I tried to think of the first exercise I ever learned. I can’t put my finger on it but I bet it was skipping, running, push ups, summersaults or sit ups.
For me body weight exercises are the basics, the foundation of where I build my fitness. From walking to cycling to yoga, moving my body starts first with getting the moves right.
The past month I’ve had a lot of hip and lower back pain. It was so bad I had to stop my activities, including walking to work, and rest my body.
Now that the acute pain has passed I’m going back to basics with a beginner body weight workout. I like this one by Nerd fitness. It’s customizable and I can draw on my previous knowledge to pick the variations on each exercise that work.
For example toe push-ups are not accessible to me right now and knee push-ups are painful from varicose veins across my knees so I started with wall push-ups. You get parallel to a wall with your arms extended, step back on your tippy-toes and do your push-ups. It allows me to dial in my form and check in with my body. After 3 circuits I can feel the burn in my chest & triceps.
My partner and I joked our little 20 minute routine was just a warm up until the aches set in two days later. It might be the squats, the lunges or the giant bag of rice we used as a weight but whatever it was we were both humbled by how much the routine asked of our bodies.
I want to slowly ramp back up to weights. I also know if I do a body weight routine for a few months my core, flexibility and form will support my future fitness goals and reduce my chances of injury.
This rice seemed, at just under 8kg, a good rowing weight.
What exercises do you go back to time & again? What is the first exercises you remember learning?
It’s hard to know what we are supposed to do these days. The most recent research suggests recommendations against red meat consumption are flawed, and it’s okay to plop a steak on the BBQ.
Published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the study says researchers have not been able to conclude definitively that eating red meat or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease:
The World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer has indicated that consumption of red meat is “probably carcinogenic” to humans, whereas processed meat is considered “carcinogenic” to humans. These recommendations are, however, primarily based on observational studies that are at high risk for confounding and thus are limited in establishing causal inferences, nor do they report the absolute magnitude of any possible effects. Furthermore, the organizations that produce guidelines did not conduct or access rigorous systematic reviews of the evidence, were limited in addressing conflicts of interest, and did not explicitly address population values and preferences, raising questions regarding adherence to guideline standards for trustworthiness.”
Come again?
Three women of colour have shocked expressions on their faces.
I haven’t had time to read the study through, but let’s say that reaction was swift and blunt. After all, it was only last winter that Canada released its newly updated food guide recommending we eat less meat and more plant based options. I’m sure we are going to see more discussion because flip-flopping on food recommendations is something food scientists do really well.
Last month Catherine W looked at a study which assessed the life threatening properties of sugary drinks (aka sodas). Two years ago, the Independent trumpeted the value of sugar in maintaining our brain health. Apparently brains love sugar, even if our hearts, circulatory systems and pancreas do not.
Not even a year ago in October (18, 2018), BBC Food published an article extolling the virtues of eggs, saying the humble egg has impressive health credentials. But six months later, in March 2019, the New York Times weighed in on the risks posed by eating eggs (TLDR: cholesterol will kill you!). The study found: Each additional half-egg a day was associated with a 6 percent increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an 8 percent increased risk of early death.
In the 80s and 90s , we all ditched butter to embrace margarine because we were told the heart-clogging abilities of butter would hasten our demise that much faster (hey eggs, move over!). Butter has been somewhat rehabilitated since then because additional research says a little is okay given that margarine and other trans fasts are actually a whole lot worse.
Oh noes: buttered bread, a boiled egg and a cup of tea for breakfast! Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash
In all seriousness, what are we to do? The reality is, as Paul Taylor wrote in the Globe and Mail in March 2016, dietary studies, flawed as they may be, have a huge impact on public health and can shape nutritional habits and food buying patterns. More of us are reading labels, questioning sodium content, and looking more critically at the food we eat even when it’s being marketed as healthful (Beyond Meat Burger anyone?).
It’s a good thing when we can become more critical, and it is even better when we can vary our diet to eat from every part of the rainbow. Everything in moderation so we can ensure all foods can fit (some better than others).
About that study tho — as an omnivore, I will still keep eating meat, but my family and I have embarked on meatless Mondays with a goal to to eat meat free at least two to three meals a week. I’ll still consider the latest study, but I will place in the greater context to understand its implications fully. How about you, dear readers? Are you easily influenced by the latest food research, or are you likely to go your own way regardless of the latest fad?
This week marked the beginning of a new year on the Jewish calendar.
There is something enticing about marking the beginning of something. Even for an atheist, but cultural Jew. A fresh start, a chance to consider where you’ve been, where you’re going, who you are, who you want to be. On Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) it is traditional to offer wishes for a sweet year ahead. We dip slices of apple, or pieces of challah, in honey. We add a symbolic touch of sweetness to most dishes on the table, keto trends, be damned, to welcome a sweet year.
Now that my annual challah baking is done for the year, what are some sweet things I selfishly hope for in my daily life? Of course, I wish for sweet things on a grander scale in the world, but these are closer to home. Perhaps it will encourage you to think about what you wish for.
Patience. Whether while I am walking to work and weaving through the air pod wearers, golf umbrella carriers, peeled-to-phone walkers, I would like to be granted patience. Patience would also come in handy anywhere people do not follow rules. See quiet zones, highways, off-leash dog zealots in non-off-leash areas, workout stations, etc. Rule followers require a lot of patience these days. Rule followers, going backwards from puberty (hello, perimenopause), with an innate habit of speaking inside voices, out loud, need even more patience.
“Don’t mess with me” vibe. I don’t have this. I would love to have this. I admire people who ooze it. Especially if they have that, plus easy charm. Extremely valuable, and I would like some.
Focus. Whether to continue with my fitness goals – continue running long distances in the winter, increase my strength training noticeably, tend to unfinished courses, focus on learning at work, I would like more focus. I’m either all in or all out, when it comes to focus. Balance would be great.
Contentment. Mainly re my relationship with food. I would like to feel more confident that I am doing OK. That I drive my relationship with food, not my deeply ingrained feelings that it will always be a love-hate, up and down, relationship. That I am not a failing person, if I love food too much one day. Actually believing that there is no such thing as a “bad food”, not just saying it. Actually believing that I don’t believe in diets, not just saying it, to myself or out loud. And really believing that it is just fucking food. Get over it. Move on. Focus on more important things.
Indifference. You know that cliché that people like to say, that women over 40 finally start learning how not to care what people think of them. Does this apply to “people-pleasers” over 40? Because my skin hasn’t thickened yet, in this sense. Some indifference about what people think – would be welcome.
Less fear. I carry a lot of fear. Heights. Movement where my feet are not on the ground. But the fears that are increasing with age, and which cause more fear, are related to the fragility of life. I would like less fear about the fragility of life.
Gratitude. I want to have unfiltered gratitude for the little things in my daily life. For my husband. My dogs. Flowers, ability to exercise, living in a great city, art, laughter, abundance of food and coffee options, chatting with friends. Gratitude that I have such a fortunate life that I get to ruminate on sweet things.
I wish sweet things for all. What sweet things do you hope for?
One of Nicole’s chocolate challahs.
Nicole Plotkin: law clerk, loves to exercise, eat good food, snuggle with her dogs, and her wonderful husband.
I wrote a post last week about “making friends with your saboteurs” — those inner negative voices that show up to trip us up when we’re trying something new, or hard, or laden with emotion for us. It prompted a lot of discussion in all the spheres — comments here and on facebook, an in personal texts with my friends — so I wanted to circle back on one of the themes: sometimes what the voices are trying to “protect” us from is pretty hard to figure out.
A few of the comments about this included this one, from Bettina: “When it comes to fitness, my own internal gremlins like to tell me “You’ve been doing this [insert bouldering, swimming, running as appropriate] for so long now and you still suck/can’t do this/are ridiculously slow”, or “you’ll never be able to do this”. With the latter, I recognise it “protects” me from trying and failing, but what the former is trying to keep me “safe” from, I don’t know.”
And Sam: “I like the idea of thinking of my inner critics as protective but I’m not sure that’s really what they are up to! Where did those voices come from? Where did they get their peculiar script? I’m not sure we just disagree about what’s best for me!”
And from Emily: “I have similar gremlins (or hedgehogs!) as the ones you describe. While I’m not sure what they’re trying to “protect” me from, sometimes I’m able to channel my frustrations with not being “good” enough into motivation to work on specific skills that I want to be better at. I also try to remind myself that my standards for myself have gotten higher as I’ve continued to participate in various sports and activities – beginner-me would be impressed at some of the things that current-me thinks I suck at.”
And — in a slightly different vein (no pun intended!), from clubschadenfreude: well, evidently they were trying to protect me from a “primary exertional headache” that I got on my second class. Holy cats, I’ve never had such pain. Went to see the doctor about it and he gave me percocet and scheduled a CAT scan.
I loved the comments, and the inherent puzzlement: how could this negative self-talk actually be something valuable? I had a conversation about this with my sister, who’s been a life/work coach for more than a decade. We agreed that there’s an inherent, sometimes confusing, paradox in that these things often show up when we’re trying to do something that we want to do — and many times, on some level, that we yearn to do. And that it’s rarely about this particular moment in time (although maybe, in clubschadenfreude’s case, her body COULD hear that something was off and she needed to rest). Your saboteurs really don’t care if you do grab this boulder today or go for this run — they are really commenting on the kind of person you are being when you do this thing.
A lot of the time, when we look at the narratives over our entire lives, we can map our saboteurs to specific incidents in our earlier lives, or the values — spoken and unspoken — of our cultures or families of origin. Sometimes, it’s really easy to see and map — I know that sometimes, when I’m trying to do something in the gym that I can’t seem to grasp (which happens at least once a week), I have a running commentary about my clumsiness, that I’m going to hurt myself, that I’m ungraceful. And I *know* that this is a story I put together over my life because of being told I wasn’t flexible or graceful at gymnastics and skating as a child, and all of those moments where my grandmother literally gave me lessons in how to sit like a lady, and my grandfather continually criticized the way my feet hit the ground — again, unladylike, ungraceful, too loud. So what is that saboteur of clumsiness trying to protect me from? Clearly, looking inappropriate, being foolish. And at another level — disapproval from people I care about — which of course means, being unlovable.
(The inverse also works remarkably strongly — I once found myself on a trip to the Arctic having to demonstrate that I could shoot a rifle — which I’d never done. As I picked up the ancient weapon leftover from WWII, family lore about how my grandfather was an excellent marksman somehow flicked at the edge of my consciousness, and I had this sensation of “the Desmarais family is good at shooting” — and then, I hammered that thing with confidence. And hit the target).
Sometimes the explanatory narratives aren’t so obvious, and sometimes they are terribly painful to actually unearth and look at. I had a colleague some time ago who had a steady stream of “reasons” why she could only work out by running slowly around her neighbourhood in the dark, wearing clothes that fully covered her body — she said she couldn’t go to any kind of exercise class because she was “always the worst person in the class,” couldn’t ride a bike because “my head is too big — they don’t make helmets in my size.” Her story clearly had an incredible flowering of shame — and her saboteurs were protecting her from scrutiny, from being shamed. Even as they kept her isolated, lonely and frustrated.
Using Bettina’s comment as an example, I can’t say what her saboteurs that are telling her she sucks or is slow are trying to do for her — it’s a deeply personal thing. But if I were having that set of voices, I would probably find some meaning in an inner tension I have about the fact that most of my adult life — since I was 30 — I’ve been a non-smoker, moderate drinker, more or less healthy eater and incredibly active. But before that, I was one of those artsy adolescents that scorned athletics as “unserious” (I ostentatiously read Sartre in the bleachers when forced to go to pep rallies), and then in my 20s, my health went off the rails. When I turned 30, I quit smoking, became a runner, went down 5 sizes and — in the eyes of much of the world — was a “completely different (much more desirable!) person.” And just as Sam has posted about the ambivalence of the weight loss she’s doing to prep for her knee surgery, I have a lot of inner conflict about loving the particular body and strength I’ve built over 24 years. Yes, it feels like me — but sometimes, relaxing into it, trusting it too much — that feels like I’m rejecting and not loving the younger part of me. I think my mean inner voice is somehow reminding me that the earlier version of me is still part of me, and was just as worthy of love.
Figuring out the origins of our stories can be helpful — and, from a coaching perspective, the origin doesn’t matter as much as understanding the role it’s playing now, and how that is limiting the fulfillment we really yearn for. Last week, I talked about making friends with my saboteurs, learning to appreciate them. My sister suggested going even deeper and really trying to figure out the “biography” or character of the saboteur — including figuring out its values and its fears — and how it hijacks your values.
I think it’s a great approach. I imagine the saboteur that tells me how slow and clumsy I am as having my grandmother’s voice — even though she never directly told me I was either of those things. But if I create a biography of that creature as my well-meaning grandmother, I can hear that its values are about fitting in, and not calling attention to yourself. Those values fit my grandmother — she grew up a dirt poor francophone in a huge family, and in three decades, class traveled to a life of company jets and the fanciest restaurants of the auto sector in the Mad Men era. She never spoke French to me except when she was braiding my hair and telling me “il faut souffrir d’etre belle” (to be beautiful you must suffer). The values of fitting in, following the “rules” of the Anglo middle class world — they served her. And I’m sure her secret fear was being found out as not belonging. She was trying to protect me from that — just as the voices of my clumsiness are trying to protect me from being denounced as being in the wrong place.
But those aren’t “my” values — and they don’t help me. But I can make friends with that voice, and let it remind me that not only do I want to belong in the gym, I do.
Thanks, saboteur. (And thanks to my sister, for her unfailing support).
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede, who lives, lifts weights and ponders imaginary voices in Toronto.
Le 29 septembre dernier, par une belle journée d’automne, j’ai décidé de faire 50 km à vélo en l’honneur de mes tout nouveaux 50 ans. Équipée de l’itinéraire bâti sur MapMyRide, j’ai stationné l’auto près de la route 121 pour éviter le chemin en gravier conduisant au chalet que j’avais loué et je suis partie vers Haliburton.
Au retour, l’intention était d’emprunter la Haliburton County Rail Trail qui, je l’ai vite réalisé, est en gravier, souvent très mou. J’ai ici eu beaucoup de sympathie pour mon amie Cate, qui a vécu la même situation lors d’un récent voyage en Lithuanie, mais avec un vélo chargé. Pas facile! Je vais donc alterner entre la route (où les voitures me frôlent à 90 km/h) et la “piste cyclable” en terre, mais isolée de la route. Et c’est ce qui me fera manquer la bifurcation entre les étapes 40 et 45 de l’image ci-dessus… pour allonger mon parcours de 20 km. 😕
Mais bon, on dit que ce n’est pas la destination mais le voyage qui compte. J’ai quand même apprécié les couleurs automnales, la quiétude de la piste cyclable, les multiples chenilles qui traversent la route (mais où vont-elles donc ainsi au péril de leur vie?) et le soleil radieux. Par contre, je me suis désolée de voir autant de déchets en bordure de route : contenants Tim Horton, cannettes de toutes sortes, bouteilles de plastique… en ce surlendemain de manifestation mondiale pour le climat, on peut se demander où va la planète si on ne peut même pas rapporter ses déchets!
Cela étant dit, je recommande d’explorer à vélo ce coin d’Ontario tout à fait charmant, avec juste assez de côtes pour ne pas s’ennuyer et de beaux chemins pas trop achalandés. J’éviterais cependant la route 35 si j’en avais le choix… en ne faisant pas la même erreur de parcours la prochaine fois.
Joh. est traductrice, originaire de Montréal et 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 trouver du temps pour être active, malgré une vie divisée entre un travail à temps plein, des contrats et un enfant.
La route de gravier The gravel road
Joh sur le pont au-dessus de la rivière Drag Joh on the Drag River’s bridge
Couleurs d’automneFall colours
50 km for my 50th birthday
On September 29, on a beautiful fall day, I decided to ride 50 km in honour of my 50th birthday. With an itinerary I created on MapMyRide, I parked the car closer to route 121 to avoid the gravel road leading to the cabin I rented and headed to Haliburton.
On the way back, the intention was to use the Haliburton County Rail Trail which, as I quickly realized, is made of gravel, often very soft. I had a lot of sympathy here for my friend Cate, who experienced the same situation during a recent trip to Lithuania, but with a loaded bike. Not easy! I decided to alternate between the road (where the cars zoom by at 90 km/h) and the dirt “bike path”, but isolated from said road. And that’s what made me miss the turn between steps 40 and 45 of the image above…. to extend my route by 20 km. 😕
But hey, they say it’s not about the destination but the journey. I still enjoyed the autumn colours, the quietness of the bike path, the multiple caterpillars that crossed the road (but where are they going at the risk of their lives?) and the radiant sun. On the other hand, I was sorry to see so much garbage on the roadside: Tim Horton containers, cans of all kinds, plastic bottles… two days after the climate strike event around the world, we may wonder where the planet is going if we can’t even bring back our garbage!
That being said, I recommend riding your bike in this very charming part of Ontario, with just enough hills not to be bored and beautiful roads that are not too busy. However, I would avoid Route 35 if I had the choice… by not making the same mistake of missing a turn next time.
Joh is a translator from Montreal who now lives in Toronto. She likes to be as active as possible, and is into biking, skiing, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, and enjoying an active life, between a full time job, some contracts and having a kid.
After a meditation workshop on December 2 last year, I set an intention to meditate for ten days straight. Ten became thirty became 150, which brings me to 300. Every day since 100 has been my longest meditation streak ever. I’ve described it before as the wild ride on which nothing much happens. That’s still true.
Orange-yellow flower streaked with bands of light. photo by Moritz Schumacher on Unsplash
Have I made progress? Am I cured?
Progress from where to where? Cured of what? If the answers are supposed to be: Progress from too much stress, anxiety and disappointment-in-self to divine understanding and unassailable self-worth, not to mention cured of all doubt; nope.
But (!), I’m not stopping. Because despite the fact that the heavens have not opened and granted me a supernova of universal insight and salvation, I feel moments of profound peace, joy, love, connection, daring, courage, vulnerability, gratitude and strength, which I can only credit to my commitment to the cushion. I feel both as if my nerves are rawer, my emotions closer to the surface, and that I am less subject to the vagaries of those nerves and emotions. I can notice, even accept, without allowing them to dictate the terms of my day. Not every day. But a lot more days than before.
That’s the biggest noticing of these last 300 days. And since meditation is about nothing more than noticing (the practice is the outcome), here are some noticings that have cropped up since last I wrote about my practice:
When I meditate right before a workout, I give more to the effort. But, when my run (or other activity) is first thing in the morning, slotting something in before first thing robs me of sleep. Both sleep and being active improve my mood and energy throughout the day. If I’m not training for something in particular, I will generally choose the benefits of sleep over the benefits of the meditation enhanced workout. Weighing the benefits of sleep vs. workout effort is part of my ongoing dance with balance.
Music is another of my dances with balance. I like meditation music, especially The Bahktas, who create electronic remixes of Sanskrit texts. Some days, the music makes the meditation seem too easy. Other days, the music agitates me and I resist the meditation. Then again, the same can be true with a meditation in silence. Depends on the day. The experiment is the result.
As some of you know, I also experiment with meditations on fear. Turns out that once you open the conversation with fear, fear keepsthe conversation going. Even when I’m not specifically meditating on fear, she always has a lot to say. A few recent examples include:
My upper arms are too old and baggy (despite my strength) to wear sleeveless tops anymore. Plus, this might be the last summer I’ll wear shorts.
My needs take up too much space and are unreasonable. Plus, I am indulgent with my needs.
My anxiety is a weakness. And then, the act of judging my anxiety is a failure of personal mastery. (Wow. I can’t win coming or going.)
Here’s another confounding logic loop: Overly positive meditations have the opposite effect. Here’s an experience I had recently. I chose a new meditation on opening up space in our minds. Within the first minutes of the 10-minute meditation, the guide asked me to imagine I was floating in space. Then she immediately told me that I had left all my preoccupations behind. I was now happy, according to the guide. The thing is—I had most certainly not left all my preoccupations behind. My mind was awash with thoughts vying for my attention. I was trying to let the thoughts pass through and away, like clouds; they were not. Also, I wasn’t instantly happier than before I sat down on my cushion to meditate. In fact, I felt frustrated, because I had not achieved what the overly optimistic meditation guide told me I should have. Sigh.
Meditation gets super tricky around this idea of optimism. Our task is to truly sit without judgment or expectation. To be curious for its own sake; not in pursuit of some optimistic result, such as perfect inner peace and bliss. Sooner or later, curiosity yields insight. Maybe not the insight we want or expect. If we allow it to work on us, meditation delivers what we need. As I write that, I wonder if I am blinded by my faith in meditation; if the effects I observe are caused by the observation; if curiosity is its own reward; if patience and practice create their own self-nourishing cycle. And, if so, are these cyclical effects the whole point or distracting churn? My head starts to spin. I think about Tara Brach’s RAIN—recognize, allow, investigate, nurture. The next day I sit back down on the cushion and let it rain.
p.s. Since this is a feminist blog, you may be wondering, “what does meditation have to do with feminism?” The answer is—the act of women taking time for ourselves is feminist. The act of pausing to gather together the threads of our strength is feminist. The desire to live fully, to unbind ourselves from societal pressures and simultaneously nurture our individuality and our connection to community is feminist. Taking time to meditate is saying, “I am worth this period of self-reflection.”
Bitmoji Sam with her arms up in the air, in a pile of brightly coloured leaves
September is the big back to school month for many of us here on the blog. I’m teaching for the first time in awhile. My class is three hours on Tuesday afternoon and that often means I’m doing the reading, grading, etc on Sunday afternoon. I also have days of solid back to back meetings, followed by events most evenings. My max this year was three evening events. A meet the new grad students thing, followed by a gallery opening, followed by a dinner with some new faculty members. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. But September is hard work. There’s a lot going on!
I’m also trying some new things. One scary new thing is cycle instructor training. It’s a goal I announced as part of the fittest by fifty challenge but it didn’t get done. This year when the university announced they were offering training, I jumped in.
I’ve completed the full day class. Next up is the exam. After that there’s an instructor mentoring program and then for my final test, I plan and teach a class on my own.
I also tried a new thing that I thought I might hate but actually really enjoyed: golf. Friends, you can let the teasing commence.
Another good thing in September? Camping with Sarah in Killarney park. We had lots of fun paddling and we weren’t eaten by bears. I’m planning on more paddling trips next summer. I love my canoe.
I’m coping with my usual September/October sadness. I definitely need to spend more time on my bike. But it’s getting dark early in the evenings so that’s going to be just a weekend thing or an indoor thing from now on. Oh, September.
Pretty soon I’m moving my bike training indoors. Back to the Back Shed! See you soon on Zwift!
On the mixed feelings side there’s weight loss. I’m not even sure really how to to talk about it and it’s a thing people love to talk about. I’ve invested a lot of effort in, and spilled a lot of virtual ink about, loving my larger body. But I need to lose weight for knee replacement surgery and I’m doing it.
Most people are excited and happy that I’m losing weight. I’m mostly “meh” about it except that my knee hurts less and that’s a fabulous thing. All of a sudden people are noticing and complimenting me. Mostly I shift the focus pretty quickly to my upcoming knee surgery.
In my heart of hearts, I’m with Carly B, the “cheerful chubster.” I need to remind myself that even at my smallest I’m still “overweight.” I don’t even aspire to be in the normal weight zone. I’m trying to make peace with changing size by telling myself that as much as I like my larger body my injured and aging knee can’t take it.
“I’m no human metabolism science expert, but I think the upshot here is this: the rate of lipid turnover (part of human metabolic activity that affects weight maintenance and change over time) varies in the population. Experts thought that we could improve our rates of lipid turnover through exercise. Turns out, not so much. In a way, this is good news– it’s offering another scientific puzzle piece to provide a picture of what we already know: in general, people gain weight as they age, independently of their eating and activity behaviors. This opens the door to shifting talk away from addressing how older bodies look and toward how older bodies feel and function for those who have them.”
“In any case, this penchant for sharing myself means that it is not uncommon for me to mention my workouts with a class—maybe I’m discussing Newton’s laws and drawing an example from a recent lifting session at the gym. And usually, after the first incredulous question, “You lift weights?” the immediate follow-up question will be, “oh yeah, how much do you bench?” And I get stumped. I imagine my more skeptical students taking the inevitable pause as proof that I’m deceiving them about my weightlifting (I clearly do not fit their mental image of someone who strength trains regularly). But what I am actually stopped by is how overwhelmingly difficult it is to retrace their misconceptions back far enough to answer their question. Where do I begin?”
“I have been running for 16 years. I have run 2 full marathons and several half marathons. During my 30s I went to spinning class, on average, 4-5 times a week. Often double headers, and sometimes a run, followed by spin class. Then I learned kettlebell and yoga and became a devotee of a lovely local studio for a few years. For the past few years I have been going to a women’s studio for strength and conditioning workouts. And yet, I still feel like an imposter, on occasion, when it comes to fitness (don’t get me started on my career).”
This is the month when we all wanted to know if the headlines were right. Will soda kill us? Catherine weighed in. And her post on that controversy was our fourth most read post.
Number six was my unplanned angry post on the story about the swimmer who was disqualified for breaking modesty rules even while wearing the team issued bathing suit. And yes, race was a factor. Grrr. (In the end, the decision was overturned.)
My old post about crotch shots, it’s always on the list somewhere, was number seven.
