How many posts? A busy summer start — more than 40 posts across the month, even with so many of us travelling.
Who blogged? Sam, Catherine, Christine, Nat, Diane, Nicole, Elan, Mina, Tracy, Martha, and Cate
Doing what the algorithm tells us. Sam spent two weeks letting her social feeds run the show. Doing What TikTok Tells Me: A Two-Week Experiment set up the premise — the 9 morning movements, the 30-30-30, the after-dinner walk — followed by a day-three check-in and then The Algorithm Now Wants Me to Do 16 Morning Movements, as the feed kept escalating, before she tallied the verdict in Two Weeks In on Following TikTok’s Advice. Diane joined the trend-watching with Sardinemaxxing, a gleeful dive into vintage sardine-stuffed-lemon territory and the whole “-maxxing” craze.
Milestones, and what progress really means. Mina marked turning 60 with Flying & Falling into a New Decade — a fall on a birthday run, a wrenched shoulder three days before the Rockies, and a hard-won sense of arrival. Elan’s What Progress Means As We Age reframed a rained-out Guelph-to-Goderich attempt (now affectionately the “G2B”) as success measured by joy rather than finish lines. Nat tested the viral get-up-from-a-chair-hands-free benchmark and tied it back to real-world independence.
Grief, and where love goes. Two of our bloggers wrote through loss this month. Nat’s Nat Finds Comfort in Nature, written around her grandmother Joyce’s graveside service, gave us the line that stayed with many readers: grief is love with no place to go. Nicole’s It’s Just a Feeling. Don’t Take the Shortcut marked a year since her mother’s death, weaving running mantras through grief, vertigo, and gratitude.
Recovery and listening to the body. Diane’s cardiac-rehab arc continued in Listening to My Body — the “bad patient” cheerfully swapping prescribed walks for ballet, swimming, and short rides. Nat returned to the weights in Nat Is Back at Strength Training (heavy metal as working-class opera). And Catherine made the feminist case for in-person care in Virtual Physical Therapy: Not an Oxymoron Anymore, sceptical of apps that quietly replace qualified hands.
Free, open places to move. A small but lovely thread this month. Sam’s Going in Circles (On Purpose) at the Emera Oval celebrated Halifax’s free, all-ages skate-and-bike loop — no membership, no fancy gear, just showing up. Elan’s Celebrating a Birthday, a Community, and a Good Cause with Studio Cycling turned a Lost Cycle birthday ride into a pride-themed mental-health fundraiser.
Feminism, sport, and bodies in the news. Catherine took on the chorus of unsolicited opinions in Serena Williams Is on a GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drug and the NYT Commenters Have Comments — her message to them: mind your own business. Diane’s A Tale of Two Parents-to-Be contrasted the cruel reaction to a World Cup footballer leaving for his child’s birth with the warmth around a pregnant PWHL captain. And Sam celebrated Toronto Tempo and Queer Joy ahead of her first WNBA game.
The research thread. Catherine’s Research Roundup: Moving Makes Us Happy and Longer-Lived. Still. Yay! gathered new studies showing physical activity beats age as a longevity predictor — and that even small, light movement feeds a virtuous mood-and-energy cycle.
Summer plans and travel. We kicked the season off with What We’re Up to When the Sun’s Out, the bloggers’ plans and projects. Catherine logged her family beach vacation and the cross-training of family visits. Christine modelled self-care on the road in Christine Hopes to Follow Her Own Advice and its mostly-worked follow-up. And Nat began her four-weeks-out ramp-up for the MS Bike Tour, while Sam and her small-but-mighty Tour de Guelph crew hit their $1,000 goal for Guelph General Hospital on a hilly 50 km ride. Cate added a summer reading list — raving about Heidi Reimer’s novel What We Found Instead and sharing the audiobook stack she’s loading up for a solo cycling trip through northern France and Belgium at the end of August.
Counting, rest, and showing up. Sam hit her 200th workout of the 226-in-2026 challenge, started micro-walking under her desk (right on theme for her word of the year, Expand), and made the case for Some Days Need a Nap. Catherine closed the month with What’s Wrong with Showing Up Late to the (Workout) Party? Nothing, Really — on restarting, and the streak that matters being the streak of one. And Christine sent us into July with Go Team 2026: Keep Showing Up, a gold-star note celebrating every kind of showing up — the days you challenge yourself and the days you’re just treading water, both worth a pat on the back.
A note on climate and cycling. Sam’s It Feels Strange and Awful, But It’s Where We Are sat with ultra-cyclist Lael Wilcox’s heat-driven withdrawal from her round-the-world record, and the unsettling new reality of planning summer rides around the heat. We also marked World Bicycle Day with a romp through the archives.
Month-in-review posts are assembled by Claude with prompts from Sam and edited by Sam. If you spot any errors, let us know.
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