It’s been almost three weeks since Spain claimed the men’s 2026 World Cup title. I had a lot of fun tracking the results of the knock out rounds with a group of international fans online and in person in our favourite pub watching on the big screen eating super fresh fish and chips.
Here I am celebrating the big win:
Martha, wearing a red football jersey from Team Spain, waves her hands with joy after Spain wins the 2026 Men’s World Cup.
I wrote a month ago about the number of women serving as referees in the global competition. I never saw a game where one of the women served as a centre referee, but I did see a game where one of the women was one of three refs in the VAR control room.
Although women officiated in three group stage matches as centre refs, and another four as non-centre refs, to date no woman has ever refereed a men’s final (quarter, semi or gold). However, Tori Penso, the American referee, was stellar as the centre ref for the Women’s World Cup final in 2023, which Spain also won.
I’m really hoping that the 2027 Women’s World Cup and the 2028 Men’s World Cup have more women in the refereeing ranks. At a minimum, perhaps their presence will reduce the number of shenanigans displayed by the male players. One can dream, right?
— MarthaFitat55 has never played soccer, but once scored a goal in her exceedingly short career as a forward in floor hockey.
I was 38 and a half when I was pregnant with my child. My ultrasound referral slip gave the reason for the scan as “late maternal age.” It could have been worse; I could have been described as having a geriatric pregnancy or being an elderly primigravida (first pregnancy after 35). Perhaps I should count myself fortunate that I did not have a lazy uterus after the birth, although my stalled labour could have also been defined as a “failure to progress.”
Later, after I had my child, I met women who were told they had an incompetent cervix, an incarcerated uterus, or an inhospitable womb. I also learned that some people were told they had a blighted ovum or that their recurrent miscarriages meant they were habitual aborters. Now that I am post-menopause, it appears I am at risk of hosting a senile vagina, although I’ve read they like to call it vaginal atrophy these days.
Image description shows hands on a laptop on the left and a tipped-over plant next to a red and white crocheted uterus and ovaries. Photo by Gwen Mamanoleas on Unsplash
Back in June, I came across a post by the Female Quotient on Instagram that identified several negative terms used to describe reproductive issues affecting people with uteruses, vaginas, and ovaries. The account wrote: When it comes to women’s health, words aren’t just words. Language shapes perception, influences decision-making, and can impact how women experience healthcare. Some of this terminology reflects assumptions about women’s bodies that have persisted for decades, even as medicine has evolved.
I never felt elderly at 38 (even now approaching my mid-60s, I find it hard to imagine I am—gasp—a senior!), and I resented the implication that my age implied greater fragility, increased risk or diminished agency with my pregnancy. I can’t imagine what it would be like to hear I had an incompetent cervix, for example, as if infertility were a personal failure instead of a structural malfunction.
We see similar things with fitness language. Women shouldn’t lift weights because they will look masculine, develop big muscles, or become less feminine. As none of those possible outcomes pose any threat to the world turning on its axis, I have always wondered why these would be bad things.
Certainly, I desire bigger muscles so I can do all things like drag soil around my garden, or pull stubborn tree roots, or shift bricks for an ornamental wall. I also enjoyed slinging sacks of oats, beans, raisins, and lentils for my bulk food club without needing extra help when we were active, or carrying all the groceries in one go from the car. Who wouldn’t want to be able to do those things?
Using language that embeds assumptions about social expectations for acceptable behaviour or appropriate appearance perpetuates those stereotypes. Instead, what if we used positive language to describe interventions? We might not achieve success, but we could feel better about the effort to make something work the way it should instead of blaming the individual for the problem.
MarthaFitat55 has a lot of thoughts and feelings about language, inside and outside the gym.
I love the Olympics, and I love the World Cup, both the men’s and the women’s. At present, the men’s World Cup is underway in North America. There are three country hosts: Canada (2), the United States (11), and Mexico (3). There are 48 teams playing matches in four different time zones. On top of all that, there are also 25 other sites across North America serving as training base camps.
The logistics of using three host countries instead of one is fascinating, but do you want to know what my favourite statistic is? The number of women referees.
Image shows six women dressed as referees. Text reads: Six women will officiate the 2026 Men’s World Cup. It’s the highest number of women officials in World Cup History, matching the record set in 2022. Yet 164 of FIFA’s 170 appointed officials are men. Source: The Female Quotient/Instagram
Six women are refereeing the games: two centre referees (Tori Penso and Katia Itzel García), three assistant referees (Brooke Mayo, Kathryn Nesbitt, and Sandra Ramírez), and one video assistant referee (Tatiana Guzmán). I watched Tori Penso referee the women’s World Cup final in August 2023 and she was fantastic. It was great news to read that two other officials from that game — Kathryn Nesbitt and Brooke Mayo — were joining Penso in WC 2026.
I haven’t seen a game yet where Penso is refereeing, but I have read a lot about her and her colleagues. There’s a great English-language article in El Pais (Spanish newspaper) where you can get snapshot biographies of the six women. I learned two things from the article: women are less than 4% of the appointed officials, and most of them began refereeing as teens.
Six may not seem a lot, but representation matters. I can’t tell you how many reels I have seen since the beginning of competition highlighting their presence. I took a look at some other stats to see how the number of women referees stacks up.
First, there’s not a lot of data, so we have to do better on that front.
It occurs to me that we have a great opportunity to promote women in sports not just as athletes but also as leaders, mentors, coaches, and yes, officials. Supporting young women athletes as leaders in the refereeing sphere may become easier with the increased visibility Penso and Garcia, along with their colleagues, are getting on and off the pitch.
As we head into knockout play over the next week before we hit quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals the week after, I’m looking forward to catching sight of these six women living their best referee lives managing World Cup matches—I hope girls and young women everywhere are watching, too.
I love planners of all sorts. I have a handy purse-sized diary used for tracking work milestones, business appointments, work and family deadlines etc. I have my own online calendar and a shared one with my partner. I use monthly planning sheets to map projects. I also have a whiteboard where I map out my day. Oh, and I used to have a wall calendar where we tracked everyone’s primary activities before we moved into the online calendar.
Several years ago, after I went through menopause, I realized I had also relied on an internal calendar. I had always tracked periods but I didn’t appreciate how it helped me manage time until they finally ended.
The first change was that I had to start scheduling breast self-exams for the first of the month since I no longer had a period to remind me to check in between.
The second was the way the absence of periods restructured my whole approach to time management. While periods never stopped me from doing things, period cramps often had other plans for me. Thus I was used to planning around their possible manifestation vs. an actual period’s appearance.
The third thing was what my planning around a period meant in reality. It meant I rested; I took it easy; I treated my body with tenderness and kindness. I still got a lot done but I have given myself a lot of grace.
The internal clock meant I was multi tasking by shifting the emphasis I placed on things from one month to the next.
These days I find my electronic calendar takes on that burden. I get a reminder for my HST and tax returns, so I decided why not schedule reminders for other things too? So now my calendar has notes to remind me to make appointments for things I need to get done.
The challenge is tracking the followup. In the days before menopause, I was aware if I missed a month in terms of scheduling but the arrival of a period would signal that time had passed.
These days the signal I get is when I have had the forethought to schedule something. It’s not because my internal clock was tracking the passage of time.
So how is this connected to fitness? My calendar notes two training sessions a week. The training intervals give me a structure I can use to track my often over-scheduled life. As I look forward to retirement in the fall, I wonder what new ways I will use to track time?
Martha Fitat 55 lives and works (for now) in Newfoundland and Labrador.
There was a time when I might miss a session or two at the gym, and I would feel relief and then dread. The time never got wasted—life demands have a way of filling calendar vacuums without issue—but the original purpose never got slotted in anywhere else, hence the later dread.
ID: a set of plates for powerlifting in blue, yellow and green are arranged on the floor. Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash
These days, I miss the gym if I skip a week. I miss the chalk, the warm-up, the feeling of strength as I approach the bar. Powerlifting training days anchor my week. As an independent consultant, my schedule is my own; there’s no nine-to-five at an office to provide structure to the week.
The two mornings I spend in training offer space to focus on physical effort vs. mental effort. That isn’t to say there’s no thinking involved in training. There is; it’s the proportion that is different.
I love the freedom. Outside of work deadlines, I am free to complete work at whatever time of day I choose. I learned early in my career as a consultant to block time for specific purposes; otherwise, it was too easy to fill my days with work and leave little time for family, fitness, leisure, and rest.
If I have to miss a day’s training, I try to make it up. Weather is an occupational hazard where I live and it’s not unusual to have late winter (or early spring) storms force schedule changes. Vacation periods are different; I’m usually travelling and walking thousands of steps a day compensates reasonably well for the lack of time at the bar.
As I contemplate retirement in the next six months, I’ve been thinking about how I will structure my week. Will I take out a membership to carry out self-directed workouts? Will I add something else to maintain cardiac health? Is it time to rescue my bike from its exile in the garage?
Or will I end up like the Dowager Duchess in Downtown Abbey, asking, “What’s a weekend?”
A still from Downton Abbey with Maggie Smith as the Dowager Duchess asking, what is a weekend?
I know I will have more time to try different things, and I’m looking forward to reengaging with activities I love but don’t have enough time for right now, like swimming, biking, and practicing yoga.
How about you? Have your fitness goals changed with retirement? Or are you thinking about the opportunities and delights awaiting you as you think about this next stage of life? Let us know in the comments.
MarthaFitat55 is looking forward to still being Fitat65!
I’m envious of my friends who live in climates vastly different from mine. Not long ago I saw a photo of a vegetable garden in full bloom. Help yourself to extra greens was the caption.
My garden is still an expanse of white, with almost four feet of snow.
Image shows a garden full of snow with tall drifts. In the background are leafless trees and fir trees.
See? Not a green leaf in sight.
But one can dream. I like fitness that has a purpose or that’s fun. Gardening is purposeful — raking, digging, toting, watering etc. I’m looking forward to doing more this year.
Shoveling snow is purposeful — snow removal is essential to leaving the house — but it is not fun.
Weight training is fun. It’s an opportunity to lift heavy things and put them down again. Swimming is fun. It is a form of meditation and puts me in a good mood.
Walking is also fun. It’s something you can do by yourself, or together with a friend. You don’t need any special equipment, as a pair of sturdy shoes will do.
You can add walking into everything: use the stairs instead of the elevator, walk to work or the grocery store, park your car four lanes further away from the door, etc.
Theorist BJ Fogg suggests making new habits stick by attaching them to parts of your existing routine. For example, if you need to stretch more, add a set of stretches while you brush your teeth.
I’ve played around with Fogg’s approach. I programmed my Fitbit to give me an alert every hour at ten minutes to the hour. It’s my cue to stand and stretch so I’m not sitting for three hours straight writing.
Running down two flights of stairs to get tea counts. So does making my bed ( have you ever wrestled with a king size wool duvet? It’s a workout!). Or sorting laundry.
The point is to add extra movement where you can. Our lives are busier now. Finding a full hour to hit the gym can be daunting. When you add in the prep and post tidy, it can feel like more time than you can realistically commit.
Winter can be grim, but it doesn’t mean you have to stop moving. Finding or creating small pockets of activity that are fun and physical throughout your day can help ease the grimness and benefit your physical well being. Spring will get sprung soon in my world, and I’ll be ready!
It’s winter where I live. Cold. Damp. Icy. Earlier this week, we got a dump of snow.
How much snow? Quite a bit. The picture below shows my backyard. The snow-covered object is a claw-foot tub that serves as a planter. It’s about three and a half feet high. There’s a lot of snow.
Luckily, the street has been cleared. It’s very tempting to stay inside but with clean pavement, sturdy boots, and little wind, a short and brisk walk is enough to get the cobwebs out. Besides, having a good stomp in the winter will also do wonders for your mental health. Check out this post and learn about the eagle going on a walk!
Fitness doesn’t have to be complicated, and it should be fun. Even shovelling works! Check out Christine’s post on shovelling as fitness here.
January brings its own challenges. Besides being one long Monday, the month surrounds us with a constant stream of messages about self improvement. The biggest focus of the messaging is primarily focused on physical fitness and/or weight loss.
Now I don’t make resolutions. I make promises to myself and they are always the same: Eat well, move lots, hug often, laugh myself silly, do good work, find the sunny spot, be the light. It works for me. The trick is to find what works for you
If you are just starting a fitness journey, yay. As John Bingham famously said, “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” It can be daunting to walk in through the gym door, or to sign up for an Aqua fit class, but you did it!
My advice if you are new to training or adding daily movement after a period of inactivity is keep it simple. Focus on small achievable goals. Maybe you start with one day a week, one walk instead of a drive, one new activity at a time. Maybe you dance at home for ten minutes after lunch, or you practice a single yoga pose. The key is to build a habit around fitness.
My goal the first time I went to the gym to meet my trainer was to not fall over from exhaustion. My second goal was to keep going for the full ten sessions I paid for in advance.
If you are a long time member of a gym, be kind to newbies in the gym. I remember seeing the side eyes some longtime gym members gave newbies. You were new too once upon a time. Patience, kindness and support are always welcome.
What helped you the most when you started your fitness journey? What advice would you give someone just starting out? What would you like to hear?
MarthaFitat55 intends to keep moving for as long as possible.
Twelve years ago this past month, I was on a trip with my family, and we had to run a great distance to get to our airplane gate. We did get there, but not before they closed the doors. It took me 45 minutes to recover from my run that felt like hundreds of kilometres but was probably closer to one and a half kilometres (the gates are very far apart in Frankfurt!).
As I sat there — red faced, sweaty, lungs exhausted by the effort — I made a resolution. I had, over the years, run 10-mile races, rowed in regattas, walked trails, swam lengths, played field and floor hockey, and lobbed balls of all sorts, with a decent amount of enjoyment. But back in 2013, I was out of shape, and I felt it.
It was past time to take my fitness seriously again. A good friend had been powerlifting for a while and was loving it. I found a trainer and began. My first visits to the gym were painful. There was so much I found difficult and awkward. The muscle aches the day after weren’t great either.
Somehow, I kept going. I signed up for ten-session blocks and did that for more than a year. I settled into a routine. I kept going back. Again and again.
Things got less awkward. I learned how to use the tools. I learned to listen to my body, to push it, and then push some more. If I skipped a session due to illness or holidays, I missed it. I never thought I would feel the absence of hard physical effort keenly, but I was there.
So 12 years on, what have I learned? It takes patience and persistence, along with a good bit of bloody-mindedness. It’s consistency, curiosity and commitment. I won’t break any world records because the only person I am competing against is me, but every day I move forward, I am more confident in my strength, more comfortable with my body’s ability to do the things I want and need it to do.
This month, I approached the midpoint of my 60s, almost a decade past my initial vow of Fitat55. I am looking forward to the next decade with excitement: what will I take on next in my continuing goal of functional fitness? I can’t wait to find out.
I don’t believe I am the only person who sees September as the beginning of a new year. I know that officially the new year starts January 1, but for me, September means a new start, plus new everything else — notebooks, pencils, crayons, etc, and as a kid, new shoes.
Image shows a forested area witha sign post that says START in red letters. Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash
These days, the first fall month still signals a new beginning. While I am starting new projects on the work front, after a two-week stint volunteering at the Canada Summer Games, September also means I’m back at the gym regularly for training after summer holidays.
I’ve been missing the variety of activity I had built in over the years: the powerlifting was supplemented by trail walking, swimming and yoga. The pandemic shut down my walks, my swims and my yoga. Even after the pandemic abated, life kept intervening. The only thing left standing was my twice-weekly powerlifting sessions, and I’ve only missed those because of illness or vacations.
The great news is that the pool closest to me has re-opened after renovations. I’m also looking at the expansion of our local trail system near my house. I am hoping its new multi-use focus means it will be looked after in the winter allowing me to resume trail walking in earnest. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that my favourite yoga teacher will offer classes again.
The result is I’m cleaning up my walking shoes, unpacking my swimsuit, and rolling out my yoga mat in anticipation. There’s no new gear to pat and delight in, unlike my early school years, but I’m excited nonethless.
What new things are you planning to undertake on the fitness fron this fall?
