Here’s the question: For those of us in the northern hemisphere, how does the move to fall affect your fitness routines? Do you do different things as the seasons change? What do you like and dislike about the move from summer to autumn?
Regular Bloggers
Cate
🍂 I am glad the Tour de Watopia is starting again to give me some motivation to get onto my zwift bike when it’s dark at 6. I also really love the weather but have a harder time getting out during the day when the daylight hours are underway because I’m so work-busy. Also, I had sort of let go of my plan I had last winter to make sure I was outside for at least 23 minutes a day in daylight, because I’ve been outside so much – I have to get back into that intentional plan so I don’t fall into a SAD place.
Mina
🍂 Normally, I love fall. Leaves changing and a reprieve from the heat. I’m having some challenges around reclaiming my zest, but I’m thinking the cooler weather might perk me up, as I continue, as usual, with my same activities–running, pilates and peloton are my main three, plus biking around town (which is better when it’s not as hot!), plus long walks and hiking and yoga (from time to time). It’s true, as others say, that the dark mornings can be demotivating and I’m trying to be gentle on myself about that.
Nicole
🍂 When I was running this past weekend I was conscious of how absolutely gorgeous out it was. Early fall can be really perfect running weather. I appreciate it.
I am not a fan of the shorter days, especially walking to the gym in the dark in the morning again. I am 100% a summer person but my exercise routine doesn’t really change a lot season to season because I am so routine oriented. Starting to run, years ago, in the fall and into the winter helped me appreciate and make the best of the changing seasons. The best piece of advice I have is, even if it seems like the weather isn’t the greatest, if you can find a way to do an activity in it (properly dressed), the season will be more enjoyable.
Elan
🍂 Aside from Halloween time, fall is my least favourite season. Less sun, less heat, less light. I struggle more to get myself outside, to leave the house, sometimes even to get out of bed. I find it harder to get motivated to be active on my own, so group and team activities help to boost my accountability (and spirits).
Tracy
🍂 I love the fall for outdoor activities more than any other season. I also regard September as a “fresh page” of sorts — the academic in me will forever think of September as the beginning of the year. Couple that with my birthday month, and it always feels like a bit of a kickstart. The kick has been a bit slow to start this Fall, but I expect to continue trying to get my running routine back in play (especially now that I have new orthotics that are supposed to help with the ongoing achilles injury). I’m continuing with yoga–at home and at the hot studio. I’m adding a more regular commitment to resistance training 3x a week. And I’m walking to and from work a few times a week when it’s not raining. So maybe the only thing that is really changing is my level of motivation — it feels high right now.
Sam
🍂 I have a love/hate relationship with the fall when it comes to exercise. I love the temperatures for bike riding. I love the fall leaves. And I’m usually in pretty good shape for long rides when fall rolls around. But because of the lack of light I end up being a bit of a weekend warrior about it. If it rains on the weekend, I’m in trouble. I also fall for hikes but again, that’s a weekend thing. Also, like Tracy I feel the excitement of a new school year but especially because I’m a dean, it’s extra busy and I work into the evenings most nights. A lot of it is fun, social, back to school stuff but it’s not exercise.
A misty path with bright orange leaves. Photo by Unsplash.
Community members (I put the same question to friends and to followers of the Fit is a Feminist Issue Facebook page)
🍂 One of my favorite parts is that I don’t have to plan so hard before I go out for a long walk or bike ride. In summer, I need sunscreen (put it on before I go, bring it to reapply a few hours later), water (the initial supply and to plan for resupply en route), sometimes mosquito repellent, shade along the route if possible, salty snacks to replenish electrolytes, hat with bill or brim, etc. But in Fall… in Fall I can travel light. I can walk out the door with my helmet, gloves, bike and a single bottle of water. I can head into the woods with just one bottle of water or maybe even none. The air cools me rather than heating me. The humidity drops, as well. I eat fewer bugs and get fewer bugs stuck in my hair or to my sweaty body. I can just simply more easily… go. –Alison Reiheld
🍂 The best part of summer exercise is outdoor swimming. We only get two months to do it, and I am lucky to work just a 5 min walk from the municipal pool at Gibbons Park. My (only slightly disgusting) swim bag lives in my office and my swimsuit and towel decorate my wall all summer! I do drop the resistance training over the summer, even though the squat rack is all set up in my basement and I can use it whenever I want, but I can’t bear the thought of exercising in my scary basement when I could be outside in the sun. Outdoor swimming is glorious (really the only adjective to describe it) but I miss my team’s camaraderie. Come fall, it all moves indoors, and it’s back to my regular routine of swim practice with the team on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, weights on Mondays and Wednesdays and perhaps a spin ride here and there. Now I get to swim with the team, and it’s great to see my friends again and swim with them. And it is nice to get back to lifting weights and feeling strong that way. I’m just starting my fall routine now, and so far so good! –Savita Dhanvantari
🍂 All the ski areas start trying to get me excited. I’m not ready yet. I want more time on my sailboat, more time hiking, and then, maybe late October – November, I’ll be ready for snow.–Sara Wabi Gould
This time, the weather was perfect, sunny, and in the high teens.
I booked alpaca yoga when I was in the early days of recovering from knee replacement number two in April. I wanted to pick a day that was far enough away that I was sure I’d be able to take part. And? Success! Look at me kneeling.
Still not very bendy, but hey, I can kneel now.
Why yoga with alpacas? In my snowga post, I wrote, “There’s something about the alpacas wandering around during the class that makes it better for me. Partly, I’m less self-conscious. No one is looking at my form or the modifications I’m making when there are alpacas to look at. But also the alpacas make me feel like a child again.”
Still true. With alpacas to look at you can be sure no one is looking at you.
Here’s the view from my yoga mat.
I also like that the farm is also a sanctuary and that many of the animals are rescues. You can follow the farm on instagram here. Braeridge is “a forever home & sanctuary for alpacas, horses, ducks & a pig.”
Here’s Douglas and Willow, the pig. Douglas is the white alpaca and he was mistreated and is very skittish around people. But Willow is his best friend. They’re together all the time.
If you have been following my fitness journey, procrastination is an evident theme. Fitness as a habit is a concept that still evades me. As I’ve been searching for ways to make fitness less of a chore, I have discovered a fitness-related activity that I can absolutely get behind. It involves another person, a bed, and maybe some Enya. Any guesses?
Massage therapy. That’s what you were thinking of, right? Massage therapy may not be an active exercise, but it can benefit your fitness journey.
A candle and a book on a small table
I started getting massages a few years ago to combat my migraines. I discovered that if I have a massage at least once every two months, my migraine rate reduces drastically. I have gone from having two or three migraines a month to rarely having one. Not only have massages lowered their frequency, but they have also reduced their duration. I went from having migraines lasting 48 hours each to ones I could quell within six hours. One of my favourite benefits of this is my reduced intake of painkillers. I went from taking the maximum dose of extra-strength ibuprofen each day to only needing a single dose at the start of my symptoms. Therapeutic massages have been vital in increasing my quality of life.
While I started my massage journey because of my migraines, I have found another wonderfully beneficial use for them: post-workout relief. Since I have yet to make fitness part of my daily routine, each time I engage in a heart-pumping, sweat-inducing session, I feel it in my entire body the next day—and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Whether I swim, run, lift weights, clean, or even lift my kids up more frequently in a day, I become very sore. Lactic acid crowds my muscles, and I am left regretting pouring my self-care time into something that hurts my physical body.
This is not to say that massages don’t have some painful moments. If I go too long between sessions, or if I cheat on proper body positioning, my trouble spots put up a fight to remain tight. My massage therapist, a lovely Mexican woman who works out of her home, does not lose the fight. Ever. She is a muscle whisperer. I’m sure her previous experience as a physiotherapist adds to her anatomical knowledge, but it’s her intuitiveness with the body that makes her stand apart from other massage therapists that I’ve experienced.
Does she hurt me sometimes? Yes. However, the relief from her oscillating thumbs proves the experience worth it. Soon the pain follows her hands as they knead the tension into submission. My lymphatic system breathes relief as the tension is pushed away from its source. My immune system makes note of the restored balance to my body’s fluids. Everything flows healthily again.
Even after I make intentional fitness a regular habit, I fully intend to keep up with my massages. The health benefits from working out plus the health benefits from massages equal a physically and psychologically healthy me. It’s too good to pass up.
Massage allows my tight muscles to loosen and release the pent-up lactic acid, making my metabolism more efficient. The opportunity to be silent and abandon my stresses is life-giving. Massage is post-workout care, and it’s self-care. For a busy mom, it is one of the best hours of my month.
So do yourself a favour and add a massage routine to your life. When you add it, be intentional in your search for a great massage therapist. When you find them, visit them regularly. When you visit them, leave your mental load at the door, and enjoy a relaxing and healing hour.
Do you have a massage therapist that you adore? Brag away in the comments below.
Stephanie Morris is a transcriptionist and writer based in Alberta, Canada. She is a wife, a mom of two, and a newcomer to the career-writing world. As a fancier of history and literature, she aspires to blend the two in fiction and nonfiction pieces. To follow Stephanie’s writing adventures, find her at @words.and.smores on Instagram.
Back in the spring, I joined up with an app to track my cycling efforts for Bike Month. I decided it was sufficiently fun that I kept going even after the count ended. Since June 1st, which is technically late spring, but a convenient place to start, and leaning slightly into fall by counting up to September 26 when I drafted this post, here’s how I have done:
Km ridden on my bike: 1,059
Greenhouse gases averted: 270 kg. A round-trip flight to Ottawa to Berlin creates 2 metric tons of GHG, so I’ll need to cycle at this rate for at least 2 1/2 years in order to offset a single trip to Europe. I am assuming I’ll cycle less in winter and use my car a bit more. This is the calculator I used.
Money saved by riding my bike instead of driving: $643. Honestly, this seems a bit low to me as most estimates have car costs per month in Canada at nearly $1,000, when you include financing, fuel, maintenance and insurance. I’m guessing this amount is just fuel and maintenance.
Critical mass rides to advocate for climate change and safer streets (including Kidical Mass and Fancy Women rides): 5
Organized social bike rides: 11
Km swum: 19.743. This is way lower than past years, but between shoulder issues and general busyness it was all I could manage. Next year!
Activities for a cause: 5 – apple picking for the food bank; helping on various rides; census of transit at various locations around the city for the annual Pedal Poll; swim Angel for Bring on the Bay, which is itself a fundraiser for Easter Seals; 15 km swim fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society
Personal cycling goals set and achieved: 4 (18 km each way for a bike swim bike at Britannia Beach, feeding my friend’s cat 20 km away, visiting my parents 25 km away, and visiting my horse 24 km away).
Walks: I didn’t add them up but there were lots, mostly as a way to catch up with a friend, but sometimes for a history tour or to go to the grocery store with my rolly cart.
What did I get out of all this? I discovered that I can do a lot more than I imagined. I have gone from being a steady short-distance commuter to the office to being the person who thinks nothing about using the bike for all kinds of errands – from medical appointments to picking up groceries, going to shows and concerts, to checking on my community garden plots or joining others for a swim, drink or to check new cycling infrastructure. And that I love being social for a good cause.
Kidical Mass Ride, with a range of bikes and people of all ages in a parkMy bike loaded with purchasesMe in the river, wearing a white swim cap and gogglesFriends checking out the new pedestrian/cycling bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau, folks at a social bike ride, and a group of people packing up boxes of freshly harvested apples in an orchard
I was organizing/running an arts festival for a community arts festival and, at the same time, every project I’m part of that had been on hiatus for the summer was suddenly revived.
(Seriously,. Last Tuesday, I had four different groups write me to try and set a meeting between Oct 3 & 5…a time when I already had several things scheduled.)
And this is all my volunteer work so it doesn’t include regular work nor does it include household or family-related stuff.
I was getting overwhelmed and frustrated and I kept feeling those annoying, pointless thoughts creeping up on me.
You know the ones, I mean? They gang up on you when things get stressful – even if that stress was impossible to prevent. They start with ‘You should have…’ and they go downhill from there.
I was trying to just ignore them but that seemed to make them fight harder to be heard.
So, I decided to take a few minutes to review.
Was there any truth in those annoying thoughts?
Maybe a little bit here and there (I wrote those things down to journal about later) but mostly no.
I think my brain was looking for a reason why I was so overwhelmed and figured that I must be the cause.
So, I decided to set some boundaries with those thoughts and try to keep them at bay.
I made the little card below – well, ok, it’s two little cards next to each other- and said it aloud every time I looked at it. And, obviously, the gold star was for my hard work – both my work on the festival and my work to stand up to those thoughts.
And it really helped.*
Since I had decided that I was doing the best I could with the resources I had, the only thing to do was keep at it.
I had to do today’s best, whatever that was, with the resources I had at that moment.
I tried not to think about how things could have gone differently with different preparation or different resources, I focused on what I could do right now.
So, I don’t know about your stress level right now.
I don’t know what you have ahead of you, behind you, or around you.
I don’t know what you are trying to deal with.
I don’t know what your brain is annoying you with.
But what I do know is that you are doing the best you can with the resources you have.
I wish you ease and I wish you self-kindness.
And I offer you this gold star for your hard work – your work on all of the things, your work to focus on today’s best (or today’s okayest!), and your work to find ease and to be kind to yourself.
Go Team!
Image description: a drawing of a gold star next to black text that reads ‘You are doing the best that you can with the resources you have.’
*I’m sure that having some clear exercise goals that I could see on my wrist-spy without having to choose to track them also helped with my stress levels. Without my wrist spy on the case, I probably would have subconsciously put my exercise aside for the week. However, having this little phrase reminder close at hand helped on a completely different level. I guess the exercise did the heavy lifting and the little card cleaned up whatever stress was left over.
Saturday I posted in the 223 workouts in 2023 group, “One lap of the Beach Island Loop with the Thundering Turtles, 30 minutes. My goal is to up my time consistently through fall and winter to get my cardio fitness and endurance back. Obviously, that fell through the wayside while I was recuperating from knee surgery, and the focus was all mobility, strength, and balance.”
It’s important to acknowledge this. While I’m a physio and knee replacement surgery success story, not all of my areas of fitness survived equally. I got back to strength training pretty early in. Physio focuses a lot on mobility and balance. But cardio fitness? I lost that pretty quickly. Here’s what Triathlete magazine has to say about losing cycling fitness. They estimate the time to get back to where you were is about 2/3 of the time you were off. So, for me, it’s been a year. That makes getting back to where I was last summer a reasonable winter goal.
Getting my cardio fitness back is going to be a focus of my fall and winter training. I’m not beating myself up about it. I’m not feeling bad about it. But it does feel urgent to get it back. Here’s my fall and winter plan.
It also feels good to know I’m not alone. A fit feminist friend on Facebook commented on my Beach Island Loop post, saying, “I will follow your model. My cardio fell off the wagon (but was slipping anyway) with the pacemaker. I’ve been all strength, mobility and balance too. Having trouble getting going as my sleep apnea has been horrid (just had a study) and I’ve lacked motivation. Will walk, starting at 15 minutes (that’s where I am), try to be consistent and gradually work up. Thanks. You are always an inspiration to me.”
It also helps me to remember that it’s true for serious athletes, too. You can’t do everything. You can train for explosive power but not also for peak endurance. You can train for strength and muscle development, but that will make it hard to train for running marathons. That’s just because different sports have different demands.
In my case, without strength, I couldn’t tax my cardiovascular system. I needed to rebuild strength first. But strength is back, and this winter’s focus will be cardio endurance. Wish me luck, folks!
And then I started in with #ThreeGoodThings, during the whole knee replacement year, because I needed to be reminded of Good Things. I wasn’t sure how long I’d keep it going but the thing is, I enjoy it.
Some of my friends find it corny, possibly annoying, but I honestly find it helps my mood. I’ve been wondering why and today, while out walking Cheddar (he makes a frequent appearance in these lists) I came up with three ways it helps and I thought I’d share them.
🐶 I often draft the lists at night and then share them in the morning. I enjoy the process of reflecting on my day and thinking about the good it contained. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the basics. I have family and friends who love me. I have a roof over my head and good food to eat. It gives me a moment to note and appreciate the baseline goods in my life, the goods that make other goods possible.
🐶 Other days, I can look at events that weren’t good overall but have good elements and appreciate the good bits. Today was Homecoming at my university, and there are lots of student parties. I have a bit of a thing about drunk people. I don’t like them. I can be a grump about loud drunken parties. But early in the day, before the serious drinking commences, they’re out there having fun and happy to see Cheddar. He gets lots of love and attention. That was a good thing. Ditto making a mistake at work that was serious, and I felt bad about it. But I realized that I worked at a sensible place with reasonable people who allowed me to fix my mistake. Keeping track makes me think about the good elements in things I otherwise don’t like, drunks and making mistakes are high on my list.
🐶 The third way keeping track helps is sometimes, midway through a tough day, I’ll think about drafting my list at night and realize ‘Hey, if I keep this up it will be another night of being thankful for food and shelter. Maybe it’s not too late to save the day. Maybe I can add something good to it now. I can go for a walk. I can get a fancy coffee and a pumpkin muffin.’ I also browse Facebook for friends’ good news. I really do enjoy my friends’ adventures. I see three of us took lengthy, pretty walks today, for example. I love your travels and your bike rides and your children’s first days of school. I always love your pet photos. Sometimes, your good thing becomes my good thing. I hope that works vice-versa, too.
Every chance I get, I share the dance song “I like to move it” video from the animated movie Madagascar. There are several reasons for this:
it’s got a killer dance beat
it’s funny
the animals all dance in interesting and animated-body-appropriate ways, but also in very different ways, depending on their bodies.
Watching it recently (yes, I shared it in this post) I was struck by how watching the hippo dance (apologies, I forget her name) puts me at a crossroads. I can laugh… or I can enjoy and appreciate the exaggerated ways her animated self expresses joy in movement.
Gloria– that’s her name– the hippo in the movie Madagascar, doing her booty dance to the end credits.
And then there’s Melman the giraffe, who also dances, sometimes with Gloria:
Hippo Gloria and giraffe Melman dancing cheek to cheek.
Giraffes probably have the textbook exaggerated and ungainly body– both in life and in cartoons. But they run and bend and stretch and (at least in movies) dance. Their repertoire of movements are also fascinating.
Which brings me to physical therapy. On Wednesday I was doing my hip exercises for sciatica, looking around the room to see what everyone else was up to. What did I see?
an older person with lots of flexibility stretching her hamstring;
a teenager recovering from an ankle sprain, bouncing a ball while standing on one foot on a foam cushion;
a 40-something, new to PT, doing gentle shoulder range-of-motion in work clothes;
an older person, one month after knee replacement, getting flexibility checked;
and me, working hard, sweating, enjoying the effort of strengthening my 60-something body.
All of us were there with different bodies with their own structure, vulnerabilities and history. We were all there to improve our movement while healing. We didn’t all like to move-it-move-it, but we did (move it, that is). We were all using the bodies we came in with and getting help with strength and flexibility and stamina.
I’m almost through my round of PT, and I’m happy with the results. I’m just as happy to get this infusion of body acceptance. And of course, to be reminded of those fabulous dancing animals… 🙂
Readers, have you danced this week? If so, let me know. If not, how about putting on a track and moving your body, however it does that?
What’s the relationship between people who love to do sports and people who love to watch or follow sports? It’s definitely not a one-to-one relationship. I think especially in the North American context, professional sports fandoms are identities unto their own, and they don’t necessarily connect to someone being an athlete themselves.
For me, I have loved watching hockey ever since I was in Grade 5, when the Vancouver Canucks surprised everyone and went to the finals of the NHL (to be wiped out in four straight, alas!). I loved the energy cheering together and I remember waving a white towel whenever I could, joining in with fans everywhere on the BC coast.
I have continued my hockey-loving life, despite never having a chance to play hockey. At my age, and in my coastal community, there was no ice to skate on in our town, the nearest rink being a 40-minute drive to the next town. I would have loved to play hockey, I think, but I really had never heard of girls doing it, and I certainly didn’t have access to it.
My son and I about 5 years ago, ready for playoff season!
I have relished my life as a casual fan. It’s not like I track the stats of players, but I do enjoy learning from my 18 year old son who does keep track of some stats. And I have enjoyed many mother-son hockey games over the years, we’ve enjoyed watching the Canucks play in North Carolina, Ottawa, Buffalo, Toronto and Vancouver. It’s awesome. I have particularly enjoyed junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League, as we live in a town where we’ve had the joy to watch young NHL stars come develop.
I also love watching the women’s hockey teams play when it’s actually on TV and covered (so basically during the Olympics). But honestly, it never really crossed my mind that the pathway for girls in hockey is so much narrower and shorter than for boys. For boys, there is a well developed junior hockey system in North America and parts of Europe. There are university scholarships. There are professional leagues in many parts of the world.
For girls, the options seem to be far fewer. There are scholarships, I understand, and there are national teams. Surely, though, the training supports are minimal compared to those available to the multiple tiers of development for boys’ and young men’s leagues.
Honestly, as a casual fan, somehow the gender imbalance in pro-sports had barely registered in my mind until recently, when I heard stories of women’s soccer teams arguing for parity in funding. The totally limited options for girl-hockey-players really never crossed my mind until I started hearing news stories about the new women’s Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) being developed.
Sometimes I even get my husband to join me in cheering on the hockey team!
The other day, a friend posted news about knowing a woman who got drafted to the PWHL. He has a daughter who plays hockey. It hit me – this is BIG. There is no logical reason that male athletes should earn professional wages whereas women shouldn’t. It feels like a bit of an awakening. And I guess I’ll be looking to get myself some PWHL tickets!
