Month: August 2018

fitness · nutrition

The continuing carb-troversy: was Goldilocks right?

catherine w3 Comments

Prominent among the Questions Of Our Time is this one: just how many/much carbs should I have in my diet? Is it best to eat low-carb, like the Atkins Diet? Or stick to kinder/gentler/higher-fiber carbs like the South Beach Diet? Or close-to-no carbs like the Whole 30 Diet? What about higher carb diets? Don’t people use those during high-intensity athletic activity? Or is there some happy medium, some just-right amount of carbs that will optimize on my health, longevity, weight, complexion, etc.? Just where is Goldilocks when we need her?

Goldilocks enjoying some soup in a medium bowl, hopefully with quinoa instead of white rice or pasta if she knows what's good for her... :-)
Goldilocks enjoying some soup in a medium bowl, hopefully with quinoa instead of white rice or pasta if she knows what’s good for her… 🙂

A new study in the Lancet is now taking sides with Goldilocks, publishing a study saying that a moderate carb diet is in fact the “just right” amount for optimum longevity. Here’s a summary from the Live Science news website:

The study, which involved more than 15,000 Americans who were tracked for a quarter of a century, found that those who ate a low-carb diet (with less than 40 percent of daily calories coming from carbs) or a high-carb diet (with more than 70 percent of daily calories coming from carbs) were more likely to die during the study period, compared with those who ate a moderate-carb diet, with about 50 to 55 percent of their calories coming from carbs.

For example, based on the findings, the researchers estimated that from age 50, people who consumed a moderate-carb diet would have a life expectancy that was about four years longer than those who consumed a very low-carb diet (with an average life expectancy of 83 years for moderate-carb eaters versus 79 years for very low-carb eaters).

Another of their key findings was when they investigated different types of low-carb diets:  ones with a lot of animal-sourced foods, versus plant-sourced foods. Here’s what the Live Science article has to say about the study:

…the analysis also found that, with low-carb diets, what mattered was the source of proteins and fats. Diets that involved replacing carbs with proteins and fats from animal sources, including beef, lamb, pork, chicken and cheese, were linked with a greater risk of death. In contrast, diets that involved replacing carbs with proteins and fats from plant sources, such as vegetables, legumes and nuts, were tied to a lower risk of death.

So is the take-away message that we should all aim for moderate (50ish%) of carb intake in our diets to maximize lifespan?

Not exactly.  As I say all the time in blog posts, science is complicated. Just ask these women– they can explain it to us.

African women scientists in a lab, going over procedures.
African women scientists in a lab, going over procedures.

You might be wondering– what about higher-carb diets? They aren’t prominent these days in the popular diet industry, but they are an option and serve a number of nutritional purposes. Also, lots of cultures outside of North America and Europe eat high-carb diets Does the study show that those lead to earlier death, too?

Well,  it depends partly on where you live and what you eat. The primary study participants used in the Lancet article were from the US. For them, the results were a U-shaped curve, which means that the highest risk was at either end— low carb or high carb.  Here it is:

U-shaped risk curve of carb dietary intake, with highest risks at low and high end of card intake (<40%, >70%).
U-shaped risk curve of carb dietary intake, with highest risks at low and high end of card intake (<40%, >70%).

But take a look at the right side of the U– it doesn’t rise as high as the left side does.  That means that the riskiness of high-carb diets in this study is not as big as the riskiness of the low-carb diets. (By riskiness, I mean all-cause mortality risk, but you get the idea here). So, their results suggest that higher-carb diets aren’t as risky (I know, that word again, but humor me) as the low-carb diets.

Later in the Lancet article there is another set of U-shaped curves, with the second one being an amalgamation of many other studies that these researchers analyzed.  These other studies were done in many parts of the world, including places where people eat lots of higher-carb diets with foods like white rice or other simple (vs. complex) carbs. There we see a greater rise in mortality risk as carb intake increases. Complexity enters again, this time at the level of the carbs themselves.  People who eat higher-carb diets but with more complex carbs may (this is still a bit tentative) may mitigate their mortality risk of a higher-carb diet.

Finally, there’s been a good bit of critique and response, of which you readers might be interested in two points:

Point one: There are SO MANY features of our dietary intake that interact with each other, our environment, our genetics and microbiome, etc., that it’s very hard to separate out and identify the effects of one variable on health and mortality. One commentary (in the Lancet) said this:

…this approach should be complemented by large and long-term clinical trials investigating the effects of different dietary patterns (constructed from information about the effects of individual nutrients and foods), because the effect of individual nutrients is likely to be modest.

So we aren’t going to get solid clinical recommendations for people based on the effects of shifting carbs alone.

Point two: The researchers’ findings only tracked mortality risk shifts.  They didn’t track them to any biomarkers or clinically observable features that we could identify that would help in offering medical advice to people. Of course, they weren’t trying to do the latter, but without the latter, the information isn’t so helpful for real-life medicine.

The commentary concluded with this:

When coherent information emerges from different approaches and is replicated, this will form a sound basis for robust public health recommendations.

Or, in other words, “yeah yeah.  Get back to me when you have something that will be useful for clinicians moving forward in trying to identify health issues connected to dietary carb intake, or a more complex but robust view on these interactions with health.”

Here’s the final-final point.  Let’s suppose that Goldilocks is right– moderation in carbs is the just-right path. What do we mean by “moderate intake”? 40–70% is a very big range, and loads of other factors can make a big difference in effects on health, mortality, etc.

If we’re supposed to take nutritional advice really seriously, need more than “just-right” to go on.  Luckily, other studies are working on exactly that. Stay tuned for the latest…

 

 

 

 

 

fitness

I’m 53 and a half and I’m still menstruating: is this a good thing?

fieldpoppy44 Comments

On August 8th, I officially turned 53 and a HALF.  And yes, I revert to child-like ways of describing my age, because it’s how I think about it when I realize I’m still menstruating.  I’m the oldest person I personally know still having regular periods.  Gold star?

I started menstruating (“menarche,” to be technical) in October when I was 12, so soon, I will have been having periods for 41 years.  I’m old enough that the first period products I used were PADS WITH BELTS.

(For more history of menstruation stuff, there is the Museum of Menstruation; the design of the site is appalling — late 1990s-live-journal-era —  but if you poke around, there are some really fascinating bits of info — but I digress).

057fcc456fff07d41a7142e35997a8d4I had one time last year where my cycle was 42 days, but other than that, I’ve been creepily regular since 1977.  And since I’ve had no interruptions for pregnancy, breastfeeding, hormonal suppression or illness, that means that soon I will have my 533rd or so period.  (A gyne friend reminds me that with a 28 day cycle, we have an average of 13 periods per year). That is a LOT of bleeding and cramps and tampons and hormone swings and whatnot.

I decided a few years ago that I wasn’t going to take advantage of any new menstrual opportunities — I’m a tampon person, not a diva cup or period panties person — those seem like investments in a future for someone much younger.  And I’m not going to get an IUD with hormones that gradually suppress periods — I want to know when I actually stop.  I’m in this strange limbo where I menstruate but feel like the young ‘uns have a whole period culture that I’m never going to be part of.

But generally, I’m kind of neutral on my endless menstruating.  The science suggests that overall, it’s not a bad thing to have a late menopause (the medical definition of “menopause” is used when you have officially stopped having periods for a full year, and “late” is defined variably as after 52 – 55).  There IS an increased risk of reproductive cancers because of the extra estrogen — breast, ovarian and endometrial (and I had to have an endometrial biopsy a month ago because I had spotting and “my age makes me automatically suspicious”).  But on balance, later age at menopause is associated with better health, longer life and less cardiovascular disease.  That “better health” includes lower risk for heart disease and stroke, stronger bones, and a 13% higher chance of living to be 90.  I’ll take that.

But.  This “still bleeding after all these years” thing raise new questions when I think about my whole fit-at-midlife thing.  Like most other people-who-menstruate, I think I’ve learned to sort of pretend that my cycle is something that doesn’t “really” affect what I do in fitness-land.  When I used to run a lot, I did read once that we are at our most hormonally vibrant or some such the week after our periods, and that it might be a good time to schedule a race, but I can only vaguely recall why that might be, and I certainly never took that into consideration in making plans.  (Hello, Boston marathon people?  Could you please change the date?  I’ll have my period that week).

I’ve certainly always operated on the principle that your period isn’t supposed to slow you down.  My late 70s/early 80s adolescence was full of those girls-in-white-pants-dancing-around ads for tampons and pads, and even before that, there was cultural pressure not to let the world define us as weaker because of our uteruses.   When I was pubescent, there were a lot of these already-old brochures around the house, because my mother had taught phys ed and health in the 60s.  I pored over these booklets, produced by sanitary napkin companies.  They all assured me it was okay to dance or do sports — not too “strenuous”, but all the normal things.

There might be weepiness or smelliness, but these could be easily dealt with with enough sleep, the right attitude and the right products.

(That girl weeping at her dressing table has haunted me my whole life.  Maybe I AM being a drama queen!  I never did learn how to Smile, sister, smile!  Maybe when I learn that, I’ll stop menstruating?)

So it was official, periods weren’t going to slow me down — and mostly, they didn’t, despite some pretty hellish PMS for parts of my life.  (I might have been fighting with my spouse, but I was running! I do remember my ex saying to me once, when I came back from a sticky summer evening run all hormonally cranky — “don’t just stand there with bugs on your neck yelling at me!”)

But over the past several years, I feel like I could use some of these little brochures telling me what to expect in perimenopause, the period of time between which your hormones start to change and when you stop menstruating.  I’ve had night sweats and disrupted sleep for at least seven years, which are well known experiences of perimenopause.  Screenshot 2018-08-01 17.54.03But I’ve also noticed that I have almost overwhelming fatigue a few days before my period, sometimes just for a day, sometimes for several.  Like so much fatigue that I think I’m getting the flu and I take to my bed for a few hours.  (See, I am a weeping drama queen!)

This fatigue is a factor in my overall wellbeing, but it’s not something that is widely acknowledged or addressed. My family physician has never once asked me about my whole peri-meno experience, simply ticking off whether or not I’m still having periods.  And sometimes, other women can be reluctant to talk about feeling less … strong or fit or energetic or something — because of our periods.  I had a (female) ex who got irritated when I mentioned it, like it was a sign of wimpy weakness.  And I’ve had moms of teens say that they want to encourage their daughters to stay active and not be tagged with misogynist assumptions about weakness, so they don’t even really want to acknowledge that you might just want to lie on the couch. I get that — and, my own personal experience is that I get super tired and don’t WANT to do anything in the days before my period anymore. 

So… mostly, I don’t.  I think I’m like a Menstruator Emeritus now — with more than 530 periods under my belt, I think I’ve earned the right to do periods the way I want to.  And that means taking to my bed for a big nap if I feel like it, and not obfuscating why.  It means talking about the realities of night sweats and sleep disruption and slower metabolism.  And if I want to go for a 100km bike ride, I can do that too.  The only thing I won’t do is learn how to change a menstrual cup in a public washroom.

IMG_2978

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives and works in Toronto and blogs here twice a month regularly and other times when she has something to say.  Here she is on her 53rd birthday.

Guest Post · running

Starting my feminist fitness journey: Early days of couch to 5K (Guest post)

Cheryl D12 Comments
A photo of Cheryl, a white woman with a lime green scarf and a dark sweater and short spiky hair.

Hello fellow feminist fitness folks, this is my first guest post and I’m feeling a bit nervous about it but also excited to share my thoughts and experiences in this space as I embark on my own feminist fitness journey.

I stopped going to the gym gradually over the last year (not that I was going very much at all) for a combination of reasons – boredom on the treadmill when the TV system in the gym was changed to one that I could rarely make work, anxiety about sharing the space and machines with other people, and the fact the my running shoes had developed a hole in the lining that hurt my foot. But perhaps the biggest reason was that I found myself feeling a lot of self-imposed guilt and shame when I didn’t go, which was pretty much all the time, and this was making me miserable. So I decided to let the gym go. This was a relief and definitely good for my mental health, but I found myself wondering “now what?”

I was not and am not in great physical shape, and after quitting the gym I was struggling with how to change this without getting into a repeat of the obligation/guilt/shame cycle. I also thought a lot about the “why” behind my interest in getting fit. How much was coming from a desire to change my body to be thinner and more conventionally attractive? Could it ever be possible for me to want to get fit without some of this internalized stuff coming up? After reading Sam and Tracy’s excellent book this summer I had more tools to approach fitness in a new way and since then I’ve been trying to focus on reasons for getting fit that feel good to me as a feminist (more on this in a future post).

Here’s how I got started: I posted on Facebook about reading Fit at Mid-Life, and my friend Tanya messaged to ask if I ever went running. I told her that I’d run occasionally in the past, but had worked up a lot of internal barriers to it over the years (Anxiety! I will be slow and awkward and people will look at me! Where will I put my keys and water?!). She’d recently started running again using a couch to 5k program and invited me to join her for after work runs. So I decided to give it a try.

Here’s a brief story of my first few weeks, as it involved a lot more than I thought it would “ie. just go outside and start running.”

The first thing I knew I needed to do was buy new running shoes. I’d been feeling annoyed about doing this because it seemed like they wore out much sooner than they should have, given my relative inactivity, and I’d been putting it off because I resented having to spent the money.  But running with shoes that hurt wasn’t going to work, so I went out and got new shoes.

For my first run I had the new shoes, but no place to carry my phone to use the training app as my running clothes don’t have appropriate pockets for this. So I just estimated the times for alternating the 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking that the app instructed.

I definitely started from the couch on this one –I was surprisingly sore the next day. I felt proud of having worked hard enough to feel it, but I also noticed some negative self-talk about how out of shape I must be to feel so sore.

Next I had to solve the problem of how to carry my phone while running. I did some research and bought a money belt/fanny pack sort of thing which has been working well for me so far.

I’ve been running at a local park and in the university area near my home, and also with Tanya at a running track in the east end of Toronto. I think that having some variety is helpful for me in terms of not getting bored.

After a couple more runs I noticed that my breasts were hurting because my old sports bra was not providing enough support.  Shopping for any kind of bra can make me feel like my body is not normal, because I have a really hard time finding bras that have long enough straps over the shoulders. Two stores and about eight types of sports bras later I found one that fit and it’s made running a lot more comfortable.

In the in the first 2 weeks I completed 5 of the 6 sessions from the training program, did a lot of troubleshooting, and spent over $300. I’ve been reflecting on the things that have I have access to that make running easier – money to buy gear, safe outdoor areas to run, and a washer/dryer in my apartment for washing stinky clothes.

I took a break for a week for a family visit in August, and then started up again right after that. It’s feeling good, and on my most recent run in particular I had all the gear I needed, had figured out how to use the music player successfully in the training app, and so was finally able to just get out there and run. At this stage it’s still actually alternating between walking and running, but by the end of week 8 I’m hoping that I’ll be able to run 5K. Stay tuned for more on my progress towards this goal over the next 6 weeks!

 

About me: Feminist, bisexual, LGBTQ health researcher, book lover, drummer, introvert.

fitness

Book Review – Fit At Mid Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey (reblog)

Sam B

I was looking for reviews of our book online last night and I was so happy to come across this review by a former student of mine Jordan Barnes. I enjoyed it so thought I’d share it here with you. Thanks Jordan!

fitness · Martha's Musings · meditation · yoga

When the humidex is high and the will is low

marthafitat552 Comments

By MarthaFitat55

 

ian-keefe-354195-unsplash
Image shows a body of water with ripples formng a series of circles. Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

We have had high humidex levels in my part of the country we call Canada. Some people think it’s all snow and ice all the time, but nope, we get heat here too. The past few summers we have seen increasing periods of humidity, the kind that I only ever encountered when I lived in Ontario in the mid 80s.

I’ve been lucky too that my training times up to now in previous summers have managed to avoid the periods of extreme heat. This year though, it’s another story.

That’s because the gym has been hotter than the gates of Hades. In fact, several times my trainer has deemed it too unsafe to train, it’s been that ridiculously hot.

When it is so warm that breathing causes you to break out into a sweat, what’s the next best option to keeping the wheels turning on the training train?

For me it has been swimming and yoga. I’ve written about my swimming adventures here, here, and here. But my return to yoga this summer after almost four years away has been a revelation.

My former yoga instructor offered an eight week yin yoga summer program, and despite the heat some evenings, I, in fact, found it quite lovely and rejuvenating.

First off, though, there were no goats nor kittens, nor were there beers or bottles of wine. This was not hip yoga, unless you mean the kind that would help me keep my hips in good nick so I can keep walking and climbing stairs.

Yin yoga is sometimes described as a passive practice because you tend to hold poses for longer periods (thus doing fewer of them in a session), but it is this holding which allows muscles to stretch and fascia to relax.

It is my favourite form of yoga because it brings you in touch on a deeper level with your breathing and your core. It also means you have to focus on stilling the distractions that keep knocking on your mental front door.

The yogi chose a different quotation from her collection to guide our practice each night. One night she chose this one: I am my strongest when I am calm (Yung Pueblo). Even though summer yoga has been finished for almost three weeks now, that quotation still rings in my ears.

Our pace of life is one that is managed by multiple demands on our time from family, friends, work, community. I had returned to yoga because I wanted an alternative for the weight training hiatus. The effort of focusing reminded me how often those demands were like tendrils winding themselves tighter and tighter, sometimes even cutting parts of ourselves off from the whole.

I am my strongest when I am calm. As I write this sentence here, I feel the stress of my day leak away.  It reminds me I don’t have to be buzzing madly like a bee from one flower to another. I can pick a moment, or a pose, and lean into it, think about what’s happening, and noticing the little changes that emerge or arise the longer I hold the pose.

Those eight little words are profound. It’s made me think again about what strength means. For me it’s been about asking for help, stepping back, pausing to breathe, feeling the moment, accepting a change in plans, approach, direction. These days, it has also meant I rest with an idea to see what happens, to understand what emerges from the stillness, and to feel the surety that comes from embracing the balance that comes from both the push and the pull.

I’ve learned that it is also more than figuring out how long I can hold it (hey there dragon pose), or if I can push it (nice to meet you flying dragon), or if I need to release it (thank you child pose). It’s about recognizing the power I have within and knowing it will still be there when I go back into the gym once it is cooler.

I am my strongest when I am calm. Yes. Yes, I am.

— MarthaFitat55 is embracing her best self and best life through movement and fitness.

 

fitness

Who’s up for a challenge with fit feminist support? Sign up today!

Tracy I3 Comments
Image description: The word “challenge” in different coloured letters. (Generated by the WordPress built-in AI image generator).

Note from Tracy: There has been an awesome response! Thank you! Sadly, this means we need to set a deadline. If you’d like to be considered for the group starting on Labour Day please contact me by Friday, August 17 at 9 am Eastern Time with your expression of interest. Contact info etc below. 🙂

Hey everyone. Cate, Christine and I have an exciting new thing to offer to a group of willing volunteers! It’s our Fit Feminist challenge group (name still to be determined).

Here’s the basic idea: the group will be an online support and challenge group accessed through a secret Facebook page that only members of the group have access to. There will be a maximum of 20 members plus Cate, Christine and I in the first iteration of the group. Members will be encouraged to develop their own challenge and goals, based on the feminist fitness principles we promote on this website. So we won’t be supporting weight loss and dieting as goals.

The loose model is Sam’s and my “fittest by 50 challenge” that started the blog and that we document in Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey. We spent a bit of time trying to decide what mattered to us, and then we each picked a thing that we were training for. My thing was an Olympic distance triathlon by my 50th birthday. Hers was the Ride for Life from Toronto to Montreal. In between we did lots of other things, but having those big goals helped to focus our training.

Members of the Fit Feminist group can pick something like that, but there are other possibilities, such as a goal of doing something every day (as Cate did in her recent post about her July challenge), or the goal of training 3 times a week, or running a faster 10K (or running at 10K at all!), making it to the pool twice a week, or even of developing a new set of values around your fitness pursuits (athletic over aesthetic!).

In addition to helping everyone develop a goal (or at least providing a space where people can state their goals and have a gentle circle of accountability), the group will be there for mutual support and encouragement.

Cate, Christine and I will offer weekly focal points (possibly more frequent than that, we’re not sure yet). Some of these will be based on the “Try This” suggestions in Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey (by me and Samantha, published by Greystone Books, 2018). We’ll post some materials closer to the start date that articulate our approach, rules of engagement, and some other things.

The first group is a bit of an experiment, so we’ll be looking to members to help shape the process, format, and even the purpose. We’ll want suggestions and will be trying out a bunch of different things, some of which might work and others of which may not.

All three of us also plan to be members as well as facilitators.

We’ll start on Labour Day.

It’s an experiment. If it sounds vague and speculative, it sort of is. But we think it will be fun, and could be the start of something. The first group will probably be carry us through to December, so if you do volunteer you’ll want to be available for a 3-4 month commitment (I think…).

If you are interested, please email me (Tracy) fitfeminist50@gmail.com with the subject heading Fit Feminist Group and a brief sentence or two explaining that you’re interested (and if you wish to indulge me further, why you’re interested /what you would hope for from the group). We’re capping at 20, so if you are interested, please get in touch sooner rather than later.

Tracy

Guest Post

Running Ten Kilometres in the Summer of 2018 (Guest Post)

Sam B2 Comments

By Amy Kaler

1. When I first realized I was doing it, that evening – I was running ten kilometres and would finish squarely in front of the building where I lived – I should have had the right music. I had my running mix singing through earbuds and in a perfect world I would have been hearing something triumphant, David Bowie’s “Heroes” or one of Bruce Springsteen’s anthems, or even something embarrassingly dramatic like the Rocky theme. What I had instead was Patti Smith’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Changing of the Guards”. It’s a great cover and I suggest you listen to it, but it doesn’t have the exuberant finality the moment at first seemed to require. “The Changing of the Guards” is a gorgeous, allusive song filled with fragments of enchanted landscapes: banners flying over fields and witches holding flowers and a town of merchants and thieves. It doesn’t really add up to victory and personal best, and that is why, in the end, it was the right song for the moment.

2. The moment was a long time coming. I am not an athlete. I inhaled the Cartesian mind/body dualism long before I had words for it. I knew from earliest childhood that I was a mind (or rather, an avid reader who was good at school, which seemed like the same thing) and therefore I could not be a body as well. I was no good at anything involving dexterity because I am severely left-handed, with poor vision in one eye and a vexing inability to locate objects in space, which I now understand as the proprioceptive equivalent of dyslexia. Ergo, I was no good at throwing or catching; ergo, I wasn’t athletic because I equated athleticism with gym class. I regarded people who were athletic in this sense with a mix of envy and mild fear, like the hearty fun-in-the-sun jocks of high school and summer camp. Later I learned about feminism and cultural critiques of normativity, and somewhere in there I learned the term “body fascism”, which I applied liberally (if inwardly) to anyone I didn’t particularly like who seemed to
be in great physical shape. (It didn’t occur to me that there might be something like “mind fascism” and that I might be doing it). So when I turned into a runner at 52, I was heading into terrain that I had never claimed as my own.

3. I don’t mean to tell this as an uplifting story. If the months when I started running were to be released as a biopic or an Oprah appearance or an Eat-Pray-Love narrative, it would be unsatisfying. There are no aha moments, and no inspiring struggles against odds. I started running for a few reasons: because I was getting really tired of yoga; because I had heard there was a runner’s high or a zone of exaltation and I wanted to get into it; because my life was swelling up with midlife stressors that wouldn’t go away and I’ve always believed that if you can’t do anything else, you can always do something new. And this was new.

4. So several evenings a week I went outside and started to run, and then when I started to feel pretty bad I ran a bit more, and when I felt worse I stopped. I had no training or learn-to-run program, and my only accessories were an MP3 player and a Strava app, which quantified and fixed my runs as little maps and nuggets of data. I was gratified that my first few runs weren’t disastrous, that I could keep asking myself “what happens if I keep going a bit more … and a bit more … and a bit more… can I do another ten steps? Yes I can. Another? Yes”. It occurred to me that if I just kept doing ten more steps, I might never stop. I might run forever. And the more I ran, the more I was drawn to the idea of never stopping.

5. Obviously I didn’t run forever. But one of the reasons I continue to run is to get to that place where it feels like I could run right off the top of the earth, a sort of disciplined wildness that had been within me all along, until my pounding heart and the trees sliding past called it out of me.

6. Before this descends in Women Who Run With the Wolves, I’m going to loop back to Patti Smith and the gorgeousness of “The Changing of the Guards”. I live and run in the eastern part of central Edmonton, midtownish, neither hip urban centre nor suburb. It was built between the 1930s and 1960s and is not especially beautiful. Rows of houses are interspersed with walkup apartments and utilitarian throwbacks to the days when people congregated in the neighbourhood – community league halls, schools, churches, mini-strip malls, now mainly underused. At the peak of midday it’s not full of people,
and by 9.00 on a summer weeknight, it’s very quiet. The streets are wide, the sunset is lit up faintly by the refineries to the east and the elms and conifers are dropping shadows around me. I know – something in the air or the light – that I’m up north and high above sea level. I pass fellow travelers I recognize from previous runs: the orange tabby with half a tail, the lone kid in the spray park, the taco truck parked behind the curling rink, but as it gets later these sightings trail off until it’s just me and a hundred different forms of dying light. No one will ever spin a fable about east-central Edmonton but running transforms it into a strange and marvelous world to inhabit, as vivid to me as Dylan’s images.

7. Is this feminism? Because I am a woman, does everything I do with strength and power become feminist? I don’t know. Certainly not everything in my life is done this way, which makes running important to me. Whatever else I do, I will always be the woman who ran ten kilometres for the first time when she was 52, and who could imagine herself never stopping, running right off the surface of the earth.

 

 

 

Amy Kaler is a professor and associate chair in the department of sociology at the University of Alberta. Her academic work can be found here: https://sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/amykaler/home?authuser=2. Her nonacademic writing about Edmonton can be found here: https://edmontonseries.wordpress.com/

boats · cycling · fitness · holidays

Biking and boating round two: Sam has a great day on the boat and the worst bike ride of her life

Sam B2 Comments

I blogged last summer about combining boating and biking.  It’s part of my effort to spend time seeing beautiful Ontario countryside by boat (thanks Jeff!) while also getting some road cycling in. That’s partly about fitness but mostly about pleasure. I like moving, not sitting, and the bike/boat combo seems like a great way to do that. In Europe there are lots of bike paths that run alongside the canals and there’s a whole tourist industry built around the boating-biking thing. It’s your mobile home on water that you meet up with at the end of each cycling day. No need to carry stuff. It stays in the boat. Got a non-cycling friend or partner? They can stay in the boat too. You’re both going to the same place.

Last year it worked really well. This time it didn’t work so well but the boating part was a lot fun anyway. The basic idea is sound. For us it’s not about following the boat by bike. What bikes allow you to do is go back and get your car and keep your car near to the boat for trip home. With all the locks and no-wake zones the boat isn’t making great time and so mid-afternoon it’s easy to bike back to where you started and rescue the car. That way when you go to leave the car is nearby.

On day 1 we started in Peterborough with the world’s highest hydraulic lift lock and with best of intentions of biking but we started late and Jeff didn’t have bike shorts and instead we motored on up the canal.

We had dinner out that night and stayed in Young’s Point, anchored where we could hear loons with some bonus cottage noises–playing children and personal watercraft. Zoom zoom.

Bikes at rest on the boat

The next day it was raining hard. But now we couldn’t avoid biking as we had to go back and get the car. Biking and boating involves bike trips back to the car and then shuffling the car on ahead. We waited the rain out until it stopped and then went on what was possibly the worst bike ride of my life. I don’t usually write about things that don’t go well. But this time, cottage country, I’m making an exception.

The main road we needed to ride on was busy and had an inadequate shoulder for riding on. Worse though were the people honking at us and passing too closely.

I got home and posted to Twitter

“Dear cottage country, Would it kill you to pave the shoulders? It might kill us cyclists if you don’t. I’m not asking for separate bike lanes, nothing fancy, but paved shoulders, please.”

“Dear cottage country drivers, We’re bikes, riding single file, just two of us. Speed 25 km/hr. You’re cars going 95 km in an 80 zone. You’re passing us and there’s a dotted line and no oncoming traffic. You’re allowed, in fact required, to leave the lane. Please pass safely. #opp.”

(You can follow me on Twitter. I’m @SamJaneB)

Later, we looked at a bike guide for the area and saw this road labelled, “High volume road, use appropriate caution.”

After the busy road there was my next favorite: gravel bike path. And it was followed by a construction zone that had us riding on the sidewalk. Just 3 km from our car I got a flat. Argh!

At first I thought the drivers just hated cyclists but later I drove a car through the area and continued to get abuse. Argh.

Bikes departing the boat. Ominous grey skies overhead.

The next day we could have ridden some more but I looked at the roads and decided to stay on the boat. It was a gorgeous day and we made the right call.

My highlights were the Kirkfield lift lock and Fenelon Falls.

And no one honked at us!

Sam and Sarah on Mazurka with Sarah at the helm

Lesson learned. The next time we plan a biking and boating adventure we’re going to check out the cycling options more carefully.

Check out Jeff’s boating blog here and follow his adventures.

fitness · training · weight lifting

Sam lifts heavy things in the wild

Sam B3 Comments

Sweaty selfie of Sam from moving day. Wearing a light purple tank top. Extremely messy hair. Smiles.

So usually I lift heavy things in the gym, either on my own, with a personal trainer, or lately with my son Miles who is starting university at Guelph next month.

That’s controlled and deliberate lifting. You know how much a thing weighs and you make a plan to lift it x number of times for y number of sets. Though sometimes the math is complicated. The other day I was lifting a 55 lb bar with 40 kg weights.

Lately though I’ve been lifting heavy things in the wild. What do I mean?

Well, here are some examples.

Tonight, I needed to move a washer and dryer set from the back lawn into the shed. We had a wheelie thing underneath it to get it as far as the shed so no problem but then there wasn’t enough clearance in the shed to get the thing and the wheels inside. Miles and I lifted it. I was cautious at first to make sure I was okay with the weight and then once I knew I was fine, carried it into the shed and set it down being careful not to trap my fingers.

Earlier this week Sarah and I had to get the Snipe into the water and out again on our own. We use a trailer and cradle and there’s a ramp into the water but the boat isn’t light. It weighs about 381 lbs. We did it!

And then there are all the boxes of books I’m moving here there and everywhere. My books don’t fit in the new house so some are going to my office at university and others are going to Goodwill. Books aren’t light!

Now lifting actual things is in many ways harder than lifting weights in the gym. Real objects are awkwardly shaped and when you set them down on the floor you need to be careful you don’t squish your fingers. Actual things rarely come with handles. You need grip strength to hold them. We’ve blogged about real world strength here.

Sam’s dog Cheddar napping on the top step in front of a giant heap of boxes of books. When it comes to moving, Cheddar is no help!

This everyday stuff is a big part of why I train with weights, I can lift heavy things in the wild, not just in the controlled environment of the gym.

Yes, it’s for bone health. Yes, it’s to maintain muscle as I age.

But it’s also for practical things like moving washing machines, sailboats, and books.

How about you? Do you enjoy your strength in practical everyday ways?

fitness · motivation · movies · training · triathalon

“We Are Triathletes” is an inspiring film but Tracy won’t be signing up for the Challenge Roth

Tracy I3 Comments

Last night we had a special film event, one night only, through “Demand Film.” It’s an organization that sets up film screenings that only go ahead if enough tickets get sold by the deadline. The film was We Are Triathletes and it followed six athletes from four countries as they prep for and compete in the Challenge Roth, the world’s largest triathlon with over 5500 competitors, held every year in Roth, Germany. 2014, the year the film highlights, was the race’s 30th year.

I went with a group of people who have actually done Ironman triathlon events. I ran into a few people who I used to train with when I was doing the fittest by 50 challenge and getting ready for my Olympic distance events back in 2014. I think almost all the London, Ontario triathletes who weren’t training last night were at the movie.

In addition to following a diverse group of athletes–elite and age-group, men and women, and one para-athlete who had his legs amputated as a child, and the first Chinese competitor in –the film fills in some of the history of Ironman, including interviews with legends like Julie Moss, Kathleen McCartney, Dave Scott, and Mark Allen. It also gives great context for and history of the Challenge Roth, which really does sound like an amazing day for athletes and spectators alike.

Going in I had one worry, which is that I would find the film so inspiring that I would want to do something ridiculous like start training for longer distance triathlons (or any distance triathlons). But that didn’t happen. I did find it inspiring. It’s hard not to feel a little kick of motivation watching determined athletes train hard and hearing them talk about what draws them to the event, what race day feels like, and what it means to them to finish (let alone win).

So what happened was this. I am in total awe of anyone who has ever completed an iron distance triathlon. Whether it was the athletes in the film or the people I went to the movie with, completing a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and then running a marathon is an incredible physical achievement. Timo Bracht, who won the men’s elite category at the 2014 Challenge Roth, finished all that in under eight hours (7:56)! Mirinda Carfrae, one of the featured athletes in We Are Triathletes, won the women’s event in 8:38:53. These are incredible times. So yeah: wow.

Despite being in awe and full of admiration, I really don’t have the desire to do that type of training, which the film made clear kind of has to take over your whole life. I mean, I found Olympic distance training tough to sustain, so I can’t even imagine staying motivated to train for an event like Challenge Roth.

But what it did inspire in me is motivation for the training I’m doing now, which is my 10K training. Time is closing in on my September 8th race, where I put my summer of fairly consistent training to the test. I’m not sure if I can but I would love to get my time under 65 minutes. We’ll see.

I think documentaries like this are amazing for showing what humans can do. It doesn’t necessarily mean you want to do exactly the same thing, but it can inspire nonetheless. I remember how Anita used to love watching The Barkley Marathons: The Race that Eats Its Young:

She liked it not because she wanted to do it, but watching the people do it inspired her to want to do her things.

We Are Triathletes was like that for me (but my friend Ed now wants to do the Challenge Roth, so clearly it has a different impact on different people). Here’s the trailer:

What about you? Do sports documentaries inspire you at all? In a particular way? Not at all?