I’m not. Here’s 2 pm on Saturday this past weekend.
Cheddar at Guelph Lake
Once again I’m missing the daylight and thinking about changing up my schedule. No more sleeping in on the weekend. It’s light at 7 am and I hate missing daylight hours. Also, on work days I’m going to try to get out for walks over lunch while it’s still light out. It’s part of my new challenge anyway. See Sam is going to take on an interesting walking challenge.
Do you change your normal hours to get more light in the winter?
Two blue, white and yellow cloth patches side-by-side on a dark background. One says Lifesaving Society Bronze Medallion and the other says Lifesaving Society Bronze Cross.
I successfully completed two more courses towards my certification so I can work as a swim instructor after I retire next summer.
I have already registered for my instructor’s and airway management courses in December, and the lifeguard course in January-March. I’m pleased that they will be at my regular pool so I won’t have to fight rush hour traffic each week. My friends were teasing me that the ability to bike to lessons would be the deciding factor, even before I had found a class. Apparently I am predicable.
I’m not too worried about the December classes, but I will need to be much more diligent about my physio exercises and make some time to get to the pool to work on my speed before January. My shoulder is improving but it’s still sore and I’m certain my overall swim fitness isn’t where it should be.
I have really enjoyed connecting with other older people who are still teaching or lifeguarding, or are now thinking about getting back to it. Some are part of the Facebook Group “Did You Swim Today”. Others were perfect strangers who saw me in class, and one was a former boss who I still keep in touch with. It’s fun to inspire and be inspired by all these active swimmers.
It has been fascinating to discover just how many seniors are still teaching and lifeguarding, long after most media would have you believe they are just doing aquafit or something similar (don’t get me wrong, aquafit can be a really good workout). People like Mary Gallagher, shown below, who has been teaching swimming in California since 1975.
Mary Gallagher was 80 when this photo was taken in 2000. Photo by Ann Marie Shambaugh shows an older woman with white hair in a swimming pool. She is supporting a young child wearing swim goggles.
On the hard side, wow, there is just no way for me to keep up with those dance moves. It was pretty complicated (for me) choreography and very fast paced.
But, and here’s the fun part, I spent so much time concentrating on the dance moves that the time flew by. Also, I don’t think anyone–except maybe two or three people in the class–could really keep up. It was also the most diverse group of women I’ve seen at my fancy new gym. It was all women even though the class was in the coed fitness studio.
It helped that it was dark, with flashing lights, and really all eyes were on the instructor.
When I got completely lost I just danced and that was fun too. And when it got extra complicated I either concentrated on the foot moves or the arm moves, but not both. I told the instructor at the beginning of the class about my knee surgery so if I was modifying anything she’d know why. That said, I really didn’t need to modify anything for knee reasons, just for complicated dance move reasons.
I did need the class to go about half the speed it was going. I think I need seniors’ Zumba or maybe just beginners’ Zumba. After I chatted with the instructor about how challenging it was. She reassured me that I did fine and said, “Well, you’ve got some moves.” Muppet dance moves!
Will I go back? YES!!! Will I also practice some beginner Zumba at home? Also, YES!!!
Question: Are you a Zumba fan? How on earth do you keep up? Advice appreciated!
Today is Wednesday, the last day of the American Public Health Association meetings. I posted here about the first day of this huge conference of 12,000 folks from every perspective in public health. I’ve spent Monday and Tuesday getting in a lot of steps to and from sessions, visiting the expo to gather up as much free swag as possible, and then listening and learning about what’s important and new (which is a lot!). Here’s some of what I learned:
One: There’s a very interesting new documentary called “Shot in the Arm”, exploring vaccine hesitancy from measles to COVID. It opened in NYC on November 3, and will be screening in various places over the next year. We got to see numerous extended clips of the film, accompanied by commentary by the director, Scott Hamilton Kennedy (no relation to anti-vaxxer politician Robert Kennedy Jr.) The place was packed, which is no surprise. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s available.
Three: I guess I already knew this, but my belief was revalidated: people will line up for free food and drinks no matter what the quality and what their economic status. At one of the local conference hotels that offered daily 6–7:30pm free drinks and snacks, people had already staked out spots in line and reserved comfy chairs and good tables in the lobby by 5:45pm. I know this because I was among them (with a friend). What can I say? One’s inner grad student still lunges at every passing free meal, even when they are obviously not top-quality.
Veggies, ranch dressing, chips and something looking like salsa, and random crunchy items, along with seltzer and bad white wine. Still, we consumed and were glad.
On a more substantive note: there were tons of sessions about health equity, increasing and improving health services and the lives of those affected by racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and other forms of bigotry. I listened to presentations big and small, from big picture health policy initiatives to results from surveys about the reproductive health experiences of LGBTQIA+ people. All of them share an awareness of systemic breakdown and harms as well as proposals for addressing them in various sectors. Again, I felt proud to be a small part of this group and this work.
I’ll wrap up this weekend with a few more substantive comments on a session I attended on issues of body weight and stigma. But it’s now time to pack up, go to the last sessions and head to the airport. Wish me luck in getting back to Boston on time…
Amy Kaler is a professor at the University of Alberta and her recent blog post about the push to always-be-optimizing put me in mind of my own run of exercising on the hour in the middle of all Zoom, all the time, during the peak of the pandemic. I’m sure some of it will resonate with you. Enjoy.
I’m not stuck on one particular task or in one area of life. I’m not frozen in place.
I’m just kind of metaphorically walking through mud in the various things I’m trying to do, even the routine stuff
This isn’t a crisis situation. I am not in any particular despair. I’m just moving reaaaaaaaaaallllllllyyy slowly.
And I’m trying to just let myself move that way.
I’m trying to avoid the temptation to just push harder.
I’m trying to take it easy on myself, to just keep inching forward, sticking to whatever version of my routines feels do-able on a given day, and trying my okayest for everything I have to do.
We don’t have to push ourselves in every area of our lives every day.
Sometimes, we can just move a little bit at a time.
So, Team, if you’re feeling a bit stuck, a bit slow, if you’re not seeing any progress, I invite you to join me being kind to yourself about it while you just inch forward.
In fact, it’s okay if you centimetre forward or millimetre forward or just wait for a minute while you catch your metaphorical breath.
And I’m offering you this gold star in recognition of your hard work – whatever that work looks like today, or tomorrow, or whenever.
A drawing of a star outlined in black and filled with concentric circles of gold. Speckles of gold decorate the paper around the star and the whole drawing is resting on a dark blue surface with blue shapes in a slightly lighter blue.
Hi from Atlanta, y’all– I’m at the American Public Health Association meetings, held yearly in some big American city. I love Atlanta; it’s got loads of interesting neighborhoods, good places to eat and meet, a great system of parks and paths, and an efficient public transportation system (called MARTA). I took MARTA to my hotel from the airport, which was quicker than driving. One drawback of the city is bad bad bad traffic. But I’m car-free (I accidentally wrote care-free, which is also true), happy to move about on foot.
The main conference runs from November 12–15. More than 12,000 attendees are expected. I love seeing people from all areas of public health, from clinicians to researchers to administrators to business folks to academics to students and so on. And there is very good swag. The exhibit booths are staffed with people happy to chat about their programs and hand over water bottles, coffee cups, candy, hand sanitizer, masks, pens, buttons, stickers, and all sorts of doo-lollies you never knew you needed.
There are multiple sections of APHA that members affiliate with, and they sponsor sessions. I’m with the Ethics section (natch) and also the Food and Nutrition section. I also attend talks by the Women’s Caucus and other sections. This conference is a prime opportunity for professional development and learning about up-to-date research, initiatives, emergencies, movements, etc.
I’ll be blogging about each day I’m here, sharing a few snippets of what I experienced. If you are here, too (I mean, there are 12K of us at the conference– it’s possible) or have comments or questions, please do let me know.
Sunday is the first big day of the conference, and the opening session features public health leaders speaking to the enthusiastic crowd. This is a time to welcome the members, do some cheerleading for public health, and honor professionals whose work helps make the country healthier. This year they presented the Fries Prize, awarded by the CDC Foundation and the Fries family, to Dr. Katalin Kariko, this year’s co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, for her research in developing mRNA science, making possible mRNA vaccines (including the COVID vaccines). They also awarded the prize to Dr. Anne Schuchat, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) physician and researcher, for her work on Group B streptococcus, including developing guidelines for treatment that has saved countless babies.
Dr. Kariko recorded a message of thanks, and Dr. Schuchat was present in person and chatted with the APHA leadership. Dr. Schuchat reminded us of how Dr. Kariko faced obstacle after obstacle in her career, being denied grants, being demoted in her job at UPenn, many papers rejected from journals. You can read the story in detail here and here.
Dr. Schuchat added that she herself benefitted from a group of supportive colleagues at the CDC. She didn’t face those same challenges of a hostile work environment, and in fact she found opportunities to influence the culture of the CDC, to make it a better place. She thanked her mentor Claire Broome and also her colleagues and students, noting how public health requires many hands and many ideas.
Hearing about the decades of work these women have done, being surrounded by a crowd of mostly women, doing all the detailed and thankless work that needs to be done to keep us alive and healthy, I was moved to tears. Tears of pride and tears of gratitude. My heart felt full and I knew I was in the right place and in the right profession.
In a lighter moment, Dr. Schuchat shared with the audience that she was the role model for the researcher played actor Kate Winslet in the movie Contagion. The two talked at some length about the details of Schuchat’s work. She also added that Winslet asked her questions including, “how did you wear your hair during an outbreak?”, and “What sort of shoes would you wear during an outbreak?” Well, you want the details to be right…
There’s more to share; stay tuned this week for updates from the public health mothership.
I’ve been sick for awhile now. I worked from home October 16th, and went to the doctor’s for the first time October 20th. I wrote about emerging from the lurgy on the 23rd but clearly that was premature.
Since then I’ve been back to the doctor’s office twice. I’ve had two sets of chest x-rays.
It’s a bronchial thing, post-viral, and best as they can tell, not pneumonia, but I have antibiotics and inhalers. I’ve been working from home at about 60% of my usual pace to allow for naps.
The last time I was sick with the persistent cough thing was 2017. I even blogged about it. Before that it was 2012 in New Zealand where Mallory and I shared a nasty cough for a month.
I’m good at being sick-sick like I actually rest, and I don’t try to work, but it’s more challenging when you’re getting better but not there yet. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of physical activity. With two newish knees, I don’t have the option of just working and resting; I also need to keep moving. I can’t really miss physio.
I’ve been trying to move, but slowly and gently. I’ve got the support of a terrific physiotherapist and personal trainer, who understand that I need to keep moving but preferably in a way that doesn’t bring on coughing fits.
Here’s what my workouts for last week (as recorded in the 223 workouts in 2023 group look like:
➡Physio at clinic
➡Dog walk
➡Home from work still recovering from this post viral, bronchial infection, but forgot to cancel personal training. Went and we did a gentle hour of mobility work and lighter weights and lots of stretching. I will nap this afternoon but it did feel good to move.
➡At home physio
➡Dog walk
➡Zwift, gentle 20 km
I’m sleeping more than usual. And walking less. Here’s my Garmin report on the last seven days.
You might wonder what the stress level number means. Here’s the breakdown: 0–25: Resting state ; 26–50: Low stress ; 51–75: Medium stress ; 76–100: High stress.
So, an average of 26 is a pretty low stress. Thanks to the College’s two associate deans for helping with the stressful stuff.
Today I finally started to feel more like myself. I’m coughing less and the sun was shining.
I love meditation retreats. Correction: I love meditation retreats that:
don’t last too long (a weekend is fine, ten days is way too much)
are in-person (Zooming meditation retreat doesn’t do it for me; YMMV)
don’t make me get out of bed too early (5am: bad; 7am: manageable)
don’t involve too much meditation (6-8 hours: fine; >8 hours: I’m falling asleep)
Allow flexibility in posture (e.g. sitting with props, some movement during day)
Back in 2019, Tracy posted about her 10-day meditation retreat. It was a much more intense meditation experience. These are very common in the meditation world– in fact, I think they’re more common than the hypothetical one I describe above. You can check out her posts below.
In fact, finding a meditation weekend that fits my description isn’t so hard. Lots of places offer them. I’ve been to retreats at the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts and also to the Omega Institute in upstate New York.
A few weeks ago, I went back to the Omega Institute for an event called Meditation Party. It featured some of my favorite meditation teachers from the Ten Percent Happier app, and the app’s founder, Dan Harris. I’d previously attended a meditation weekend with Jeff Warren, one of the three teachers, so I thought it would be like that one, except with three leaders. I was really looking forward to it, as was my friend Andrew, who signed up to go with me.
Well, I clearly didn’t read the description carefully, or take it seriously. Which is totally my fault. I mean, it was at the top of the information.
Note: the word Party is on top line, followed by Reckless Conviviality. All clues to the nature of the event.
So, what is a meditation party? Good question. I’d never attended one before, so my expectations were that it would be like a meditation retreat, but with a bit more chat and jokes. Instead, the event was more like a live reality or talk show, with meditations scheduled into the format.
The huge crowd were huuuge fans of the teachers, the Ten Percent Happier app, and their podcast. They loved talking about their struggles in life and their attempts to meditate and their feelings of well-being after meditation during the many Q&A periods. The online folks (it was advertised as including both in-person and Zoom attendees) also welcomed the chance to connect personally with the teachers, and talked at some length about their hardships and their search for balance and peace. During the several breakout group sessions, people talked eagerly about the ways they tried to incorporate mindfulness techniques, and how it helped them during times of trouble.
At the end of the weekend, people expressed how much they loved the retreat and applauded when the teachers announced there would be more meditation parties scheduled in 2024. Apparently this format of meditation weekend really resonated with folks looking to talk about their paths toward mindfulness.
But (as you can tell by now), this format of event didn’t resonate with me. I wanted more meditation, less talk. However, I didn’t realize that was what I wanted until I was in the midst of less meditation, more talk. So, in an important way, the weekend retreat was successful and meaningful– it revealed to me where I want to go with my meditation practice, which is more sitting in person with others.
Luckily, there are loads of ways to do this. There is a local mediation center that I went to occasionally before the pandemic. I’ll be returning to sit with people some weekday evenings. Also, there are some livestream youtube meditation sits by Jeff Warren (Sunday night at 8pm Eastern time on the Youtube Do Nothing Project) and a friend of his who leads Wednesday night sits. I’ve sat with these folks online and it’s been really nice.
Meditation practice, like any physical activity, follows different trajectories for different people. And sometimes there are turns we don’t expect. That’s not a bad thing. We leave behind some things and move toward other new options. I realize that I want my meditation practice to be simpler right now. And so it is. For now.
Readers, have you made changes to simplify your practice of some activity? I’d love to hear about it.
While it’s been nearly a month since racing at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, it still feels almost like it was yesterday. A dream race for so many triathletes, to have the experience to take part along with ~2,000 other women last month has been a lot to process! While I’ve been thinking a lot about the significance of the day and of the way critics’ comments about how “easy” it was to qualify really challenged me, I’ll share just my race recap and hope to come back to those topics another time.
Swim (1:18:24) As my AG (the first) got in and tread water, I took a moment to look around. Kona is a special place and things felt SO big there–the ocean, the land and the feeling I was about to be part of something really special. I started with a lot of gratitude and excitement for the day.
After a few good minutes of swimming, following feet and sighting buoys, my goggles–chosen despite their somewhat-blurry and often headache-inducing fit since they reliably don’t leak–started to leak. I didn’t mind the waves at the turnaround or the thrill of being with so many people, but I did mind having to stop multiple times to make adjustments! I worried about my contacts falling out, my eyes getting irritated from the saltwater, and about whether or not I’d feel so blah all day long. For the rest of the swim, I fought the urge to have a pity party and even to give up (luckily I stuck with it, just like every single woman who started the swim!). I spent a lot of time swimming on my own and as I finished slower than my last two IRONMAN swims, I tried to be gentle with myself–this was my first ocean swim and one of just a few races done in a swimskin. I also figured a few minutes in the swim could be easily made up by a strong bike.
Exiting the swim.
Bike (6:12:19) Grateful to have the swim completed and eager to ride the course I’d previewed earlier in the week, I started off on the bike feeling pretty good. After some slower splits in town with climbing, I was amazed at a few things: how quickly I was going (a tailwind, I wondered?), how many women were passing me, and how much trouble I was having finding a rhythm in the aero position that felt powerful. I had some “WOW!” moments as I watched the pros race back towards town and as I thought about the history of the sport and the significance of an all-women’s race day.
Conditions were great on the long out-and-back route, which felt so daunting to this loop-loving gal. As the kilometres rolled by, the bike became a game of self-talk, reminding myself as what felt like rider after rider passed me that it was my race and that I was amongst the best in the world–of course there were tons of faster women than me! I watched other women throwing up and getting flats and worked to shut out the thoughts about being bored or having “so far” to go in favour of gratitude that I wasn’t the one with the excitement of a flat or GI distress. On that note, thank goodness for the tubeless setup on my bike–there was sealant on my frame after the race, so phew!
To get through the ride, I also started thinking about my purpose for racing, which is always around seeing what I can get out of myself. On Saturday, I started to realize that “getting more” out of ourselves doesn’t only mean going faster. In this case, I did so much work to keep myself motivated and while it was nice to have a baby bike PR, I’m most proud of the way I battled my tendency to feel insecure. Broadening my definition of success, rather than letting myself off the hook, was a powerful message to the itty bitty shitty committee in my head. Coming into T2, I was excited and eager to get out on the run course–so eager that I somehow lost my bike shoes at the race.
Out on the Queen Ka’ahumanu Highway, biking.
Run (4:24:04) I knew the first ~10k would be the best of the day with spectators galore. I took my amazing coach’s (Angela Quick) advice and held my pace at a reasonable effort (I think!?) and worked to stay cool, hydrated and fueled. I walked Palani Hill as planned and felt strong as I started the long highway section towards the famed “Energy Lab”. Somewhere between those two spots, though, I started to have trouble eating and found myself slowing down to keep my heart rate and breathing in check. I went with it, though, acknowledging the risk of pushing too hard early on. Eventually, I walked every aid station, remembering a friend’s advice to think of them as buffets.
Seeing women biking as I neared halfway provided perspective. I started thinking about the meaning of finishing “poorly” and about how we talk about “not wanting to be last” or even mid-pack. I want to be able to celebrate my achievements and progress, but also think some of those comments can be a part of the problem that keeps women from participating, reiterating implicitly that it’s not worth showing up if you’re not the best or close to it.
In the end, I focused on getting myself to the finish line in a way that would make me proud. I thought about the people I love and about how proud my mom (who I lost about a year ago to cancer) might have been of me regardless of the time at the finish. With one mile to go, I was able to start feeling a little of that pride–even though it was pretty dark out.
Early on in the run, feeling good. Briefly running past the ocean before heading to the lava fields on the run.
Finish 12:03:32 I didn’t have a “bad” race in any way, but created a lot of struggle for myself with stories about not being good enough or worthy of being at that race. I hesitate to share because I think people would rather hear that it was just all magic and butterflies and sparkles, and that somehow it’s really easy for the women out there doing it. If we want to grow the sport of triathlon for women, we need to get real about things. The reality is, it takes a lot to put yourself out there and to deal with all the challenges–physical, emotional, psychological–that go along with that.
The sweet spot perspective I landed on, which I hope will resonate with people, is “I am good enough, and I can do better”. Both can be true, and what a great place to operate from. I’m grateful to Kona for the challenge and the lessons that came along with it.
Grateful, crossing the finish line! Showing off the medal after finishing.
Cheryl MacLachlan is an endurance athlete, teacher and coach living in London, ON. She is always looking for another bike and loves her dog Walter, books and writing.
