Month: May 2018

cycling · fitness · Guest Post

Runner Biking in Italy (Guest Post)

Lauren Freeman1 Comment
View of Adriatic on Century ride

For the past 20+ years, I’ve considered myself to be a runner. I love running and I’d choose to run over any other form of exercise. Running is simple, you can do it anywhere, you don’t need any equipment, and it doesn’t take too long to get a great workout.

While running, I can push myself, or not (as I’ve written for this blog). I can run alone (which I prefer), or with others. I can listen to music or podcasts, or run in silence. While running, I can think through papers I’m writing, or classes I’m teaching, or problems I’m struggling with. I can plan my day, or escape from it.

I’m quite set in my love of running. I’m not actively looking for a second love.

Eight months ago, my mother won a deluxe bike trip for two, to Italy. When my father declined the invitation (!!!), I was second on her list. Of course, I accepted. But I had two concerns. The first was being away from my family for so long for vacation (I know, I must get over that guilt). Since having become a parent almost six years ago, I’ve traveled a ton, but only either for work or, if for holiday, always with my family. But my supportive partner insisted that I go and that he’d take on the added burden of parenting for that week. “When will you ever get this chance again?,” he said. (Thanks, Andreas!).

Lauren Freeman and her mother, Elayne Freeman

But my second concern was that I’m not a biker. I wasn’t worried about not being in good enough shape, since I know that I am, but I’m not in biking shape. Sure, I’ve biked before. I even own a road bike that I sometimes take out for a quick spin. But I’ve never biked for much longer than about an hour and even doing so, there was never any real love there. Biking is fine, but to be honest, rather boring. It’s more of an instrumental good (exercise) than an intrinsic one (pleasure). It’s more of a need to diversify away from running and to cross-train, rather than something I ever pursued for its own sake.

But after this trip, I can confidently say that I’m hooked.

Everything I’m about to say will be old hat to bikers, but for this runner, it was transformative.

When Sam and several others asked me to blog about my bike trip, initially, I didn’t think I’d have much to say. But on my first century ride (104km, actually) in the region of Puglia to the southern most tip of Italy’s Adriatic coast, biking solo for most of it, I realized that for the Fit and Feminist Blog I have something to say both to “fit” part and to the “feminist” part of the blog.

Here I’ll do the former; stay tuned next week for the latter.

Six years ago, while pregnant for the first time and one month away from my due date, I had the crazy idea of “training” for labour by watching intense biking videos (I wrote about it here.) My thought was to try to prepare psychologically for the ineffable and unimaginable pain I knew I’d endure, but had no experience of, by watching elite bikers persevere through difficult climbs. Their focus, their stamina, their sheer physical power was supposed to somehow train me for the incredible feat of birth. Or so I reasoned. It really did seem like a good idea at the time. Those around me were supportive (thanks, all!). Of course, the idea was a complete failure.

Fast forward six years, and I found myself climbing the very same coastal Italian hills that I watched the Giro d’Italia bikers climb when I was pregnant.

My ride that day was intoxicating.

In those hours of riding, it clicked. I understood how people can do this sport and how they can go on for such long stretches at a time. Inhaling the salty sea air; feeling the heat, the sweat, the sun, the wind; the tiring muscles all working together: this requires a kind of athleticism that I never knew I had, that I’d never quite experienced running. Somehow, being on a bike, the speed, the painful uphills, the cruising downhill, the monotony of never-ending pedaling, was anything but monotonous.

I found the zone. I embraced it.

I had so many hours that week to be alone in my mind. I didn’t listen to music. Most of the time, I biked alone. It was therapeutic. I thought about nothing for a good deal of time. For someone who thinks for a living (as a philosophy professor), it was both liberating and exhilarating to be so alone with my thoughts for so many hours, and to have nothing in particular (at least in the immediate future) that I had to be thinking about. This isn’t something I ever get on short, or even on long runs. I don’t run for 5 or 6 or 7 hours at a time.

To bike through 400-year-old olive groves, through the UNESCO protected area of the Trullis in Alberobella, up and down the Adriatic coast, on winding remote roads, on highways (okay, that wasn’t fun), through the aridness of the inland, the lushness of the sea…It was all so heavenly.

400 year-old olive groves, sea in the distance

So I’ve caught the biking bug.

Though Louisville, Kentucky is no Puglia, Italy, it’s hilly, it’s lush and I know that there is a large bike community here.

But here’s my question: how to keep it up? I work fulltime, I have two young children, I already exercise two hours per day. Though I have an entirely supportive partner, my question is this: where do people get the time to go for four hour+ bike rides, and work, and parent, and sleep?

Until I figure that out, I’ll be doing quick, hard, loops in the morning in the park near my house, working on my climbs, and trying to recover that zone that I entered in Italy.

Most importantly, thanks mom, for giving me the opportunity to embrace a new sport. And thanks for a most incredible week of my life.

Trullis
fitness · health · rest · sleep

In praise of resting

Kim Solga7 Comments

I’ve been finished my teaching for the winter term for about a month now. Finals are over and marked; my campus office (which is moving this summer back across the lawn to my faculty’s newly – and beautifully – restored heritage building) is packed up. The book I was writing all autumn and winter is done, dusted, and in production.

So why am I still so tired all the time?

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(Peppermint Pattie, head on desk and looking glum, says: SO TIRED.)

I’m not one to give myself a break – I’m a high-functioning type-A kind of woman, and I am as productive and successful as I am professionally because of this.

But life isn’t work. And I am also 43 years old. I can’t pull all-nighters anymore. And TBH most evenings I am ready for bed by 10:30 (no more clubbing for me).

Now, sleep I get quite a lot of – and we are a blog that supports good, effective sleep habits as part of our human wellness. (Sam has written before about being a champion sleeper. I envy her ability to conk out on airplanes!)

But REST is more than only sleep. And for me rest is another matter.

I was at my friend Nat’s house for supper two weeks ago and we talked about parenting and sleep deprivation. Nat’s kids are still quite young and the 3am wake-ups are still happening. She feels insanely sleep-deprived right now, as does her partner.

We all talked about the idea that, if it’s a matter of choosing between exercise and sleeping, the sleep-deprived should hit snooze rather than clamber out of bed early to run 5 miles. (Read more here about the interrelationship of sleep and exercise.)

Similarly, I once had a cycling coach who reminded me that resting is as important as training – resting is a key part of training, in fact. And resting means resting: it doesn’t mean digging up the garden, staining the deck, cleaning all the windows upstairs, or even walking the dog for two hours in the forest.

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(Emma the Dog [a black and tan collie-shepherd-lab mix] on a path in Cootes Paradise, Hamilton, Ontario, surrounded by spring greenery and pink-flowering eastern redbud trees. She says: “Whaddaya mean rest doesn’t include walkies??”)

Rest actually means sitting or lying comfortably and allowing your body to replenish itself. It means sleeping if sleep is what is required. It means eating good, healthy food in good proportions, and/or eating specific foods required for your body’s replenishment before another day of training hard. These might include proteins, or carbs, or a variety of things.

Ice cream or cake too, if you’re looking for a cheery treat! I always go for the milkshake, personally.

I have realized over the last month of being on my summer schedule (which is not a vacation, at least not yet – summer is when academics write books and present research at conferences and travel to complete field research, as well as plan autumn classes) that I’m not resting enough. I’m exhausted all the time because my brain convinces me that I need always to be working – if not tapping on my computer then digging up the garden or cleaning the windows or walking the dog. I also train a lot – riding and rowing 2-3 times a week each, with one rest day somewhere in there – and the impetus to get in the boat, or on the bike for at least 90 minutes at a shot (and usually more like 3 hours at a shot) also often feels like “work” pressure for me.

So no wonder I’m tired. I’m running on empty a lot of the time!

I woke up yesterday morning realizing that, in fact, the world would not end if I did practically nothing that day. My boyfriend was visiting; we could spend the day together being pretty chill (including lying in bed far longer than usual) and hanging out and the sky would not explode. In fact: our rest would be blissfully productive for our well-being.

But when I looked at the clock and realized it was 10am I also felt a surge of guilt.

And here’s the rub. Yes, I need to recalibrate my relationship to rest, but it’s not just a matter of me making a series of individual choices – this isn’t all about me and it is not all about my free will.

It’s also related to the way our culture moralizes movement and rest – in the same way it moralizes food, something we talk about on the blog a lot. (See here, for example, about food being beyond “good” and “evil”.)

In the so-called “West” or “Global North” many of us live in cultures that believe rising late is “lazy,” while getting up early to head off to toil at our jobs is a virtue. But why?

Research suggests this belief is not supportable: teenagers, for example, actually need up to 10 hours of sleep per night, and their shifting body rhythms are at odds with the wake-up-early-rush-to-school pace our cultures usually enforce. No wonder they are all yawning in 8:30am Bio! (See here for more on teenage sleep needs.)

My own body clock, I’ve discovered thanks to the flexibility of my job, works like this: I want to go to bed between 10 and 11:30pm (it can vary depending on when I had my last cup of coffee in the day), and I want to wake up around 9am. 8:30am is also fine. But if my alarm is set for, say, 7am, I’m usually woken in the middle of a dream (REM sleep), and I’m instantly fuzzy. The day doesn’t improve from there.

I like to sleep late. I really do. This used to drive my mother CRAZY; it seemed, well, “bad” and “lazy”.

And yet: I’m still a high-functioning professional. I was an A student. And I’m a good cyclist. And a good friend and partner and daughter and doggie guardian… and human being.

So let’s all try, together, to work on our relationship to the concept of rest. Even if you feel rested – especially if you do! – ask yourself how and why. If you don’t, or if those you love don’t, ask why. Think about the outside pressures that bear on your rest – including but not limited to your sleep patterns – and think about what among those are changeable. Can you advocate for flex time at work? A later start time or an earlier finish time, as needed? Can you advocate at your kids’ school for more flex around teenage sleep patterns – maybe with classes starting later, or more spares in the first block of the day?

Above all, on your own rest days, remember to put your feet up, grab a book or the Netflix, and don’t forget the milkshake. Not because you “deserve it” – but because you are simply human.

milkshakes

(A photo with two milkshakes in the foreground. On the left is a brown/chocolate one, with whipped cream and a cherry on top. On the right is a mint-coloured one with whipped cream and a mint leaf on top. In soft focus behind them and staggered to one side are two stainless steel mixing containers. I’d like the chocolate one, please!)

Be well-rested!

Kim

fitness · health

Women’s hearts: different doesn’t mean less deserving of attention

catherine w1 Comment
A line drawing of a heart beat, with a heart in the middle.
A line drawing of a heart beat, with a heart in the middle.

The Framingham Heart Study is one of the biggest and longest-running medical studies in the US, and it focuses on heart disease.  It turns 70 this year! It started in 1948, enrolling men and women (mainly husband-wife pairs), and then family members and their descendants. It started enrolling non-white participants in the 90s and has continued to enroll their offspring and descendants.  This project has amassed a huge amount of data to study heart disease and other medical (and some social) phenomena.

Heart disease is the number one cause of death for women and men in the US and the number two cause of death in Canada (cancer is number one). For decades, the medical community believed wrongly that heart disease was predominant in men and less common in women.  This mistaken belief was corrected as a result of research.  However, women with heart disease are still commonly dismissed and left untreated because their symptoms and clinical profiles are different from those of men.

Difference– we deal with difference all the time. Not all things are alike in all ways, so we respond accordingly. Some of my houseplants need a lot of water, and others would die if I watered them often. Here’s the definitive word on watering plants from Better Homes and Gardens:

Some plants need a period of dry soil for days or weeks. Others houseplants need more regular watering, with the soil allowed to dry between each drink. Still others prefer consistently moist soil. Many houseplants go through phases of growth when they require more or less water.

FYI: over-watering is the number one cause of house plant death worldwide. Don’t let this happen to you and yours.

Three plants-- one underwatered and wilted, one properly watered and peppy, one overwatered and wilting.
Three plants– one under-watered and wilting, one properly watered and peppy, one overwatered and rotting…

The fact that my plants are different with respect to watering doesn’t mean that some of my plants are standard and others are non-standard.  There is NO standard watering schedule; there are just a bunch of different ways to water, depending on type of plant, soil, humidity, season, etc. We adjust accordingly, and hopefully all goes well.

You would think we would apply this idea to something more important than plants and watering, namely people and their hearts. We know that both women and men get various forms of heart disease (heart attacks, heart failure, etc.), and their symptoms are different. How hard is this to manage?

Apparently too hard. Look at this excerpt from an article in this week’s issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)

JAMA: Framingham data found that coronary heart disease symptoms are different in women than in men. Do you think these differences are recognized widely enough by women and their physicians?

Dr Levy: The medical community and the public are not as aware of differences between men and women and the symptoms of heart disease. Men often have a more classic presentation, whereas in women, an early presentation of heart disease may be exertional fatigue as opposed to classic chest pain.

Okay, there are a few problems here.

Problem one: Why isn’t the medical community aware of the differences in symptoms between men and women? Medical professionals deal with difference all the time– children vs. adults, bigger vs. smaller people, people with other conditions vs. people without– I could go on. This information has been around for a long time– long enough for it to have made its way into clinical practice. Claims of ignorance here are no excuse.

Problem two: calling chest pain a “classic” symptom of onset of heart attack, whereas exertional pain is considered non-standard or non-classic is making an implicit value judgment. It’s saying that we automatically investigate further for heart attack for chest pain, but don’t necessarily do so for other symptoms that women also commonly experience, like the following:

Men and women alike can experience the well-known heart attack symptoms like gripping chest pains and breaking out in a cold sweat. But women can also have subtler, less recognizable symptoms such as pain or discomfort in the stomach, jaw, neck or back, nausea and shortness of breath.

Now I’ve got a another problem.

Problem three: why is it that pain in the jaw, neck or back counts as subtler and less recognizable than pain in the chest? Less recognizable to whom? Surely the woman experiencing it is recognizing them and reporting the symptoms, otherwise, we wouldn’t know about them in the first place. What this means is that medical professionals consider those symptoms to be less important as ways to diagnose risk or onset of heart attack. And they would be wrong about that.

So what are we supposed to do about this? The American Heart Association created the group Go Red to try to educate women about heart disease. It repeatedly states that women’s lack of knowledge about heart disease and how their bodies and symptoms are different contributes to increased heart disease death rate among women. It also mentions that medical professionals need to be better educated, and more research needs to be done.  But it ends one page with this call to action:

Women need to become fierce advocates for their own health. So, it’s time to shout louder, ladies. Go Red and make your voices heard so that no woman is left questioning or ignoring her heart health ever again.

Okay, I’ll end with this last problem (for now). So the American Heart Association’s big message to women is that it is their job to advocate for themselves with the medical establishment about getting proper treatment for heart disease? That is NOT the take-home message I get from reading about differences among women and men with respect to heart disease symptoms and physiology. My message is this:

A meadow in background, with the words "Physician health thyself from sexist medical treatment"
A meadow in background, with the words “Physician health thyself from sexist medical treatment”

 

cycling

Bike to work with us! #biketowork #biketoworkday #biketoworkmonth #bikemonth

Sam B1 Comment

Related imageJune is Bike to Work Month and we kick it off with Bike to Work Day. That’s Monday, May 28th. See here.

Tracy kicked if off early and blogged about it today. She’s back in the saddle again!

I’ve signed up for the Guelph Bike to Work Monday and hope to win some prizes and meet some fellow cyclists.

Some of us at Fit is a Feminist Issue are celebrating Bike to Work Day on the blog by sharing photos of ourselves and our commuter bikes on the blog on Monday. (And we’re also biking to work of course!)

Want in? Send me a photo of you and your commuter bike. Include your name, kind of bike, where you live, how far you ride and one other fun fact about you and biking to work.

Email Sam at samanthajbrennan@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing your bikes. And you too, of course!

 

cycling · fitness

Tracy gets back in the saddle again…for fun

Tracy I4 Comments
Image description: Selfie of Tracy in bike helmet, work top, necklace and sunglasses, smiling. Background: partial wall mural and sunny green space.
Image description: Selfie of Tracy in bike helmet, work top, necklace and sunglasses, smiling. Background: partial wall mural and sunny green space.

In a completely undramatic turn of events, I’m back on my bicycle this season. I’ve documented the ups and downs of my bike history on this blog. From doing my first triathlon with my sturdy commuter bike (which has and continues to serve me well), to buying a road bike and learning to ride with clipless pedals, to the enthusiasm of triathlon training up to the Olympic distance, to buying a second fancy bike specifically designed for riding in the aero position (worst decision of my cycling “career”), to mounting angst over road training… and finally facing the anguish of a road bike phobia that wouldn’t abate and quitting triathlon.  It turns out that the answer to the question “Will Tracy find a healthy balance between bike fear and debilitating anxiety?” was “no, she will not.”

I made the decision to give it up in November 2016. Last summer I let myself off the hook entirely, not even dusting off my commuter bike. I sold both fancy bikes to people who would use and love them much more than I did. I still have a couple of pairs of bike shoes, some clipless pedals, and some cool kit kicking around. But the days of trying to be a cyclist are over.

This spring something unexpected happened. I was downstairs in the condo getting something from the storage locker and I had to move my commuter bike out of the way. When I did, I felt a pang of nostalgia. Now, I should say that I have never felt dread concerning my commuter bike (a Specialized hybrid Globe San Francisco model). I pretty much associate it with leisure cycling on the bike path along the river. It has a basic computer on it, but the battery has long since died and I decided that I can get way more enjoyment out of this bike if I don’t know or care how fast I’m going.

What with the liberating decision not to participate in the 100 days of step counting,  I no longer feel pressured to get as many steps as possible. Biking on the path has become a live option that won’t interfere with the team’s efforts (because: NO TEAM! Freedom!) or mess with my need to get as many steps as possible (because: NO NEED! Freedom!). So that pang of nostalgia translated into a decision I feel good about: I will walk some days, but I will also ride my bike some days. To that end, on the long weekend we just had I pumped up the tires, located my helmet, and found my saddle bag.

Door to door it’s faster for me to ride my bicycle to campus than to drive even at the best of times. But this summer, with construction season upon us, that’s more true than ever. The first test came this morning. I was in a hurry. No time to walk (it’s 50 minutes to walk) and way too beautiful out to drive. I hopped on the bike in my work clothes (it’s still cool enough that I can do that — when the heat of summer sets in I’ll need to change).

I had a calming and leisurely ride by the river to campus, coasting whenever I felt like it, saying “wheeee!” down the hills just like Sam does, and basically feeling like a kid again on my bicycle. I’ve got all the safe riding skills — shoulder checks, signalling, letting pedestrians know I’m coming by one polite ring of the bell — and I like not caring about how fast I’m going (even if I was sort of in a hurry; it wasn’t that much of a hurry).

I’m keen to do it again. And I’m not feeling the least bit regretful about my decision to give up “serious” cycling on fancy bikes.

When you commute on your bike, do you care how fast you go or do you just enjoy the ride?

cycling · Guest Post

Joh et Clo à vélo, Gananoque-Morrisburg, 212 km, mai 2018 (Guest post)

Sam B9 Comments

Vivre ici et maintenant, malgré la vie qui va vite, les obligations, les changements, les multiples activités. J’y arrive rarement. Trop occupée. Pas assez d’heures dans une journée. Et quand l’heure calme arrive, une seule envie… dormir, récupérer, mettre la tête sur l’oreiller et me reposer. Mais lorsque je pars à vélo, surtout pour un long parcours, j’y arrive. Un coup de pédale à la fois, un kilomètre à la fois. Il n’y a que cela à faire, pédaler, réfléchir, retrouver ses pensées, observer, plonger à l’intérieur de soi. Tire, pousse, respire, répète. Et surviennent alors une clarté, une limpidité des idées. Des décisions se prennent, des plans se forgent, un nouveau souffle se trouve. Ici, maintenant et pourtant, un peu dans le futur, quand même. Mais indéniablement en paix, en harmonie avec ce corps entraîné et reconnaissante de la chance que j’ai de pouvoir faire ce genre de périples!

Reconnaissante aussi des liens créés, des amitiés solides qui durent et perdurent. Ce genre de défi physique et mental lie des personnalités par ailleurs indépendantes et fortes. Rarement me suis-je sentie aussi proche de quelqu’un que lorsque je partage une aventure en plein air, au gré des vents, des courants, à la merci des intempéries. Seules, ensemble, s’encourageant et s’appuyant les unes les autres, se félicitant arrivées à destination. Et à nouveau surgit ce fort sentiment, le vivre ici et maintenant. Quel bonheur!

**************

To live here and now, despite of life going fast, obligations, changes, multiple activities. I can rarely do that. Too busy. Not enough hours in a day. And when it’s calmer, I have only one desire… sleep, recover, put my head on the pillow and rest. But when I ride my bike, especially for a long ride, I get there. One pedal stroke at a time, one kilometre at a time. That is the only thing to do, pedal, think, regroup the thoughts, observe, dive inside yourself. Pull, push, breathe, repeat. And then comes clarity, clarity of ideas. Decisions are made, plans are imagined, a new breath is found. Here and now, and yet, a little in the future, though. But definitely at peace, in harmony with this trained body and grateful for the chance I have to be able to do this kind of journey!

Also grateful for the bonds created, the strong friendships that last. This kind of physical and mental challenge links otherwise independent and strong personalities. Rarely have I felt as close to someone as when I share an adventure in the outdoors, fighting the wind and currents, at the mercy of the bad weather. Alone, together, encouraging and supporting each other, congratulating each other when we reach the destination. And again, this strong feeling arises, to live here and now. Happiness!

Joh. est traductrice, originaire de Montréal et qui vit maintenant à Toronto. Elle aime être en plein air autant que possible et fait du vélo, du ski, du canot, du kayak, de la randonnée pédestre et, plus généralement, aime la vie active.
Joh. is a translator from Montréal who now lives in Toronto. She likes being outdoors as much as possible, and is into biking, skiing, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, and enjoying an active life.
Book Reviews · fitness

Sam thinks about pain, endurance, and performance (Book review in progress)

Sam B2 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about pain lately as I emerge from the knee pain fog that took over lots of my life this fall/winter. At its worst I just couldn’t think about philosophy, work, relationships, or my kids while walking. That’s the usual stuff that fills my brain but my knee hurt too much to think. I used to think of my walks as productive time.

I enjoyed the freedom to think as I walked and often claimed I thought more clearly when walking. Like my standing desk, but better. Instead with my knee pain, I had to focus on breathing through the pain, paying attention to my gait to not make it worse. I’d count steps not with a tracker but in my head to help me make it to my office. The walk was 1.3 km and often I’d stop along the way and check messages, take photos of horses, and catch my breath and regroup.

See Pondering pain and its absence.

Thank you knee brace!

There is nothing the world could do to accommodate this pain. I’ve wondered about how to think about injuries and disability and my knee. See this post on getting past the usual talk of injuries and healing. It’s not that simple. It’s not just a matter of inclusion/exclusion either. See Andrea Zanin’s post on pain and the what the social model of disability leaves out.

Now I think of myself as someone who is good with pain. And I’ve been thinking about what I mean by that.

I think that of myself I suppose because other people tell me that. That’s part of the story. I gave birth to three kids without pain medication. I’m not claiming I could handle difficult births without drugs but run of the mill uncomplicated easy births didn’t seem to need drugs for me. I hear it too from physiotherapists who make your body move in painful ways as part of the injury recovery process. I do exercises even though they hurt. And once, when a dentist couldn’t get the freezing to work for a root canal, I asked him how long the painful part would take. Not long, he said. Just do it, I replied. And yes it really hurt but I lived to tell and we’re still friends.

I’m also reading a really wonderful book about endurance and I especially enjoyed the chapter on pain. I’ve liked Alex Hutchinson’s work for years. His column Sweat Science is one of my fave things to read and share on the Fit is a Feminist Issue Facebook page. I also follow his work in The Globe and Mail. It’s not particularly feminist but it is evidence based reporting on fitness. That’s rare. His book Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance is well worth reading. Chapter Five is about pain and endurance athletes.

Of course, I’m also drawn to the chapter because it’s about cycling, the sport of pain. Cyclists have lots to say about pain. Lance Armstrong, “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” Hutchinson goes for Jens Voigt, of “shut up, legs” fame. Among reasonably equally fit and talented cyclists a bike race is about the willingness to suffer. She who suffers the most wins the race. And the ability to suffer was Voigt’s claim to fame.

Hutchinson details some of Voigt’s successes including his career capping attempt at the record for The Hour. Voigt succeeded but he only held it briefly.

What’s the hour? Says Voigt, “The beauty of it lies in its simplicity. It’s one bike, one rider, one gear. There are no tactics, no teammates, no bonus seconds at the finals. The hour record is just about how much pain you can handle! It’s the hour of truth.” p. 85

What’s so tough about it? Hutchinson explains that for a trained athlete sixty minutes of all out exercise sits in the excruciating gap between lactate threshold and critical power. In other words riders need to find the highest metabolic rate that is also steady state. Done right, writes Hutchinson, the hour is the longest bout of painful high intensity exercise you can endure. p. 97

I haven’t done anything like the hour but I have done various distance time trials in a velodrome with a coach yelling “suffer” at me. If I finished and could walk away with a smile, clearly I hadn’t worked hard and suffered enough! Going fast on a track bike hurts. It’s not about bike fit or about things you can fix. It’s about working your body that hard. There’s definitely pain involved. Rowing was similar.

Hutchinson also reports on various tests of endurance athletes and pain. It’s true that athletes can take more pain than the average person. It’s not that they perceive pain differently. In the tests that Hutchinson reports on both athletes and non athletes report pain starting at about the same point. The tests involve non fun things like holding your hand in ice water or having a blood pressure cuff squeezed well past the point of comfort. But notably, for a given test, where the average person says “stop” at point n, the athlete is still going strong at 2n.

The gap between athletes and non athletes is striking. But so too is the gap between athletes in season and off season. It also makes a difference how you get in shape. Athletes who train using high intensity methods, repeated all out sprint drills for instance, develop a high tolerance for withstanding pain than no athletes who train at a moderate pace.

I’m going to his Guelph launch on Wednesday night. See BOOK LAUNCH: Endure! Award-winning journalist Alex Hutchinson launches his book, Endure! on Wed. May 30th at 7pm in the ebar. And I’m going to give him a copy of our book and hope he spreads the word.

Past posts on pain:

Greetings from the Pain Cave

Three great articles on the psychology of pain and of pushing yourself

Are athletes masochists?

Why are painful workouts so much fun? (And other questions about suffering and athletic performance)

Here’s a cycling t-shirt I love but I don’t feel the same way about knee suffering as I do about really hard ride suffering:

Psyched out: Spirituality, the yoga space, and laughter (Guest post)
fitness · motivation · yoga

Psyched out: Spirituality, the yoga space, and laughter (Guest post)

Cate Hundleby

My favourite piece of fitness advice is that “the best exercise is the one that you will do.” I have spent much of my life trying to find exercise I can stand. I discovered that I can always get myself to do yoga, which is why I’ve become committed to it. Also, I can do it anywhere — except small hotel rooms! And I’ve found with time that I really enjoy the psychological benefits.

But I find the notion of “psychological” benefits to be clinical in a way that puts me off. I have no trouble taking medicine, but it grates for me to think of yoga that way. Yet, a friend (who is actually a clinical psychologist) speaks of the “spiritual” benefits of yoga in a way that refers to the mental aspects.

I have resisted yogic spirituality because my view of the universe is not especially religious or non-material. Sure, I like to chant “ohm,” but that’s for three material reasons: I like to sing, I enjoy how the voices come together, and I like in the vibration on my lips from the final “mmmmm.” There is nothing religious or metaphysical about it. But “spirituality” describes seems to describe the changed orientation I get from yoga, the patience, the humour, and the pleasure in physicality. I view those as important aspects of my fitness.

Lately, I have neglected the need I have for physical exercise, strength training especially. I’ve not been practicing yoga the three times a week I find is essential to maintaining strength; sometimes taking yin yoga which is beautifully relaxing and can be a mental challenge but requires little strength. Further, the ashtanga program I dipped in and out of has moved to another studio, and it’s become clear that I need to “up my game” and add some strength training to my routine.

IMG_3953 2

A large dog with a white heart-shaped face and legs and black ears and saddle looks straight into the camera. She stands on a striped rug, her white tail blurred from wagging.

I’ve tried to run a little, but I need to strengthen my legs, and to be honest that may not be an option for me anymore. Now the weather is better, I’m walking a lot more and getting back to my bike, and my dog Chloe is very encouraging. Spending time with her is part of my spiritual practice too. But strength, strength, strength…. my physician has been telling me for years that yoga would not cut it, but I didn’t want to believe.

So I am trying some other things out. I’ve tried barre classes at my yoga studio, and I really, really like them — I felt better for the whole next week, stronger and more limbre. Barre mixes pilates, dance, yoga, and functional strength training. In a single class we do all the exercises I’ve been given by physiotherapists, and a range more, plus I enjoy the lively music. Because it’s in a yoga studio, I feel happier — more spiritually at home, perhap. I went to a gym last week too, and I laughed while working out, when it got tough. People stared. People don’t stare in yoga, and they laugh. That’s part of the spiritual element that I value! I don’t want to say, as others do, that the yoga studio or the mat have a positive energy. I would say instead that my relationship with the studio and the mat involves all sorts of positive associations and vanishingly few negative ones; it is happy and resilient. I aim to to take that spirituality, as I will now allow myself to call it, into other places as I change up my fitness routine. If I have to, I will laugh at myself in the gym.

Bio: I am an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor, Canada, where I am also cross-appointed to Women’s and Gender Studies and Director of the Interdisciplinary PhD program in Argumentation Studies.

fitness · running · training

Tracy gets ready for the next 10K (and gets some company to make it more fun)

Tracy I4 Comments

Image description: Upper body selfie of Tracy in ball cap, sunglasses, earbuds, and a t-shirt that says "EMPOWERED" on it, smiling, grass and sunlight in the background. [She is running in Springbank Park, along the river]
Image description: Upper body selfie of Tracy in ball cap, sunglasses, earbuds, and a t-shirt that says “EMPOWERED” on it, smiling, grass and sunlight in the background. [She is running in Springbank Park, along the river]
I’m prepping for the next instalment of my 10K season. My goal this summer is to get faster at the 10K distance. This is partly because I want to get faster at the 10K distance and partly because training for that distance is more manageable than training for further. That said, I do plan to do the Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon in Toronto October, in honour of Anita’s return from the UK (she’s been gone a YEAR!). It was the first half marathon we did together, my first ever, and we’re doing it again.

The MEC race series, which is what I’m doing my 10Ks in mostly, is an affordable race series that runs from spring to fall in cities across the country. The next race in the London series is actually this coming Saturday. But besides throwing myself into the 10K this summer, I’m also throwing myself into photography. To that end, I’ve signed up for a photography course that starts on Saturday morning, in conflict with the MEC series race.

So instead, I’m doing the Guelph Lake 10K on June 10th (a Sunday). One thing I discovered during our Fittest by 50 Challenge (which is where the blog began back in 2012) is that I love gathering groups together for events. It’s much more fun. For the Guelph event, I’ve recruited Ellen and Violetta to do the 10K, and Julie is considering the 5K. All of us need something to focus our training, and a race three weeks out is just the thing.

I’m feeling totally back on track with my training. Once again, I’m eager to get out the door to go running. It feels great to have that enthusiasm back again. I’ve got Linda from Master the Moments supplying me with fresh training plans every two weeks. But she offers so much more than that. She’s probably the most upbeat person I know — always throwing a positive spin while at the same time pushing me ever so gently beyond my comfort zone (with training paces that challenge me, for example). These days, she’s even meeting me some weeks for an early morning run, pretty much guaranteeing that I will indeed get out of bed to hit the pavement at 6:30 a.m.

She also asks me to check-in after each run. I like accountability. It gives me that extra little nudge. That may seem odd, considering I am opposed to tracking. But again, checking in with an actual person really works for me. I like feeling connected to others through my training. I enjoy working with coaches and trainers (though I recognize this to be a luxury and a privilege).

The hardest thing we are working on this summer is continuous running with no walk breaks. Instead of walking, I can sometimes run super slowly if I need to catch my breath or lower my heart rate. But she has encouraged me not to take it all the way down to a walk. I’ve never really done it that way before in a consistent way. I learned to run with the Running Room, using their 10-1 interval system.

But I know continuous works for some people really well. Both Ellen and Violetta have told me that they simply cannot effectively get going again if they walk. For that reason, they do not take walk breaks. But then there are those who live for walk breaks. Julie probably wouldn’t run without them. When I said I was trying to phase them out, Anita seemed puzzled and asked me why I would want to do that.

I had to think about it for awhile, knowing that some of the research shows that taking out the walk breaks just slows down the running–over some distances, some people who take walk breaks do better than they would if they didn’t.

For my 10K training, I’m doing 3-4 sessions a week, mixing up long easy runs, with shorter runs that intersperse strides (basically short intervals or pick-ups) to work on speed. I’m sure it’s about to get a bit more intense, as Linda’s approach was to ease me back into things after a winter of interrupted routine (illness and travel). Taking it easy has paid off because I actually want to get out there now, and I’m ready for the more challenging workouts. I’m sure the next round will involve tempo runs at a push-the-pace pace.

I’m also seeing my personal trainer twice a week, yoga once a week, and walking to and from work as much as possible (despite NOT doing the step counting challenge this year). On the days that I’m in a hurry and it’s not raining I will ride my bike (yes, Sam, you hear that right. I pumped up the tires today!).

My goal for Guelph is to do a continuous 10K, which I have done once before (last fall), and can likely do again if I don’t let my head talk me out of it.

injury

Sam branches out, tries Aquafit, and returns to indoor rowing

Sam B2 Comments

A few months ago–about six months ago actually–when I first hurt my knee, I didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to exercise. Mostly life was all about managing pain. Compression ice packs, ibuprofen, and knee physio was my world.

I could spin, in a small spinny gear, and that was about it. It was good physio but it didn’t feel much like exercise. A few months in I tried the elliptical. Nope. Too much pain. Then I tried the rowing machine. Same. Ouch! No running and no walking so mostly I did physio, a lot of it. I also got some weightlifting in.

Now I’m making my way back. First up, I could ride on the trainer in big gears and I could ride while standing. I started taking spin classes at the university gym. Bike yoga was my favorite. 30 minutes of spinning, followed by 30 of yoga for cyclists. That felt like serious progress.

The knee brace has really helped with walking. I can a walk a bit now. Here in Germany I’ve been logging some 15,000 step days. That would have been unthinkable without the knee brace. I’m also riding my bike outside. I’ve been commuting by bike and I’ve had several longer rides on my road bike.

Last week, I decided to branch out again and tried the rowing machine at the gym. Surprise. All good. I did an easy 2 km for warm up. No 2 km tests just yet! I think rowing will be my go to cardio at the gym. It’s great exercise and I like tracking times and trying different drills. If there were a rowing studio here I might even go.

Then the following day I really branched out and went to AquaFit. Not my usual cup of tea but it’s easy to go in the morning or at lunch. All it requires is keeping a bathing suit in my gym locker.

Stock photo of aquafit. A group of women of different ages and skin colours in the pool doing aquatfit. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and holding bright blue dumbbells above their heads.

In the shallow end it wasn’t perfect. If I jumped too hard I could hurt my knee and I needed to pay attention. It wasn’t as knee friendly as I’d imagined. In the second half hour though we were in the deep water and that was great. It was more of a workout than I expected. I’ll definitely go back.

I hadn’t been to aquafit since my last pregnancy more than twenty years ago. It’s one of those things that I think is fine for other people but not me. That’s odd because I love being in the water. And I’m not a snob about dance-y fitness classes with high energy dance music and show tunes.

I did the pregnancy aquafit classes at the Y with a crowd of mostly senior citizens. Maybe my attitude is ready just ageism? I was amused then by the women who came with their hair done and wearing jewelry. They told me I splashed too much. We decreed one section of the pool to be the splash free section. There were also some flirtatious old guys. They kept going on about my youthful good looks. I was about 7 months pregnant and didn’t mind being the babe of aquafit.

I recognized that I was kind of embarrassed by aquafit when I was happy that the lifeguard thought I was there for the Masters swim practise! Truth be told that was mostly about my bathing suit choice. Next time I’ll try to own it more proudly. Aquafit here I come!

A photo of three women wearing 1950s glamorous bathing caps. I think part of my problem with aquafit is the whole idea of glamour in the water! From http://www.glamoursplash.com/2009/04/1950s-swim-cap-glamour.html?m=1