Author: Sam B

Philosopher, feminist, parent, and cyclist! Co-founder of Fit Is a Feminist Issue, co-author of Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey, published by Greystone Books.
vibrant red and white tulips in bloom Fit is a Feminist Issue,  our week in review, April 12, 2026
fitness · week in review

Fit is a Feminist Issue,  our week in review, April 12, 2026

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Week in Review: April 6–12, 2026

It was a busy week on the blog! Fourteen posts from nine writers, covering cycling, skating, swimming, volleyball, powerlifting, retirement, birthdays, diet culture, and the psychology of aging.

Here’s everything you may have missed:

Monday, April 6

The week opened with three posts. Cate kicked things off with Springing off the Couch, a reflection on a heavy winter, a cancelled gym membership, and the question of what your fitness identity is when you’ve slowed down — and whether following a five-year-old outside to blow bubbles counts as a start. It does. Then Sam posted Monday Morning Zwift, #30DaysOfBiking. And then Sam and Sarah co-wrote You’re Never Too Old! Sam and Sarah Take a Learn-to-Skate Lesson — about signing up for CanSkate, the joy of being a complete beginner, and leaning hard into EXPAND as a word of the year.

Tuesday, April 7

Nicole’s Musings about Menopausal Diet Culture is a post about diet culture and her mother’s lifelong relationship with her body. Christine’s Go Team 2026: Pare It Down offered warm, practical encouragement for anyone whose ADHD brain isn’t cooperating: scale down, meet yourself where you are, do the smaller version of things, and earn that gold star.

Wednesday, April 8

Mina wrote No Surrender: Dancing with Resistance and Acceptance as I Approach a New Decade — connecting “cognitive surrender” (giving in uncritically to AI reasoning) with the parallel temptation to accept aging’s limitations passively. Mina, turning 60 this year, is running a half-marathon every month in response. Also on Wednesday: Becoming a Raisin, written by Mal. That’s a post about discovering queer indoor beach volleyball in London, Ontario, joining a team called “Raisin Hell,” and finding that the right people make all the difference to team sports.

Thursday, April 9

Diane celebrated the reopening of her pool after nearly a year of renovations in My Pool (and My Community) Are Back!. Sam also checked in with Skating Lesson #2: a little less time clinging to the boards, some forward and backward skating, a lot of work still to do on stopping, and more stickers for the helmet.

Friday, April 10

Two posts on training and transitions. Martha wrote What Retirement Might Mean for Training — a thoughtful reflection on how work structure shapes fitness habits, and what it takes to build that structure yourself when it disappears. Diane checked in with Checking in on Bike Month — an honest first-week #30DaysOfBiking update.

Saturday, April 11

Nat’s What Buoys Nat When Navigating Mid-Life Chaos was a moving, practical post written from a hotel room during a family medical emergency — running through the strategies keeping her grounded: avoiding alcohol, pool time, crochet, her partner Michel, and looking hard truths directly in the eye.

Sunday, April 12

Catherine closed the week with Catherine’s Birthday Week in Review — she turned 64, celebrated with swim parties, three cakes, Pass the Parcel, and four dogs, and made an enthusiastic case for taking birthdays seriously at every age.

Themes of the week: Aging and identity ran as a thread through nearly every post this week — what it means to slow down, start over, resist, adapt, or celebrate where you are. Diet culture’s persistence surfaced alongside new joy in movement. Water appeared everywhere: pools reopening, lifeguard recertifications, swim parties, Zwift rides substituting for icy roads. And the #30DaysOfBiking challenge gave the week its cycling spine.

(Thanks, Claude for helping compile the “week in review.”)

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Swimming Into My Thirties

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by Mallory Brennan

Recently, I celebrated a birthday! I won’t tell you exactly which one, but suffice to say, I am confidently past the age of 30 (it took a few years actually to sink in). The day after my birthday, I spent 6 hours in a swimming pool to recertify my National Lifeguard certification.

Age-wise, I recognize that I am still young. But in lifeguarding, being in your thirties almost always puts you near or at the top age-wise. Not always, there are some excellent adult lifeguards (hi Diane!). Still, many people don’t keep their certifications once they are no longer working in aquatics and in my experience, there are very few adults working in aquatics. That’s a much longer blog post, one I am happy to write about if there is interest at a later date!

So what’s required to recertify or maintain your lifeguard certification? Every two years you need to complete a one-day recertification which includes showing that you can still meet the physical standards as well as completing practice situations of emergencies that may happen in an aquatic environment. If you are curious about what the standards are, you can view them online here.

For me, the challenge is the dreaded 400m timed swim. I hate it with a vengeance. I have failed recertifications previously due to this requirement. I have spent a lot of time complaining about it and debating its usefulness with other lifeguards. The requirement: swim 400m continuously using recognizable swimming strokes within 10 minutes. The standard pool is 25m so that’s 16 times across the pool for non-swimmers.

To be fair, I have always disliked it even as a young teenager. One of my earliest lifeguarding memories is failing my Bronze Star (very first course towards becoming a lifeguard) due to the endurance swim. I have lost out on job opportunities where they require you to complete it prior to even completing an interview. I have had staff training where we complete it, usually followed by my boss or supervisor making some sort of comment about how close I was to the time. As a teenager, my fastest ever time was just past the nine minute mark. As an adult, my fastest time in recent memory was 9:17.

Other people don’t mind the timed swim (hi again Diane!), possibly because they regularly swim longer distances or spend more time regularly lane swimming. For them, the physical challenge they likely hate is the 20-lb brick. In contrast, I love the brick and actually have my very own lifeguard brick sitting on my bookshelf at home! In case you are curious, the brick is used to practice retrieving a heavy object (i.e., a person) off the bottom of the pool and being able to carry it to the closest safe exit (side of the pool). 

Anyway, I passed my recertification so I can now successfully call myself a lifeguard for another two years! Yay! As I said to Samantha “Successful NL recert! Even a year older I can still swim…”. 

Two people standing in a lake holding hands, with trees and a cloudy sky in the background.
Two people swimming in a lake near a boat, with buoy markers visible in the water.

Mal and Sam swimming

fitness · skate

It’s okay to be a slow learner, Sam reminds herself, also skating lesson #2

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I was a little less nervous and spent fewer minutes clinging to the boards during our second skating lesson.

Time flew by!

We skated forward and backward.  Worked on stopping in both directions.  Did some tricky (for me) glides on one foot.  Then at the end, we tried going very fast and then stopping. 

I liked the going fast bit. The stopping, not so much.

I loved watching our instructor skate. He turned beautifully and stopped quickly. So much grace. I reminded myself that he’s likely spent very many hours on the ice.

And I also had to remind myself that I can take as long as I want. I love the skill development and it’s okay if it’s slow.

Anyway,  fun times! And more stickers for my helmet!

A close-up view of the side of a black sports helmet featuring colorful stickers, including an 'AWESOME!' sticker with a cartoon character and a certification sticker.
A smiling woman wearing a red beanie and a black hoodie with 'University of Guelph Creative Arts & Humanities' printed on it, standing outside a building.
That’s me, Sam, in a red toque and my Creative Arts and Humanities hoodie, after the class.

For a blog post about our first skating lesson,  see here.

Becoming a Raisin
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Becoming a Raisin

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by Mallory Brennan

Hello blog world! It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post, but (with some prodding and gentle nagging) here’s a short post on coming back to playing volleyball as an adult.

In January, I joined a 7-week session of indoor beach volleyball, hosted by Forest City Sports and Social. Specifically, I registered for their Queer League, which features gender-free spaces for people to enjoy sports together in a fun and social environment. 

My only previous experiences with volleyball were mandatory gym classes in school where I hated it. I wasn’t very good at it and it seemed no matter how I hit the ball it hurt my arm. To be fair, I wasn’t a big fan of team sports in high school in general. So why did I register? Three main reasons. First, I had played dodgeball previously in the queer league and found an amazing group of people. Turns out having good people around makes team sports better! Second, this was indoor beach volleyball in the middle of a long winter which meant a sport I could play in shorts, bare feet and sand. If you know me at all, you can see how that would appeal to me. Third, it fit very nicely into my extremely busy schedule and was something I could realistically commit to. Again, if you know me you know that my schedule is always super busy!

Reflections on the season:

🍇My team was fantastic! One of our members does graphic design and prints shirts so we made ourselves shirts after choosing a name. We were originally “Purple Team” but by the second week we were “Raisin Hell” or affectionately “the raisins”.

🍇It is fun to be part of a completely non-competitive team sport (although we sometimes got competitive anyway, just for fun!).

🍇There were only four teams in this league, so we got to know everybody, even those who weren’t on our team.

🍇Turns out I like beach volleyball. I have registered for another session, which goes until the end of May, and I have also registered for a rookie league to help me learn to play better. So now I have two hours each week (back-to-back) of beach volleyball!

A volleyball team posing in a sand court, wearing purple shirts, with a trophy and a volleyball in hand.
The Raisins, in purple t-shirts, on the sand. That’s Mal, standing, on the far right.
fitness · skate

You’re never too old! Sam and Sarah take a learn-to-skate lesson

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Sam

After our winter weekend triathlon,  Sarah and I returned to Guelph determined to improve our skating. I signed up for Skate Canada’s CanSkate program and the first class was Tuesday night, and Sarah decided to join me.

But first I had to buy a helmet (my first time wearing one,  times have changed) and new skates (after the mice ate my old ones.) These are figure skates but they’re designed to be comfy and they’re black rather than the traditional white.

Fun times. Yes, a little bit terrifying. It took me a few minutes before I let go of the boards. But also lots and lots of fun.

We all warmed up together and then split into different groups based on our ability.

I enjoyed all the new Canadians on the ice in our very beginner group. .

I was also impressed by the people who’d advanced past beginner. They looked good! I took that as inspiration.

By the end,  I was skating somewhat comfortably forward and not so comfortably backward. Stopping is a whole other matter. Lots of work to do there.  I even got a sticker on my helmet for successfully completing my first lesson!

Reflecting on this, I was surpised by the reaction of friends and colleagues. There was a lot of “age is just a number”and “I guess it’s never too late.” I hadn’t really thought of this as age thing at all. I don’t get the idea that you stop doing new things as you get older. I hate the idea of doing less and less with age.

My own reaction? I love learning new things.

There’s a kind of excitement in being a complete beginner,  found in the very early stages of doing a new thing. I hope I keep on finding new things.  I mean,  I accept that with age I’m not going to get better and better at some of the old things I’ve been doing my whole life,  so the better and better energy I love has to come from new things.

Also,  although you likely know this,  it’s not a comparative better and better. It’s totally better and better for me.

I am really leaning into my word of the year, EXPAND, and I think it was a terrific choice. See Fit Feminists’ Words of the Year 2026: #WOTY and From swimming to skating, Sam is expanding her horizons and learning new things.

I keep thinking EXPAND EXPAND EXPAND, like Rocky in Project Hail Mary and his AMAZE AMAZE AMAZE.

Sarah

As someone who thought skating is like riding a bike I was surprised by how much I wobbled around during our recent trip to the skating trail at Arrowhead Provincial Park. I was ok skating forward but struggled a lot with the whole manoeuvring thing.

When Sam tracked down adult learn-to-skate lessons I jumped at the opportunity to have a skills refresher. I really enjoyed our first lesson. It felt great to go back to basics and I was already feeling more stable by the end. I can’t wait to go back this week!

Logo of CANSkate featuring a stylized red maple leaf and an ice skate blade, representing Canadian figure skating.
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Monday morning Zwift, #30DaysOfBiking

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Last week we had a day with a high of 22 (feels like 24) and brilliant sunshine. I thought that the 30 days of riding in April was off to an excellent start.

See April’s Gonna Be Pure Joy, Baby.

And on the weekend, I had fun taking Sarah’s 12-year-old nephew out fat bike riding at the farm. That was its own kind of muddy fun.

This week begins with a high of 5 and a low of -7, with possible snow showers. I’m not really feeling the Monday Morning bike commute.  Instead, I joined the Herd on Zwift for their Monday Morning Coffee Crew ride.

Here’s my morning playlist, thanks to Spotify, and apologies to family members who didn’t have to be up at 6 am.

Here’s my view of the screen from the bike.

That’s my avatar in the pink hat with the neon pink wheels on her bike. That’s my pocket Scotty-the-squirrel sticking out of my left jersey pocket, growing as my streak grows. And yes, my red socks don’t match exactly but they’re special flame socks.

Here’s Cheddar on the couch watching me ride. He looks like he’s been up all night studying, but the Chemistry notes are Gwen’s.

Here’s the ride report.

Fit is a Feminist Issue,  Week in Review,  April 5, 2026, #ICYMI
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Fit is a Feminist Issue,  Week in Review,  April 5, 2026, #ICYMI

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Spring is almost here — or at least we’re all desperately hoping it is. This week on the blog, the arrival of April set the tone: we wrote about getting outside, getting back to it, and the small daily habits that are harder than they look.

There were twelve posts, by seven bloggers: Sam, Tracy, Diane, Christine, Nicole, Nat, and Catherine.

Themes of the week: the seasonal shift from winter to spring, fresh starts (running, cycling, mobility routines), cutting through wellness noise, creativity as part of a healthy life, and ritual as a source of renewal.

Posts this week:

🌸 Overcoming Everyday Struggles: My 10-Minute Mobility Routine (Sam, March 30)


🌸 Sam’s Monday Musings: The New Path Protocol (and Why I’m Taking It) (Sam, March 30)

☘️ Top Ten Blog Posts in March 2026 (Sam, March 31)

🌼 April? Tomorrow? Really? (Christine, March 31)

🌼 Goodbye Winter? Maybe, Hopefully (Diane, April 1)

🌹 Getting back to it…again (Tracy, April 1)

🌷 Happy (Late) National Walking Day! And a request for some advice (Sam, April 2)

🌻 Catching Up with Maintenance Phase (Diane, April 2)

🌻 What’s the fitness prescription? (Nicole, April 3)

🌺 Checking in on #30DaysOfBiking (Sam, April 3)

🌷Nat checks in on her word of the year (WOTY) “create” (Nat, April 4)

🌺 On Easter Day — movement and stillness, ritual and rebirth (Catherine, April 5)

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Fat biking at the farm in Prince Edward County,  #30DayOfBiking

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This Easter weekend I kept my #30daysofbiking streak alive with J at the farm in Prince Edward County.

J is Sarah’s 12 year old nephew and he’s our frequent weekend fitness and board game companion on family weekends at the farm.

Yes,  it was wet and muddy but the fat bike tires are good for that. It turns out that 12 year olds put up with riding uphill in order to zoom downhill. Confession: I love that too.

Join me in the 30 days of biking challenge.

See April’s Gonna Be Pure Joy Baby.

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Checking in on #30DaysOfBiking

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I started off April’s #30DaysOfBiking with some bike commuting between my house and my office.  It’s a tiny commute but I got out there.

Here’s what that looks like:

I finished up the first week with some indoor Zwifting. I did the Expand workout.

“What’s your limit? It’s time to expand it. The Expand workout runs you through a series of high-power surges that increase in length. This targets your ability to surge over and over and hold those efforts longer.”

Here’s what the looked like for me:

How about you? How did your first few days of April riding go?

photo of woman wearing pink sports shoes walking Happy (Late)National Walking Day! And a request for some advice
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Happy (Late)National Walking Day! And a request for some advice

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  • When: The first Wednesday in April.
  • Goal: 30 to 60 minutes of walking.
  • How to Participate: Walk alone, with a friend, or with a pet in your neighbourhood or a local park.
  • Social Action: Share your walk on social media using #NationalWalkingDay

How did your national walking day go?

Thanks to my knees, walking and I have a complicated relationship.

See some of my past posts on this theme.

But these days–thanks to knee replacement surgery on both knees–I’m back to walking again, and I have a new problem and need your advice!

Last week I was in Toronto for the awarding of the Middlebrook Young Curator Prize and I had to walk from the east side of downtown to Queen West. It was raining, but I actually don’t mind walking in the rain. I considered the streetcar, but walking was actually about the same amount of time. I was dressed for the event and wearing nice shoes. My knees didn’t hurt, so I just kept walking, 6 km in total that evening. But by the time I got home, my feet were killing me.

Right after knee surgery, I wore running shoes everywhere, usually my Hokas. See Recovery shoes? Really? But that choice was about my knees, not my feet.

For years, knees have been my limiting factor when it comes to walking. It’s been 10 years or longer since I’ve had sore feet. I haven’t been able to walk far enough to get sore feet. I guess those days are over.

Woo hoo, I can get sore feet again?

Okay, so here’s the advice part, Fit Feminist friends: What do you wear for long walking days? I could just go back to wearing my Hokas all the time. Maybe that’s okay. Or have you found a walking shoe that’s actually somewhat fashionable?

I have Fluevog flats for events like conovocation–I’ve sold all my Fluevog heels–but I want something for walking. Suggestions welcome!