Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
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I’m going to give it a go. I like Participaction. How about you?
Have you ever had a stretch of time when you just did too much?
That was me this labour day weekend–during, before, and after.
Friday, I walked to the Arboretum and back for a welcoming lunch for our entering first year President’s and Chancellor’s Scholars and their families. Saturday, we had a back to school party in the backyard, and Sunday we had a birthday party in the backyard. (Each day I met my step goal and did double the number of flights of steps I have set as my goal.) Monday I had a nice long walk with Susan and Cheddar, cleaned up the house after the parties, and then went on a birthday bike ride that was long and gravelly and speedy (to avoid getting stuck out after dark.)
All fine, right?
Except that Tuesday morning isn’t a regular work morning. It’s personal training time.
We did:
3 sets of abs– plank tap + leg lowering
Sled push and pull + strict press and push press
Chest press + goblet squat
Triceps overhead press
So much stretching.
And then I went from the gym to the Induction of Scholars, more walking and standing in my academic regalia.
Here’s what my Garmin told me (above).
Here’s what happened (below).
Yawn!
Luckily I worked from home this morning so the late start to my day didn’t throw too much off. Here’s hoping for a more reasonably balanced rest of the week.
This year, it was great luck that my birthday fell on Labour Day Weekend.
Saturday we had a back-to-school party for some university friends, Sunday was my birthday party, and Monday was my birthday bike ride. That was the plan anyway.
But when Kim cancelled because of new dog duty (and that’s just fine, we all understand new dogs take some work to settle in) and Sarah and I just kept working away getting things back in order in the house. And then Susan and I took Cheddar on a long walk along the river. And then I had a midday nap. Briefly, it looked the birthday bike ride might not come to be.
We rallied mid-afternoon and settled on a 3 pm departure. We didn’t quite make 3 pm but we were close. I’ve been wanting to do the St Jacobs ride again, on the Guelph to Goderich Trail. It’s 80 km round trip from here but if we started at Speedvale–and drove to the actual start of the trail, we figured it would be around 60 km.
All fine. Except for one thing. The Kissing Bridge is closed for at least a year. Uh oh. And we didn’t see any alternate route signs. So we tried some dirt back roads. After all, we had our gravel bikes. And then found our way to road roads and made our way to St. Jacobs.
That was problem number 1.
Problem number 2 occurred to us when we stopped for dinner. This is the week when it starts getting dark before 8 pm. How soon before 8 pm? We weren’t sure. Did we have any lights on our gravel bikes? We do not. Another uh oh.
We also had to find the official alternate route that didn’t involve the Kissing Bridge.
Route found, and we did some speedy riding. We made it back to the car just as it was getting seriously dark. Hence, the PRs on the G2G trail!
The ride ended up being 57.7 km. Not 61. But luckily, there are no rules for birthday bike rides. I’ll add in my 4 km of commuting tomorrow to make it 61 even.
One wonderful thing about riding in this part of Ontario is all the Mennonite horse and buggy traffic. That means there’s a very wide shoulder and lots of signs telling car drivers to watch out for buggies and bikes.
We also rode for a bit with a young woman in a bonnet and a long black dress–also racing the daylight, though she was headed back to her farm. Given her garb and the bike she was riding–definitely not an e-bike as that would have been forbidden–we were impressed by her speed.
Anyway, birthday bike ride complete.
Our next big ride is the Parkinson’s Ride from London to Guelph (in 2 days) September 11 and 12, and then the Grand Finale from Hamilton into Toronto on September 13th.
Looking forward to riding with you!
Oh, there was also a snakes on our bike ride.
It’s September 13th. Please join us.
You can do the whole Hamilton to Toronto ride, or you can join us for the final kilometer. See the schedule below.
Or come cheer us on!
There’s no need to raise money. This ride is really mostly about raising awareness.
You can ride from Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, or just the final kilometer.
Please register! The link is here, just click “Grand Finale!”
Happy birthday to the blog! Fit is a Feminist Issue is now a teenager, celebrating 13 years of bringing fitness and feminism to the internet.
A lot has changed over the years, but our team of bloggers is still running, lifting, swimming, stretching, and riding and writing all about it, as well as blogging about emotional and mental being, feminist analysis of sports and fitness trends, and our lives as midlife and beyond feminists. It’s a big tent!
Also, it’s happy birthday to me! I turned 61 yesterday and had a fun afternoon with family and friends, including some of the bloggers, Sarah, my mother, and all three adult children.
This afternoon we’re riding 61 km in celebration. It’s my annual birthday bike ride.
There are no rules for birthday bike rides, but I like to ride my age in kilometres.
2. Mind: Rational, Body: Emotional (Nicole)
3. Is a 55+ breakfast actually a thing? Catherine thinks definitely NOT (Catherine)
4. Drinking Champagne Alone (Mina)
5. Nat, Railway City and…you? Want to try Randonneuring? (Nat)
6. Sam reflects on her pandemic purchases (Sam)
7. Glowing orange skies and climate grief (Sam)
8. One step forward, two steps back (Martha)
9. Don’t Go Looking for the Effort (Alison)
10. FIFI Bloggers August BBQ– it’s becoming a thing (Catherine)
11. Casually Strong (Diane)
12. Nat ditches the bike in favour of weights, walks & waterfalls (Nat)
August 29, 2022 was new knee day.
Today my new knee is three years old.
I’m still going to physio but not multiple times a month. I’m just checking in once a month to see how my mobility is coming along.
I’m going on long walks. I’m walking faster. I’m lifting heavy weights. I’m riding my bike lots again.
Life is good. Happy birthday left knee!
What we did: Three days and two nights on East Arm, Joe Lake in Algonquin. It was a trip planned by a friend to do with kids but when that didn’t work out he asked Alex, Sarah and I to join instead. So it was on a busier lake than we normally book and pretty easy in terms of paddling and portaging. In the end the friend couldn’t come either so it was Alex, Sarah and me.
🛶 On our way out I was amused and happy to see a group of Amish young women setting off in canoe in long dresses and bonnets. A gentleman pushed them off and away they went.
🛶 Late August camping is just perfect. No black flies but the water is still warm.
🛶 The aeropress is worth its weight for excellent coffee while camping.
🛶 Canoe Lake might be too busy for my taste and not as rugged as I might like but I loved seeing so many kids out there with camps and with their families.
🛶 The loons! I even read up on loon gatherings after this trip. Turns out it’s complicated. But I loved all the flying and swimming and the loon calls.
🛶 There’s so much everyday exercise. Yes paddling and portaging but also setting up tents and hanging the food. I discovered you get a lot of steps in the day when your toilet/thunderbox is 200 m back in the woods. There is also just a lot of getting down and back up from the ground.
🛶 On our way out we saw my daughter and occasional blogger Mallory on her way into Joe Lake with her Trails campers on a week long trip.
🛶 Alex taught us some great paddling songs from his days as a camp counselor leading canoe trips.
🛶 The waterproof map costs more but is worth it.
🛶 One of the good things about starting a trip on Canoe Lake is that your exit point has ice cream and hot showers. But that means there’s also a gift shop and I bought some fridge magnets, a Christmas tree ornament, and a new hat (featured in the photos below).
What we thought after it was all over: When can we go again? Big trips that require lots of planning are wonderful but it’s also fun just to pack a few bags, load the canoe and head into the lakes and the woods with a friend or two. Thanks Alex! You’re a great tripping companion.
I saw this social media post the other day and it hit home.
On the one hand, I’ve got super strong legs. I’m very happy with the amount of weight I can press on the leg press machine. After knee replacement, my legs can carry me up hills and on long bike rides. They help me carry bins of laundry up flights of stairs and propane tanks to the BBQ. Thank you, legs!
On the other hand, at various times in my life I remember feeling sensitive about how solid they looked. Here’s kid me standing tall in knee socks. My dad used to joke about my footballer knees. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. But I knew it wasn’t a good look for women. He was being funny, not mean, but the athletic association wasn’t one I wanted back then.
Honestly, I’m still a bit sensitive about my legs. I wear shorter skirts with tights but rarely with bare legs. It’s not about my knee scars, from knee replacement surgery. I’m weirdly proud of my knee scars.
I wear shorts everywhere all summer, so it can’t bother me that much. However, I hate photos with my legs in them. I delete them quickly from social media or at least untag myself. I dislike them enough that I’m not including them here as examples!
And yet, the one kind of leg photo I do like is me in bike shorts.
In an earlier post about cycling clothes I wrote, “Me, I’m very happy in lycra. I often think I look better in bike clothes than just about anything else. I’m not sure if it’s just that they do suit me or if they just make very happy. Bike clothes mean bike rides!” (2016)
So bike clothes help. The other thing that helps is reminding myself of the many advantages of having strong legs. The two biggies are reducing the risk of cognitive decline and helping improve metabolism.
Here’s a study I like: Kicking Back Cognitive Ageing: Leg Power Predicts Cognitive Ageing after Ten Years in Older Female Twins.
Sports Illustrated: Why Strong Legs are the Secret to a Sharper Brain as You Age (2025)
Lively: How leg exercises improve your metabolism (2025)
Harvard Health: Big thighs may be wise (2012): “They found that people with big thighs had a lower risk of heart disease and premature death than those with thin thighs. In round numbers, a thigh circumference (measured where the thigh meets the butt) of about 62 cm (about 24.4 inches) was most protective; bigger thighs provided little if any extra benefit, but progressively thinner thighs were linked to progressively higher risks. The predictive value of thigh size held up even after the scientists accounted for other indicators of body composition, including waist circumference, BMI, height, and body fat percentage. And thigh size remained a strong independent predictor even after researchers adjusted for risk factors such as smoking, exercise, alcohol use, systolic blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and (for women) menopause.”
Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health: “Groundbreaking research shows that neurological health depends as much on signals sent by the body’s large, leg muscles to the brain as it does on directives from the brain to the muscles. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the study fundamentally alters brain and nervous system medicine — giving doctors new clues as to why patients with motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy and other neurological diseases often rapidly decline when their movement becomes limited.”
So thank you legs!
I know that there were those of you who got closer to your families, discovered new hobbies, and enjoyed working from home. For some people, the pandemic isolation was a pause from our busy, interconnected, and overscheduled lives. I hear you.
That wasn’t my experience. I’ve never worked from home, which I know is weird for an academic, but as the parent of three kids in a busy multigenerational household, I found things went best if I worked at work and was engaged as parent, partner, and daughter when I was at home. I hated working from home, loathed online meetings with a fiery passion.
I missed travelling so much. I missed my friends and my communities. I love the people I live with, and I couldn’t have gotten through it without them, but it was a rough time.
And yes, I know I was also lucky. We have a house with a backyard. I had meaningful work that continued through the stay-at-home restrictions. Most importantly, no one in my close circles got very ill. Still, it seemed impossibly hard.
Anyway, mostly I’ve moved on, but occasionally things turn up that I bought during the pandemic that remind me of those days. This weekend it was the nap dress.
What’s a nap dress? A pandemic fashion trend–see Aren’t all dresses nap dresses? and Okay, I gave into another pandemic fashion trend and bought a nap dress (and it has pockets).
“I’m still working at home, working out at home, and napping at home. I’m starting to make clothing choices that make sense for not much leaving the house. I’ve written before about what to wear when working at home and working out at home. The nap dress is one answer to what to wear when working at home and napping, because (in my case) very long workdays, inconsistent sleep due to nightmares and pandemic anxiety, and late evening bike races.”
Here I am with my mother at the Fit is a Feminist Issue Backyard BBQ, wearing my pandemic nap dress:
I still like the nap dress, but it got me thinking about the things we bought during the pandemic and whether they still play a role in our lives.
First, there are the purchases that have just become part of our post-pandemic lives–webcams and headphones for online meetings, and a bike trainer with power so I could race on Zwift, join a bike team and hang out with cyclists from around the world. Zwift and Discord made a new community possible. I’m still doing some meetings virtually, and I’m Zwifting during the winter and enjoying it.
Second, there were the friend trends–the hygge headbands that the feminist philosophers adopted when we couldn’t get proper haircuts (I still wear some of mine) or the family fashions. My extended family all bought Oodies–large oversized fleecy hoodies good for hanging out in the backyard around the fire, where we had to visit since we couldn’t spend time together indoors. Those we’ve kept.
Third, some pandemic purchases have long since been given away. In that category I’d put all the cloth masks and work from home wear that looks forrmal on Zoom, but isn’t. I bought a fleece suit jacket that felt like PJs but looked like a real suit jacket online. It was one of the first things to go to the charity shop.
How did your pandemic purchases fair? Any still feature prominently in your life?
