On August 4, 2022 women were finally allowed to race the full course at the Regatta. Known previously as the men’s course, the long course is 2.45 kilometers compared to the short course of 1.225 kilometres.

The Regatta started in 1816, and 40 years later women were allowed to race for the first time, but only the short course. Historically, there’s been no reason available for women not to be allowed to race the long course. except for sexism.

The recommendation to eliminate gender-based distances came in January after the race committee elected its first female president and vice president. While the short and long course races will have segregated teams for now, the gender markers for distance are no more. The committee confirmed its decision to include women in long-course competition after a trial run in June.

There were four women’s teams signed up to race the long course while no men’s teams signed up to race the short course. The winning team in the women’s long course race set a time of 10:28.70, still better than the fifth place finisher (10:43:31) in the men’s long course championship race.

I rowed for two years in the Regatta. It’s a great sport and I learned a lot. While women have been dominating the sport for a while, even in the early 2000s, I heard lots of snide comments that women participated only because it was a social event or a way to get fit. One sports writer even went so far as to say the only serious races were the morning ones and the championship races; the rest were social rowers.

The short course is a hard and fast row, averaging between five and six minutes, compared to the long course. It makes sense that different strengths, different training approaches, and different racing strategies are required. None of that is gender-based. It would be like saying only men can run a full marathon and only women can run a half. Both lengths have their own merits and records and any gender can run either.

There’s a saying that children learn what they see, and at the boathouse, children, especially girls, the message learned was that endurance was a men’s skill. That’s simply not the case. In training, women, elite and amateur, rowed the long course to develop strength. Yes, it could be a slog, depending on pond conditions, but we weren’t ready for our fainting couches at the end of it either.

Yesterday’s long course race for women proved once again that gender does not limit ability.

MarthaFitat55 believes gender is not a reason to not try anything.

CW: diets, body image

Wednesday past I had just finished reading Catherine W’s lovely post about loving our bodies when SamB shared a news article on the increase of children dieting in the UK.

Briefly, the article reported that dieting behaviours among young children were up significantly: more than one in four children were dieting in fact. And coincidentally, the spike occurred following the launch of an obesity awareness program for children and youth.

Without a shadow of a blush, the paper also reported that there might be a problem with the messaging since the number of kids within healthy weight ranges were dieting too.

You think?

Kids are surrounded by images of purported perfect bodies. They learn how to manipulate photos and follow influencers. What could possibly go wrong with the messaging from a weight-based health program?

Context is everything. Even if weight-based concerns are motivated by a sincere wish for health, we know singling kids out for attention that is focused on their bodies is bound to go sideways.

There’s lots wrong with the sugar and fat-loaded foods that are marketed to kids. There’s lots to be worried about when it comes to kids gaining extra weight, or younger kids developing type 2 diabetes.

We are also moving less and eating more. There is also more poverty, and the lack of money influences food buying decisions, so poor diets are not necessarily driven by free choice.

I think we should be focusing on encouraging kids to be proud of their accomplishments, especially those that aren’t weight or image-based. Catherine’s post reminded me how often we are told to improve ourselves, as if we aren’t already good enough as we are.

Children learn what they see, and they aren’t seeing people who are happy with who they are, celebrating all the wonderful things our bodies can do. Instead of focusing on the numbers the scale shows, we need to focus on what self care and self love can do.

MarthaFitat55 lives in the east of Canada. She spent a number of years teaching media literacy to children and youth in the pre-internet era.

A lot of my work overlaps with quality improvement processes. The most common question we look at: what small changes can we make to get better results?

Lately, I have been thinking about this concept in relation to another concept — tiny habits — which we have chatted about here on the blog. If you work in the business sector, you might know this idea as marginal gains.

It’s an idea that comes up in lots of training programs for elite athletes. When I first took up running, my goal was about speed. I started slow and kept being slow. Yes, my overall fitness got better — lung capacity improved, for example — but I didn’t make any significant changes in my speed. Long after my knees gave up the ghost and told me to try something else, I realized I had been chasing after the wrong goal.

Rather than speed, my focus should have been on recognizing the significant gains I had made on endurance and recovery. I might not have been the speediest, but by the time I stopped running, I could go on a 10k run and finish feeling pretty good physically (except for my knees; they hated it).

When I decided to make fitness a key component of my life vs an end goal, I didn’t set out to apply a QI approach to my training. In thinking back on various blog posts I have written about focusing one issue or another, I’ve come to realize that I was applying the concept of marginal gains to my fitness work.

I’ve taken on tiny habits to increase activity, sleep training, hydration, tracking, and active rest. When I look back at the past five years, there is a difference. I’m eating less meat and more legumes and grains (thanks Meatless Mondays!), I’m drinking more water, I notice when I fall off my sleep training wagon so I get back on more quickly), and I am doing more to reduce stress and have fun.

The biggest gain came with consistency. All these tiny changes done regularly have made a significant difference. Is there still more to do and improve? Yes. Most definitely. And I will keep on, one tiny change at a time.

MarthaFitat55 lives and works on the east coast of Canada.

It’s been a weird two and a half years. I say that because my 2020 started with a wicked snow hurricane, and it just carried on from there. It’s also been a busy time even with the pandemic. Lots of family responsibilities, some new adventures (hello beautiful greenhouse!), and a few undesirable results of getting older (back again, wonky hips?).

I like coming up with ways to keep myself focused. I used to do it while studying (cramming) for exams in university and later when I needed reminders of anything I didn’t want to forget. Lately, I have become delighted with the alarm function on my phone and I made a novel discovery I could use actual songs from playlist to sound the alarms instead of the preset list of ring tones. If you hear Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill, that would be my reminder to do my piriformis stretches.

I got into doodling during the pandemic and found it a great way to track key insights from meetings. I give nicknames to my warm up exercises (I startled my trainer once when I asked them to check my form on the waitress exercise, so called because I felt like one holding a tray up high while balancing on one knee).

Mneomics is what they call these tips formally — they can be pictures, songs, acronyms — whatever helps you retain and retrieve information. I was chatting with a colleague and she commented about a discussion they had concluded at work, saying she hoped “they would give it a rest.”

Now you wouldn’t think an idiomatic expression would prompt a rethink about priorities, work-life balance, and so on, but it did. A rest is a pause, a space in which one refreshes, recovers, rejuvenates. If you give something a rest, you are suspending the discussion, allowing space for something else to move in.

I decided I need to give things in my life a rest too by elevating the things that matter. The next half of the year starts in two weeks and my focus is going to be on REST — Reclaim, Exhale, Stretch, and Time.

I’m going to reclaim my head space by reading more books and making more things. I’m going to focus on exhaling, remembering to breathe, focusing on deliberate movement, and maybe, just maybe starting meditation. I’m going to stretch more, and not just my body, but my mind as well. It’s good to challenge old ideas and try new things. Finally, I’m going to make time for fitness a bigger priority in my weekly calendar.

REST. I think the next six months are going to be good.

Last week I did a very bad thing. I didn’t mean to, but looking back, I am glad as I learned something very important.

The bad thing: I was working on a major document that required validation. It’s a very useful process whereby someone very skilled reviews your document and makes sure everything follows logically. However, I ended up sitting at my desk for pretty much the whole afternoon.

The thing I learned: when you sit for too long at my age (well any age really, but at my age, it is exceptionally bad), your muscles tighten, and when they tighten they pull at your bones. If you have a hypermobile hip joint like mine, tight muscles from sitting for too long without stretching result in very unhappy joints because they get pulled out of their rightful place, usually silently, often resentfully, and later, painfully.

It’s been a while since I’ve done something this stunned to myself, but now I know. Previously my hips joints have sloughed off their restrictive socket layers when I have stepped into sinky snowbanks, leapt gazelle-like down uneven steps, or even turned over the wrong way in my sleep.

This Learning Moment (LM) reminded me how easy it is to forget everything when I am in the writing zone: food, drink, movement, conversation etc.

Luckily, there is a remedy. I have started setting alarms — chirpy buzzes, whimsical little tunes, exuberant and energetic rock songs — to remind me to get up and do one of my required exercises. (I have a whole slew of them. I can do them standing up, lying down, and yes, even while sitting in a chair. I know how many reps, how many sets, and how many seconds for each one.)

While I am working on paying attention more mindfully to my body cues, I have found the audio cues work better at interrupting my head space and since I have to shut them off using my phone, I have also renamed the labels on the alarms with the names of the key stretches I am required to complete.

I do feel a little like a jack in the box when the alarms go off; however, I can’t deny they have been helping. Perhaps in a month, the habit will be ingrained but until then, I’ll have an ear open for my alarms ready to put those hip flexors back where they belong.

— MarthaFitat55 is looking forward to the summer.

I like messing about in gardens like many people. It’s great to be in the fresh air, seeing all the lovely green things thriving, hearing all the birds that make themselves at home in the trees, smelling the earth scent of excellent sun-baked compost …

You get the picture.

I live on the east coast of Canada in Newfoundland. While the rest of the country has been overflowing with all the spring things for a couple of months, my tulips are only now poking up out of the ground, and the little scilla look absolutely frozen stiff.

When Sam said May 7 is World Naked Gardening Day, I laughed.

There was snow in Friday’s forecast, and if we are lucky, we may reach a high of 6 degrees C on Saturday itself.

Not gonna lie. Not going to be naked in May in my garden, nor for that matter, on any days where the temperature is more accomodating. When it gets warm, we get mosquitoes and when it gets hot, we get flies.

Nope, nope-ity, nope.

The founders of the day are pretty casual about it. In fact, they are so casual, in their approach, they are okay with Canada celebrating WNGD in June and New Zealand in the fall. Their goal is to celebrate gardening, body positivity, clothing-optional lifestyles, and so on. If that’s your thing, go for it. I know someone who likes to take a run naked when the first snow falls.

You do you, as Sam often says.

As for me, I’ll be out (and definitely well wrapped) to see how the lilac tree fared after Friday’s snowfall.

-MarthaFitat55 likes her cardio to be wind-chill free.

I was having a chat with a colleague earlier in the spring and I mentioned how much I was enjoying the gym after a hiatus in the early winter due to COVID. While I could have substituted walking for the gym, I rarely enjoy walking in the winter as the ice scares me; after a loved one slipped and broke their leg, I have even more cause to fear winter walking.

My colleague told me how much they enjoy exercise and how they see their workouts as self-care. It’s a concept that really resonated with me and encapsulated some of how I have started to change my thinking about the role of exercise and fitness in my life. Before the pandemic, for example, I tended to think of self-care as booking a massage or a manicure (thanks wellness industry) or even taking a cup of tea and just staring out the window looking at the birds, the neighbourhood cats, and the passing clouds, but exercise as self-care? I never dug deep enough to explore how that might work.

I get exercise as important for heart health, keeping my joints mobile and ligaments and muscles elastic, but it is something I do so I can be functional and able for as along as possible. While I often find swimming meditative (even though I am not fond of meditation as a practice), lifting weights is about the deliberate movement and effort involved, and it’s not necessarily focused on calming my mind.

When I first started focusing on my fitness work, I looked at it as caring for my physical self, but not as part of holistic approach to supporting good mental health or recovering from stress. The buzz you get from a great session, the runner’s high, the overall sense of wellbeing, that was the bonus of working out, the cherry on the fitness cake, if you will.

These days I’ve changed tack. Getting a walk in, readying myself for a return to the pool, getting back into yoga are all about shaking off the stress of life — work deadlines, caregiving needs etc. Juggling all the balls is mentally taxing and when you add in the protective measures to deal with the pandemic, well, your faithful blogger was quickly becoming a stressed out, crispy kitty.

The fact that my heart works better, I can lift weights, swim laps or garden happily, is fabulous. But I am liking how much more grounded I feel after a workout or a nice walk even if my fingers are ready to fall off from the cold. I’ve discovered I work more efficiently, that I am processing stuff effectively and I no longer feel like Ms Grumpykins above. My goal is to be like Ms Ginger below: relaxed, loose and ready to chill for the weekend with a good book or a new sewing project.

Stay safe and well friends!

MarthaFitat55 lives and works and plays in St. John’s, NL, the far east of Canada.

I normally don’t follow fashion news. With the pandemic, I have had no need of new clothes. Zoom fashion has added longevity to my business clothing.

Pop star Lizzo has launched a new line of shapewear, called Yitty, and the line will have sizing from 6X to XS. (Yes, that formatting is deliberate.)

Back in the day, when I was a youngster, shapewear was limited two items, usually a girdle and a bra that literally trussed your body like a turkey ready for Thanksgiving.

Spandex really revolutionized shapewear and instead of being focused on smoothing things out (anyone remember the horrors of the VPL, or Visible Panty Line?) and giving breasts a lift up, shapewear really moved into hyperdrive mode to force your body into a shape that could wear the available fashions, instead of fashions working with your natural shape.

Spanx, a leading shapewear brand, earned $15 million in 2002 to an astounding $400 million in 2014. Often called form-fitting, shapewear is tight and Spanx was no exception. Jokes abounded even as the company’s profits soared. Here’s one of my favourites:

I’ve written about my battles with sports bras so I empathize with the challenges of putting on shapewear. I put up with sports bras because I need the support. I’ve not often seen the need for shapewear except for those occasions when you want a seamless look to your dress or pantsuit.

But I do wonder about shapewear that squishes everything to achieve a smaller look. After all, the pre 20th-century women who cinched their waists with their corsets and stays did experience problems breathing and long-term use could not have been good.

There’s a lot of baggage to unpack in shapewear, and even if it is available in a wide size range and it reflects an ethos of agency, I feel conflicted. If you get into weights, lots of us still get messages about not getting bulky. Then you go to a store and the fashion message is buy shapewear so you don’t show your rolls, your poochy stomach, or heaven forbid, any saggy arms or thighs.

Lizzo’s been focused on body positivity, especially for the plus and super plus size set and she is known for pushing back against changing your body to fit a style or image.

Lizzo intends to make pieces that every single body can feel good in, whether that means under clothing or as clothing itself. “I’m selling a mentality that ‘I can do what I want with my body, wear what I want and feel good while doing it,” she said.

Lizzo’s tag line states it’s for every damn body, however you want to wear her clothing — inside, outside etc. I like that, given how hard it is to find fun, funky and pretty clothing above size 18. From what I’ve seen it looks lovely and who doesn’t want to wear something that makes you feel fine? I know I do. Hopefully, we will see more body-positive clothing in the future.

MarthaFitat55 lives and writes in St. John’s. She has lost every battle in taking off shapewear and finally decided ten years ago to stop.

I know, I know. It seems like every day is a day to celebrate something: chocolate, coffee, cupcakes, siblings, cats, dogs…

Today though is Waffle Day and after my Friday morning training, I was offered a waffle. Cool and yummy.

Even cooler though was the story my trainer told me. Turns out Eleiko, the world famous maker of weight lifting plates, originally made waffle irons and toasters. Back in the 50s, bars were snapping and cracking under the weights and lifters were frustrated.

So an employee of Eleiko, himself a weightlifter took on the task of harnessing the knowledge from waffle plates to barbells. He got the go-ahead to proceed from one Mrs. Johanssen, the managing director. Finally, in 1963, weights with Eleiko bars were hoisted in an official competition without any snapping, crackling or popping and in 1969, Eleiko was certified as an official maker of weight lifting equipment.

As a nod to the waffle origin, the knurling on the bar (the textured bit) is the same pattern as the Eleiko waffle iron.

My waffles were tasty, my deadlifts were fast, and my day has been enriched with food, fitness, and fun facts! Thank you Waffle Day designators, thank you Eleiko, and thank you super trainer and friend Vicky!

MarthaFitAt55 lives in St. John’s and she has not met a waffle she did not like.

It’s almost the first day of spring. We haven’t had much of a winter given the lack of snow. Since we’ve been dealing with the pandemic for so long, one could be forgiven for not really noticing the transition from one season to another.

But the other day, it was lovely: a blue sky, sunshine, not too much wind. I could hear birds chirping in the trees. I could hear the water running from the melting ice and snow.

I never know how to describe the scent of spring. It is a combination of thawing earth, the heat of rotting leaves, the sweetness of cedar mulch.

Then there is the feel of your feet on the ground, still hard but also slightly yielding and a weird springiness that feels odd after the crunch of snow and ice. The shiver of surprise when you can feel, see and hear that spring is really coming.

But what made the day extra special was that it was my first day in the gym in three months. As I walked in, I started paying attention to what I was feeling and seeing.

The slide of the straps on my feet in the erg. The way my fingers curled on the bar as I rowed. The rhythm of the push and pull matching my breath in and out.

I had been afraid that the interval away would mean I had forgotten what to do. Yet as soon as I felt the solidness and hot/cold texture of the weight in my hands, it came back.

It was hard doing movements I had not done for a while. I realized in some respects it was the shape of things. A 25 pound hand weight doesn’t move the same way a 25 pound bag of potatoes does.

I realized I missed the repetition of training and how sets evolve from awkwardness to fluidity, from the “i am not sure how to do this” to ”i see how this works.” I also missed the satisfaction that comes from the deliberate demand on and stress of muscles.

It was a good day outside and a good day inside.

marthafitat55 lives and trains in st. John’s.