings me joy, though I did weed out some cycling jerseys, so it (mostly) stays.
Can you let go of the athlete you once were and celebrate the athlete you are now? If you did, what you let go of and what would you keep?
This week I’ve been reading and writing about intuitive eating, and thinking more about the meanings food has for us—the humans. I’ve been blogging a bit about this lately here and here. What we eat, why we eat what we do, and what food does for us are all really fascinating and complicated questions, with no easy or one-size-fits-all answers. Our families, our cultural, ethnic, racial, regional and national traditions, our cooking know-how, our incomes, our biological variations—all these contribute to what we eat and what it means to us.
Lately I’ve been thinking about food as resistance, food as anti-authoritarian means of control, food as a way of acting out against, well, whatever. This reminds me of a scene from 1953 movie The Wild One, with Marlon Brando. The scene is here and the quote is this:
Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
Johnny: Whadda you got?
Maybe Brando didn’t have this in mind, but food is a prime way of rebelling against whatever they got.
Catrin Smith has a really interesting article on women prisoners’ attitudes about food in prison. They have two sources of food—the prison cafeteria, which serves institutional, non-tasty but supposedly nutritionally balanced food, and the prison store, which sells cookies, chips, and other snack foods, which are high in sugar, salt, and fat content. In nutritional terms, the cafeteria food is “good” and the store food is “bad”. However, Smith found in her interviews with the women prisoners that
“Prison food is frequently defined as ‘bad’, in that it remains symbolic, irrespective of its actual quality, of disciplinary control. Here, controlling a prisoner’s intake of food can be seen as an important means of exerting power in a context in which a woman is rendered a subject to the regulations of the institution. Women prisoners are relegated to a child-like state – told when and what to eat – and food becomes associated with penal authority and denial.
Not surprisingly, prison food and eating practices, in turn, become a powerful focus of frustration and anger. At the same time, ‘bad’ food, as defined in dominant nutritional discourses and the women’s own accounts, becomes a source of pleasure (hence ‘good’), not least because of its taste but also because of its very power and status as ‘forbidden’.
Attempts to control the diet of women prisoners so that they ‘conform’ to the imperatives of the institution, or even, for that matter, to the demands of ‘good health’, may therefore be resisted or ignored in favour of the release offered by ‘unhealthy’ food and dietary behaviour.”
This phenomenon is pretty common—we see “good” food resistance also in students who reject or throw away cafeteria food, resulting in lots of waste and also loss of nutritional intake. What are they eating instead? A la carte items like fries, burgers, pizza, chicken fingers, for one.
For another, lots of schools get revenue from vending machine purchases of sodas, energy drinks, and all kinds of snack foods.
Policies vary a lot from school to school about student access to vending machines, but they are a part of student eating in many schools. Also, many high schools have policies allowing students to eat off-campus, at places like McDonald’s play place.
I remember well that feeling (for me, starting in college) of freedom to go where I wanted, select my own meals, and control when I eat and how much. It was for me in some ways a vehicle for rebelling against parental authority. My mother denied my sister and me regular access to sugary cereals, snack cakes, chips, candy, etc. Of course this was for our own good, but when I got to college and went to a friend’s apartment, I remember seeing this in his kitchen cupboard. (imagine Little Debbie Cakes here).
Now, I don’t actually LIKE this kind of food (probably because I didn’t develop a taste for it, courtesy of my mom’s oversight—thanks, Mom!). But the IDEA of it seemed transgressive, rebellious, bold.
One of the primary tenets of intuitive eating is that no food is prohibited, even Little Debbie cakes or this new burger, recently unveiled by Hardee’s in the US, which features a beef burger, hot dog and potato chips, all housed in a bun.
I know that for some situations in which I desire some nutritionally “bad” foods, I will want to exercise some external control, follow a rule or nutritional guideline, and not buy or eat those foods. An example of this (for me) would be when I pass by the chips aisle in the grocery store. However, for other situations, I know I will want to go ahead and eat some of the foods I consider to be “bad”. For instance, if I’m at a birthday party, I will always want some cake and ice cream. The difficulty is figuring out how to regulate those processes so to be able to exercise my judgment in accord with my own desires and values and health goals.
Bottom line: it seems to me that I need more strategies than those provided by intuitive eating in order to deal with the issue of when-to-eat-rebelliously and when-not-to-eat-rebelliously.
Readers, do you ever eat “rebelliously”? I’d love to hear any comments you have.
Catherine Womack made the case here recently for riding in the ride. She even manages to make riding in summer rain sound fun.
If you’re a regular reader you know that swimming isn’t my thing. I frequently joke that when I’ve been a triathlete I’m a “last out of the water, but not rescued” triathlete. My profile, when I did a few triathlons, went like this: last out of the water, speedy on the bike (pass all the people, whee!) and then a middle of the pack runner.
