Month: July 2024

fitness

From Vienna to Budapest, on a bike

fieldpoppy

Riding along the Danube from Vienna to Budapest is one of those trips that cycle tour folks tend to assume they will do one day. Castles! A richly historic river! European snacks! Three countries! Castles again!

I didn’t plan to do this trip this summer — all my plans are aimed at a ride in Poland a few weeks from now. But my intention to treat one of the Ugandan women who’s been part of a project I’ve been involved in for 18 years was thwarted by the biased visa practices of the Austrian government. So I found myself with a ticket to Vienna and legs that always want to pedal, so I pulled a plan out of my back pocket.

I’m on a train right now, heading back from Budapest to Vienna, skin a little more tan, muscles a little taut, labia a little tender. Grateful. It was a really good, solo ride, and NGL as the kids say, I’m happy not to be wearing cleats for a 5th day in a row. (My toenails have still not recovered from my February trek in Patagonia!)

I chronicled the journey in my own blog. Links are below.

First, this was Plan C. I started on this trip with a fair bit of angst, partly because of the nonsense with britah’s visa and partly because my attempt to reassemble my bike was a massive fail.

Day 1, I rode from Vienna to Bratislava. Slovakia was a new country for me. I was there less than 14 hours so I’m not sure I got the full picture, but I did try a dish that I — and my cholesterol levels — won’t soon forget.

Day 2, Bratislava to Gyor in Hungary, was a bit of a slog, for no real reason except a sore back and the dawning reality of so many hours on a strange bike. Like staying with the friends of friends when you have to be polite over coffee. But Gyor was a really nice town with unsettling historic resonance for me.

On Day 3, I took a turn southwest instead of staying along the Danube, and found myself in a very pretty lakeside town with — you guessed it — a really nice castle. And an excellent meal with a live accordion accompaniment.

The final day, Tata to Budapest, was the source of some morning indecision, when I briefly regretted leaving the Danube-adjacent standard route, pondering multiple options over breakfast that all involved trains for some portion. Planning anxiety in action. But I stuck with the plan and was gifted perfect weather.

The hire bike, in the end, turned out to be perfectly okay, a bit trudgey and chain-droppy on the steep hills on the last day. And my soul? It pedalled through all the rhythms it needed this week.

What about you? Do you have a cycling trip you imagine you’ll do “one day” you might find yourself doing at the last minute?

Fieldpoppy is Cate C-D, who is still really mad at the racist practices of the Schengen visa bureaucrats.

Mango gelato with 25 km to go on my last day.

fitness

Paris 2024 Olympics: You win some, you lose some …

marthafitat55

By MarthaFitat55

The Olympics will start Friday July 26 in Paris. Every day it seems there’s a bit of news about the Olympics, from the innocuous and exciting to the scandalous and enraging.

Image shows the Eiffel Tower behind the Olympic Rings. Photo by Luca Dugaro on Unsplash

First the good news: for the first time since its inception, the Paris Olympics will feature gender parity. The Tokyo Games came close, but it’s Paris where equal numbers of men and women will compete. The Olympic organization has a great overview of the march to gender parity here.

According to Axios, women made up 2.2% in the 1900’s first modern Olympic Games. It’s not hard to see why it took 124 years to reach parity. Men have always gotten greater numbers of lucrative sponsorships compared to women. And let’s not forget Kara Coucher, Olympian and former Nike representative who was dropped by the company when she got pregnant.

There’s always been interest in women’s sports; we just haven’t always seen the coverage, the participation, and the money. These days women’s hockey, soccer, and basketball are dominating and with that audience, the dollars are growing.

More good news: Breastfeeding athletes will be given their own rooms so they can continue to feed their children while at the games. The scene was quite different in Tokyo. Women’s Health Magazine had a great story about the changes evident in Paris and they also shared some of the stories they heard from breastfeeding athletes:

“Paralympian Sarah Storey, 46, who has won 28 medals, said it’s definitely possible to be a breastfeeding mum and elite athlete. She said: ‘It’s absolutely possible to breastfeed and be at the highest level of sport because I’ve done it. Your baby is settled, it’s not crying, it’s not upset, and you can focus on the job that you’ve got to do as an athlete. ‘Knowing that I can provide for my child means that when I do this incredibly selfish job of being an athlete, where you have to be so self-centred and so self-absorbed with the hours that you’re training and racing, it gives me that yin and yang.’”

Now for the bad news: Despite winning a decision that said forcing Caster Semenya to take testosterone-reducing drugs was discrimination, Semenya is still fighting to run races in all the distances she wants to run. You can read past blog entries about Semenya’s battles here and here. Semenya presented her case at the European Court of Human Rights in March 2024.

Semenya’s court challenges have cost her dearly in the ten-year fight: about $1.5M in legal fees and an arbitrary shift from her favoured distances. Semenya said in the article her career is over and she is focused on advocating for younger athletes.

And now for the really bad news: The Netherlands has agreed to let a convicted child rapist participate as an Olympic contender. Dutch volleyball player Steven van de Velde will represent the Netherlands at the Games despite being convicted and serving a one-year term for the rape of a 12-year-old.

The head of the Dutch Volleyball Federation says van de Velde has served his time and has been reintegrated in the Dutch volleyball community. “He is proving to be an exemplary professional and human being and there has been no reason to doubt him since his return,” said Michel Everaert, general director at Nevobo.

Van de Velde describes his actions in 2017 as his “greatest misstep of my then young life” and expressed his gratitude for the support of his family, friends, and colleagues.

The Dutch Federation says van de Velde returned under strict conditions. The IOC says the national OCs decide who gets to be an Olympian and has referred the media back to the Dutch for comment.

Nonetheless, the head of the US Centre for SafeSport does not agree with the decision to allow van de Velde at the Olympics. CEO Ju’Riese Colon said she was “deeply concerned that anyone convicted of sexually assaulting a minor could participate in the 2024 Olympic Games. With teams from around the world about to convene in Paris, many of which include minor athletes, this sends a dangerous message that medals and money mean more than their safety. Participation in sport is a privilege not a right.”

With three weeks left to go, Olympic news will likely increase. It will be interesting to see what and who gets covered once the Games begin.

MarthaFitat55 lives and works in St. John’s. She expects she will have more to say once the Games finish.

a tray of fried processed food with a coke can. More nutrition news: some confusing, some not
fitness · food · nutrition

More nutrition news: some confusing, some not

catherine w1 Comment

This week in nutrition news we are reminded that ultra-processed foods are bad for us. What does “ultra-processed” mean? Pretty much what you would think– “foods made using industrial methods and ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in grocery stores — like high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and concentrated proteins like soy isolate”, according to this NYT article. Everything from sodas to flavored yogurts to boxed mac and cheese to breakfast cereals counts. To paraphrase one of food writer Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, “if it comes from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.”

So far, so bad. At least we understand this. But wait a second: I just mentioned breakfast cereals in the same damning sentence as boxed mac and cheese. Surely these two foods are not equivalent in their so-called unhealthiness? Right. How processed a food is according to the Nova system some nutrition scientists developed is unrelated to its nutritional content. See below from the NYT:

The Nova system notably doesn’t classify foods based on nutrients like fat, fiber, vitamins or minerals. It’s “agnostic to nutrition,” said Maya Vadiveloo, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island.

That has led to debate among nutrition experts about whether it’s useful for describing the healthfulness of a food, partly since many UPFs[ultra-processed foods] — like whole grain breads, flavored yogurts and infant formulas — can provide valuable nutrients, Dr. Vadiveloo said.

Yeah. Maybe researchers should focus on the nutritional content of the food rather than the extent of its processing when deciding on nutritional recommendations. Just FYI, this isn’t my idea. Some other researchers developed a study to test this claim, which was published this week. Here’s what they found:

A new study demonstrates that eating primarily minimally processed foods, as they are defined by the NOVA classification system, does not automatically make for a healthy diet, suggesting that the types of foods we eat may matter more than the level of processing used to make them.

Comparing two menus reflecting a typical Western diet -; one emphasizing minimally processed foods and the other emphasizing ultra-processed foods, as categorized by the NOVA classification system -; the researchers found that the less processed menu was more than twice as expensive and reached its expiration date over three times faster without delivering any additional nutritional value.

“This study indicates that it is possible to eat a low-quality diet even when choosing mostly minimally processed foods,” said Julie Hess, PhD, a research nutritionist at the USDA-ARS Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center, who led the study. “It also shows that more-processed and less-processed diets can be equally nutritious (or non-nutritious), but the more-processed diet may have a longer shelf life and be less costly.”

Wow. If that’s true, then why are nutrition researchers telling us that ultra-processed foods are bad for us? I mean, if it’s possible to eat an equally nutritious diet that is a) cheaper; and b)lasts longer in the fridge or on the shelf, then what’s the problem?

There is research suggesting that eating ultra-processed foods may be linked to medical conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But this research is observational, so it’s hard to make strong conclusions. The NYT cites one small study of 20 adults who were given a diet of minimally processed food for two weeks and an ultra-processed menu for two weeks. On average, they gained weight on the ultra-processed menu and lost it on the minimally-processed menu, even though the menus were adjusted to be calorie-equivalent. In short, it looks like they ate more of the ultra-processed food.

Clearly, more studies are needed to try to sort this out. But what are we to do in the meantime? One expert in the NYT says this:

Cook at home as much as you can, using minimally processed foods, Dr. Davy said. “We can’t really say a whole lot beyond that at this point.”

Great. And I am aware that you, dear readers, are left not knowing more about nutrition than you did before you starting reading. But don’t worry, because I have some actual definitive nutrition news for you that’s not at all confusing. Here it is, again from the NYT:

Watermelon is really good for us. It’s hydrating, not very sugary (yes, this is true!), and it isn’t not heart-healthy (which is to say, they don’t know if it’s promotes cardiovascular health, but it doesn’t hurt).

Whew. That’s a relief. Now we can all proceed to enjoy lovely fresh summer watermelon with no hesitation. You’re welcome…

I could eat one of these big juicy watermelon pieces in a single summer picnic.

fitness

Working out art gallery style

Sam B2 Comments

I posted recently about my challenges getting around and playing tourist in Rome.  So much walking! So many stairs! No handrails! The heat!

But the thing I found hardest of all was standing. The art galleries we visited were their own kind of fitness challenge. 

The Doria Pamphilj Palace and Gallery at least had one chair per room where I could sit (if a gallery guard wasn’t using it) to listen to the audio guide and look at art. Things were more challenging again in the Galleria Borghese. I found myself relieved that the tickets were timed and that we only had two hours in the gallery. Anyway,  I loved it despite all the standing.  Will definitely go back.

So standing is one kind of workout in a gallery.  But what about an actual fitness class?

Would you workout in a gallery?

These guys did it in 2017. See here.

And now it’s happening again.

See Parisians warm up to the Olympics with workouts in the Louvre.

“Parisians warmed up for the coming Olympics with a series of workouts inside the renowned Louvre Museum on Wednesday, part of a programme to meld sports and culture as the French capital girds to host the Summer Games.

Participants took part in four 10-minute sessions of various disciplines dubbed “Run in the Louvre” in four emblematic rooms of the world’s most visited museum.

The project is one aspect of the Cultural Olympiad programme developed by the Paris 2024 organisers.

In the museum’s Cour (hall) Marly, which features French sculptures that adorned 17th-century King Louis XIV’s chateau in Marly, participants took part in a yoga lesson.

They then got a chance to learn dancehall, a Jamaican dance, amidst statues hailing back to the reign of ancient Assyrian King Sargon II in the Louvre’s Cour Khorsabad.”

See also Working Out — in a Museum. Not just any  gallery or museum,  the Louvre.

You can see video here: https://x.com/CGTNEurope/status/1783194193340375212?s=09

Closer to home (for me) the Art Gallery of Guelph occasionally hosts yoga!

What do you think? Yay or nay to gallery workouts?

fitness

June Reflections and July Aspirations: Gratitude, Fitness, and Adventures

Sam B

My friend Todd just wrote about making July a month of healthy choices.

He’s focusing on gratitude, fitness, and wellness. I like that.  I’m going to keep up with my daily habit tracker, but I’m going to add two things to my daily list,  gratitude and reading.

Today, for example, I’m grateful for excellent international conferences, vacations in exciting places (Rome and Iceland), and for being at home with my mum and Cheddar the dog and sleeping in my own bed.

I want to add in some riding goals too, besides every day riding. I need to get back to longer distances and more time on the bike. I miss it!

But also since it’s now July, a quick June summary is due. It’s not all good.

I failed at not shopping! What happened? A new bathing suit happened. A smart wool bra happened. And then there was the stuff that arrived on back order. Try again in July? On it.

I’m behind with my riding goals,  863.5 km so far this year. Some years I manage 5000 km. Some years it’s 3000 km. This year I might need to scale down to 2000 km.

We did have a fun weekend riding bikes and camping in Awenda Provincial Park. We rode our bikes to the beach in the park and then for a ways on the Tiny Rail Trail which starts close to the park. What a great park. We’ll definitely go back.

I only finished one book in June and reviewed it here. There are six others in progress though.

I did go to my first international conference since the pandemic and walk lots and lots in Rome.  See here and here. That felt big and important. I loved it!

I’m at workout number 217 for 2024. My last workout in June was in Iceland.

We missed Pride but a rainbow followed us around the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. 🌈

Also, Yay! We hiked to a hot stream in Iceland and my knees made it! That’s June in a wrap.

Maybe: In the Washing Machine of Life
fitness

Maybe: In the Washing Machine of Life

Mina2 Comments

Last month I wrote about healing rollercoasters. I had planned to write something less turbulent this month. Instead, I’ve gone from rollercoaster to washing machine.

As I write this, over the holiday weekend in Canada, I am surrounded by the Rockies in Canmore, Alberta. I’ve been looking forward to this sojourn for months. The gift of looking up from my computer to see mountains outside my window. And to get out on the trails every day, to trail run, hike and mountain bike.

My fourth day, finishing up a run, I sprained my ankle. Badly. I watched it swell as I hobbled home crying, as if my ankle was being inflated by a bike pump. The physical pain was eclipsed by my mental anguish. Really? Was I going to be imprisoned inside, when just out my door there were miles and miles of forested mountain trails?

What was the universe trying to tell me? What message was I supposed to receive?

I was devastated. Here I am, trying to rebuild my life and instead of three weeks of heavenly nature immersion, I was going to have three weeks of psychic torture and physical pain. Here’s the first message I received: You, Mina, are a detestable person who deserves to be knocked down, repeatedly. Your ongoing, excruciating divorce is not enough. Nor is your financial precariousness, nor the Addison’s Disease. You have still not been punished enough. Yes, even as I was hearing this particular voice in my head, I was fully aware that whether or not I was going to engage with this psychic torture was in my control. Or at least theoretically. It’s easy to say that our state of mind is a decision we make. It’s harder to actually exercise that control.

I have been trying hard to control my mental condition. And for those of you who have read previous posts from me, you know that I was already fully immersed in an effort to visualize my future health (I am actively exploring the potential to heal my Addison’s Disease with a functional medicine practitioner). In that context, injuring my ankle felt like the universe just being plain mean. Understanding that the universe is not personal was my first bit of mental jujitsu. This is not a punishment. I was trail running. And as my friend Kim reminded me, ankles get twisted. This did not happen because I am a bad person. I realigned expectations.

I put flat pedals on my mountain bike and imagined riding around very gently on the flattest ground I could find with the hard plastic sprain boot on my foot. I have some experience with sprained ankles. I’ve also broken my foot, cracked ribs and done quite a number of other things to myself. So, I’m familiar with the healing trajectories.  I was calm. Or resigned. It’s sometimes hard to discern the difference. I knew what to expect. A lot of streaming Pilates at home. A sore hip from wearing the hard boot, which makes one leg longer than the other. Enforced stillness. Restlessness.

At the same time, I redeployed the Gladiator Therapeutics far infrared wave device I’d been using to heal my adrenals, and am now wearing it night and day around my ankle. While I have no idea if it’s actually working for my adrenals, I know it’s been working for my ankle.  How? Because, as incredibly swollen, ugly and wildly-colored my whole foot is, including my toes and my lower leg, I have experienced little pain. Certainly, there’s discomfort when I walk, especially down stairs. My ankle is stiff when I get up from sitting or lying down. And, I can walk on it, progressively more each day. It’s only been 9 days, as I write this and I went out for a 30-minute walk today (wearing flip flops). And I can ride my bike. On anything. Wearing a small ankle compression support and regular running shoes.

On my bike with the Three Sisters in the background. Inspect before riding sign, which made me laugh and was also accurate. And a surprisingly gentle section of the Rundle Riverside Trail.

I have never experienced ankle healing this quickly before. So, now what is the universe trying to tell me? What message am I to receive?  

I feel like I’m living in a washing machine, being savagely bounced around from one emotion to another. I am realigning expectations almost daily.

At this very moment, I am not hiking in British Columbia with my work colleague and friend, Michelle, who I’d planned to meet in person for the first time this holiday weekend. I was so excited to be with her. Michelle was going to drive from Nelson, B.C and we were to meet up in the middle, in Invermere. Instead, I’m alone in Canmore, nursing the enormous disappointment of not connecting with her. And then the washing machine flips me around, and I’m simultaneously ridiculously grateful for the grace of being able to mountain bike and get outside in the mountains, when I thought that would be impossible. Every turn of the pedal, every technical trail section I walk my bike, every mud puddle I splash through, I’m filled to the brim with the sheer unexpected pleasure of communing with nature.

Daily, I spin through a cycle of emotions, from devastation to elation and back again. I keep hoping to be rinsed clean, to spin into stillness, to be hung out to dry in a gentle mountain breeze. I am searching for meaning in what’s happened, for a story of why.   I wonder, is the universe offering me evidence that I can heal? To shore up my faith for the steeper climb to health I’m facing with the Addison’s? Or is the message more straightforward, simple—be grateful for what you can do, it’s not nothing, in fact, it’s a lot of something pretty joyful.

Maybe that’s the story. Or maybe not.

Michelle, my Nelson friend, reminded me of this Taoist story: An old farmer’s horse ran away, so the farmer could not tend his crops. His neighbor said, how awful, to which the farmer replied, maybe. The next day the horse returned, with three wild horses. What good fortune, the neighbor said. Maybe, the farmer replied. The following day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the wild horses and was thrown off, breaking his leg. What misfortune, the chatty neighbor said. The farmer replied, as always, maybe. Not long after, war broke out and the army came around to the villages to draft the eligible young men. Not the farmer’s son, who was healing from his broken leg. The neighbor, always quick with his take on any situation, said, well aren’t you lucky. Guess what the farmer replied … Maybe.

The story isn’t over. There’s no clear message. Maybe. In the meantime, I can try to minimize the frustration and be grateful for my body’s (or is it my mind’s?) capacity to heal and move.

fitness · hiking · vacation

Yay! We hiked to a hot stream and my knees made it!

Sam B

We did it! Sarah and I hiked to the Reykjadalur hot spring.

I mean,  I did it before when I visited Iceland with Jeff in 2017.  See Active adventures in Iceland: Sam hikes to a hot river and gets her heart rate up in the process.

And Sarah’s certainly in good hiking shape.

But it was seven years ago that I last did the hike when my knees still worked. Since then, I’ve had both knees replaced, and though I’m gradually getting back to longer walks and walking up hills, I really wasn’t sure how it would go. I was feeling a bit more confident after all the Rome walking last week.

Here’s the basic run down of the hike from the trails app on my phone.

It’s a pretty spectacular hike. Lots of steam and waterfalls. Here’s some photos from the hike:

Not everybody walked. Some people did the trail on bike or on horseback. The cycling looked terrifying for me, but I imagine for skilled mountain bikers, it was all fun. Here’s a photo of one, but they were in groups moving quickly across the ridges. The people on horses were getting lessons from a guide. Even for me,  a long-time cyclist,  the horses looked more tempting.

I went and reread Susan’s post Horse Magic in Iceland. I love the Icelandic horses.  They’re so beautiful.

Here’s some photos from the hot river itself.

There were wooden platforms to change behind and lots of space to soak in the warm water. It felt delicious after the long walk.

The hot river at the end of the hike

It’s not a technically challenging walk aside from a few ridge sections and bits with large rocks. I had fun jumping across some streams. We both followed the signs telling us to stay away from the very hot water bubbling out of the ground.

Hot water and steam bubbling out of the ground

My advice if you do it: Bring a towel,  flip flops or water shoes,  water,  and snacks. Now that said we had water but not the other things, and it was still worth doing. Oh, and either go early or maybe late at night.  By mid afternoon, it gets pretty busy with tourists from all over the world.

I found the walk back the hardest bit.  Walking downhill is challenging.  I was also very ready for a snack!

After I had the world’s best grilled cheese sandwich and hot chocolate.

In the airport, I spotted a t-shirt that summed up my feelings. Yay!

But it was only available in white and white t-shirts don’t last that long in my life.  Luckily, I found it online here and it comes in different colours and in a sweater version.

Here’s the Google Fit version of our day.

Yay indeed!

dogs · fitness · self care

Enjoying A Delightfully Over-the-Top Self Talk Video From IG

Christine Hennebury1 Comment

Maybe I’m the late to the game with this one but if you’ve seen it before, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it all over again.

Here’s Jen Butler (@jenbutlersays) demonstrating ‘Affirmations in the style of how I talk to my dog’ –

So, Sweet Angel Babies, should we give this a try?