Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Author: Diane Harper
Diane Harper is a retired former public servant who lives and swims (and bikes) in Ottawa. In her hobby life, she is Siglinde Harfnerstochter, a 6th C Merovingian housewife from the city of Metz. Her primary interests are cooking, textile arts and bonecarving. Siglinde lives in the canton of Caldrithig, Barony of Skraeling Althing, Kingdom of Ealdormere.
My surgery story is much shorter than Sam’s saga of two knee surgeries that were supposed to happen through the COVID years. In fact, not much more than a year after I was diagnosed with a heart murmur, I’m expecting heart valve replacement surgery March 13.
In the past few weeks I have had an angiogram and a CT scan. I have been working on my pre-hab, which mostly means making sure I can get up and down without using my hands. I can do chairs, stairs, and – on a good day – even get down and back up off the floor.
I’m not entirely certain what will happen next. Much will depend on the kind of surgery I get. From what I have read, I could be home in a day or two with a fairly easy recovery. Or I could be looking at 5 days in hospital with at least 4-6 weeks of doing nothing strenuous.
Either way, it’s pretty clear I won’t be lifeguarding again until I get retested and demonstrate I meet the physical requirements. Even though it means I’ll have to give up work for a while, I’m excited!
Now that the Olympics have ended, I’m looking back and reflecting on the women in their 40s and 50s who competed. There may be more. Every one of them did amazing things over their careers, not just at the Olympics.
Clockwise from top left: Claudia Riegler (Olympics.com), Deanna Stelatto-Dudek (Skate Canada); Lindsey Vonn (Getty Images); Elana Meyers Taylor (Aijaz Rahi – AP); Kailee Humphries (https://www.self.com/story/kaillie-humphries); Sarah Schleper (The Aspen Times)
Claudia Riegler, 52, Austrian snowboarder in her 5th Olympics. She has never won an Olympic medal, but has captured three medals at world championships. She is the oldest woman to compete at any Winter Olympics.
Deanna Stellato-Dudek 42, Canadian pairs figure skater in her 1st Olympics. She originally competed as an individual skater but retired in 2001. She returned to competition in 2016 as a pairs skater for the USA. In 2019, she began skating with her Canadian partner and began the process of seeking Canadian citizenship so that she could compete at Milano-Cortina. Just days before the Olympics began, she was injured in training and was only cleared to compete a few days before their event. Despite that, the pair placed 11th overall.
Lindsey Vonn, 41, American alpine skier in her 5th Olympics. The three-time Olympic medalist crashed and broke her leg in Milano-Cortina.
Elana Meyers Taylor 41, American bobsledder in her 5th Olympics. She has previously won 5 Olympic medals and just won her first gold. She has now taken over the title as the oldest individual gold medalist in Winter Olympic history. She also extended her streak as the most-decorated Black athlete in the winter games.
Kaillie Humphries 40, Canadian-American bobsledder in her 6th Olympics. Humphries competed for Canada 2010-2014 before switching to the US team. She has won 6 Olympic medals, including two Bronze in Milano-Cortina.
Sarah Schleper 46, Mexican-American alpine skier in her 7th Olympics and part of the first mother-son Olympic duo with her 18 year old son. Schleper competed for the USA team 1998-2010, and for Mexico since 2018.
Just for fun, I’m adding Midori Ito, 56, Japanese singles figure skater. Ito won silver at the 1992 Olympics, landing the first triple Axel in competition, and was the first woman to land seven triples (at the Calgary Olympics in 1988). Although her Wikipedia page says she retired in 1992, she is still skating and won at the Master’s Elite level in 2024 – and clearly is still enjoying herself.
Race Against Time takes on a whole new meaning as you age. I’m no longer trying to get faster. I’m just trying to stave off what feels like the inevitable crumbling.
The orange silhouette of a woman is superimposed on a white clock face and black background, with the words Race against Time in blue, white and orange letters on the right side of the image. The image was found at: https://ability360.org/uncategorized/august-18-race-against-time/
That ankle injury I wrote about back in December is still bothering me. The muscle tightness is easing, but it looks increasingly like I have a partially torn hamstring.
While I wait for an ultrasound (next week, yay!) I am continuing with my other health care providers, who are giving me more exercises to do. It’s all good advice, but it’s a lot!
My massage therapist has had me doing at least 10 minutes of yin yoga each day. I have chosen to do YouTube videos to relax before bed. Sometimes they are done IN bed, which is rather nice, as well as being easy on my knees.
My physiotherapist has assigned balance exercises. My Pilates class focuses on bone health, fall prevention, and building up our cores so we can get up off the floor easily. This has proven surprisingly difficult, so every day I am trying to add in extra strength exercises and as many of the class exercises as I can remember.
Of course I am continuing with my regular activities. I made the mistake of doing absolutely nothing except a bit of yoga one weekend, and I felt like I could barely walk by Sunday night. Never again will I doubt the importance of active rest. Motion is clearly lotion for my body.
These cartoon bottles of lotion wearing blue caps and doing various exercises on a green background made me happy. The image is from the Queensland Health Facebook page, posted June 23, 2025.
Someone, somewhere, recommended I read the book If You Can’t Take the Heat, by Geraldine DeRuiter. I put it on my TBR list and forgot about it until I was looking for something from the library and picked it up. I’m glad I did.
Geraldine DeRuiter (everywhereist.com) is known as a food writer, but this isn’t exactly a food book. It’s mostly a biography, but filled with both biting feminist commentary and hilarious turns of phrase. I don’t mark up books, or use bookmarks to remember particularly interesting bits in books I’m reading, but this one is full of sticky notes. Here are a few of my favourite lines:
From page 11 of the first chapter, entitled “the First Taste of Defiance”: I wouldn’t touch hot dogs, but consumed pig’s feet and boiled cow’s tongue with all the restraint of an underfed hyena, delighting in my cousins’ and brother’s horror. (This was when I knew I would love the book).
It’s a hard thing to learn: that we can ask things of other people, that we can order food how we want it. That our bodies deserve to be nourishing and loved and fed the way we want them to be.
On being trapped in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner with the other women of her family: Growing up, I had plenty of examples of men cooking…In my ruthless assessment, when someone could not cook, they’d failed at adulthood. But I found myself judging women slightly more harshly than I judged me when I discovered they were inept in the kitchen. I simply expected lore of them, at least culinarily, which was unfair to everyone…I’ve accepted the feminist notion that women can do everything, but the idea that we don’t have to do certain things is taking a bit longer to sink in.
On paying at restaurants: By not endeavouring to imagine that [women] might be the ones picking up the bill, the staff is not regarding them as legitimate patrons of the restaurant. They are there as accessories for the male guests. Given the transactional role that biting a woman dinner has historically carried in Western society, the entire situation becomes even more fraught.
On coping with anxiety by amassing food in case of disaster: My favourite part of any survival story is the acquisition of food and water…I love when the befriend a dog, which people in disaster stories almost always do, because it adds dimension to the story, but also because dogs are edible!
The contents of my pantry would not stop my father from getting cancer, would not prevent my mother from forgetting a portion the stove and burning down the house she had lived in for twenty-five years. I was ignoring the first precious word in the phrase “comfort food” – that in order to comfort, the grief and pain have already arrived. The casserole delivered in the wake of a tragedy does not reach back and undo the devastation. But…it reminds us, at a time when we so desperately need it, that we are loved.
According to the psychologist Sandra Thomas, a leading researcher in the field of gender and anger, anger is often perceived as a distinctly masculine trait….In that same vein, women are taught that anger is undermined, and to suppress, it, until one day we drop dead from a lifetime of biting our own tongues.
On body image: I had very distinct dietary goals. I wanted to outlive all of these assholes and be healthy enough to dance on their graves.
It’s not all snappy one-liners and fury. Her struggles as a child in a chaotic and sometimes abusive household, her complicated feelings about her mostly-absent father, the misogyny and hate she has faced for daring to have opinions in the public sphere are all laid bare. But she has great tenderness for her parents, her friends, and most of all, her husband.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this book. But I’m very glad I did.
My library copy of If you Can’t Take the Heat. It has a pink cover with a woman’s hand crushing a frosted pastry. A whole bunch of blue sticky notes are hanging out the side.
It has been a hard year for me on the cycling front, so it has been exciting to rediscover the joys of winter cycling.
Diane in her blue and white helmet and black ski jacket, with her red bicycle and another winter bike in the background. It’s a sunny day and the bikes are parked in the snow at a bike rack outside a school.
Pros:
It’s often faster than driving or transit, especially for shorter distances.
It doesn’t require a lot of special gear (though I do not regret investing in studded tires).
Even on a grey day, that little bit of fresh air and sunlight will boost my mood.
My neighbours think I’m a bit of a badass, which is hilarious. I’m easing back into riding, so most trips are under 2 km each way.
It’s an excuse to indulge my inner child and buy all the bike lights.
No bugs.
I don’t overheat.
Cons: none that don’t also apply to summer cycling.
Photos from previous winters, showing off the bike lights and beautiful winter weather.
I recently needed to do the recertification exam for my lifeguard qualifications. It’s mandatory every two years and not really a big deal since I practice the skills regularly at work.
As usual, I was much older than almost everyone else there. Again, no big deal. I’m used to being – by far – the oldest lifeguard wherever I work. But apparently that is weird to some of the other lifeguards.
Following the fitness portion of our exam, one of the youngsters asked how old I was. When I told him, his response was “you’re in really good shape!”. I could almost see the thought bubble over his head “compared to my grandma.”
Kiddo, I have to do the exact same tests as you to hold the exact same job. I’m not unusually fit. I’m merely someone who has chosen to be visibly active in a way that you happened to notice.
The incident amused me because there were no real consequences. When I was trying to get hired, it was more of an issue. Same when I’m dealing with medical questions. I’m going to try and ignore them for the moment and enjoy my little giggle about the thought bubble. And remember that women far fitter than me have been called “grandmother” without acknowledging their remarkable achievements. Amy Apelhans Gubser I’m looking at you!
And for good measure, here’s a picture of me (a grandmother) with a group of my grandmother friends.
Five women in colourful bathing caps and suits, taking a selfie in the lake. Three of us are grandmothers.
I have a belly and weak core. I blame my first-year university singing teacher. Why? Because he gave a piece of advice that made probably sense to singers** but left me with 40+ years of bad posture and flabby tummy because I failed to engage my abs.
One student had transferred in from another university and the quirks of scheduling had her in our introductory voice class despite being in the voice performance program. It was good because we got to watch her sing, and that’s where the advice kicked in.
It was the early 1980s and we were all teenagers, so body conscious while wearing form-fitting clothing. I’m pretty sure every one of us spent a lot of energy trying to hold our tummies taut and flat; I know I did.
Singers need to move their diaphragms and so we were advised to relax and let them move – just like that skilled singer whose every breath we could see all the way down into her belly.
Did my teenaged brain understand that you needed muscles to push that diaphragm back up? No it did not. And did it ever think to get clarification or a second opinion from another teacher, or even that brilliant student? Also no.
A cartoon image of a woman with dark hair and an orange shirt signs with one hand on her belly and the other on her chest. The image was found on a Facebook post in a group called “Voice Training and Music Lessons”.
With considerable age came wisdom (and sports coaches who encouraged me to seek out different instructors because everyone teaches the same things using different words).
Sometimes the words bounce off you. Sometimes they make sense and you are able to improve your form. Sometimes, those words provide a flash of insight that changes your workouts in fundamental ways. I have written before about one insight that worked really well for me here.
All that to say – my unsolicited advice for today is to explore and experiment. Seek out new teachers (even if it’s just someone offering yoga classes on YouTube). Listen to your body and your teachers. Question everything you don’t understand or that doesn’t feel right.
That all sounds obvious, but trust me, it is not. At least for me and my still semi-adolescent brain.
*The advice wasn’t really bad. It wasn’t even intended as a fitness thing. That’s on me.
**I am not a singer. It was a required class so that every music student would get at least an introduction to two other instruments and I happened to end up with voice and violin.
Last week, I wrote about fitness guidelines encouraging 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activities a week. But also noted that that we need to count all incidental movement, not just structured activity.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I say this as someone who does at least three hours a week of structured physical activity that never triggers my fitness watch to count it because it is not of sufficient intensity. Or maybe it’s because I have a dumb smart watch. I have to put all my swims, dance classes, Pilates and yoga manually because my watch doesn’t track any of those things.
Plus I often get near the 7,500 daily step goal Participaction recommends, simply by walking around the pool rather than sitting during long lifeguarding shifts, or when I walk to do errands, but none gets counted unless it is sufficiently intense AND I have turned on the “walk” tracing function.
That said, I used my bike several times for short trips lately, and suddenly my watch is showing that I met or exceeded that 150 minute exercise goal. And if I remember to turn on “walk” to measure my walks to the grocery store or whatever, that gets counted too.
A friend said she got her watch to count the movement involved in snow shovelling by setting it to “cardio”. I just tested that with a short walk at the pool and it looks like I can update to “swim” and still retain the heart rate info. I’ll test that at my next swim practice.
Sadly, using “walk” while lifeguarding doesn’t get me any intensity minutes because I don’t get much heart rate high enough – a good thing in this context. I didn’t even get a fun squiggly GPS map because I was walking indoors.
I wonder what other ways I can trick my dumb smartwatch into counting movement. Maybe jazz class?
Lily Tomlinson shows off her jazz hands
Do you have any tricks for tracking your more intense workouts? Do you even worry about having some sort of evidence or external motivation to hit those Participaction goals?
I happened to catch a segment on my local radio show about the latest report card and the thing that stuck out for me was the gender component of who isn’t getting enough activity, at least according to traditional measures. You can read the report itself here.
Overall, the report said there has been very little shift in who is getting enough exercise, but also that the study was moving away from traditional measures of physical activity as being primarily moderate-to-vigorous exercise (i.e., physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive and done with the goal of improving fitness) to considering exercise that is less structured and in shorter bouts – things like active transportation or unstructured light activity such as play or social dancing.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I recently got back on my bike for short trips. Most of those rides were only for 5-10 minutes, but my smart watch said I met or exceeded the 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous exercise, even without counting all the steps I took while walking instead of sitting at work, or walking to do errands.
Those kinds of incidental exercise are what women seem to get while men are more likely to go to the gym or other structured activity.
The big challenge is how to track it. Not everyone wants to use a smart watch, or even thinks about it when going from a distant parking spot to the store, or walking to and from the bus stop, or playing with our kids in the park or walking the dog. But all those things absolutely count and we should be giving ourselves credit for that effort.
Diane in a colourful winter coat and blue bicycle helmet beside her red and white winter bicycle.
Maybe if we do, our results on the next survey will look better.
Lots of people start the new year with some sort of physical activity, signalling their intention to be active. This year, I decided to signal my intention to make time for rest.
I spent two glorious days lounging in bed: napping, cuddling cats, and watching old movies.
Cat tax: this is Milo, my grey and white shorthaired fellow, who flopped into my arms and demanded cuddles on New Year’s Day.
I think it did me some good. I went to swim practice on January 3 and did more distance than usual I even did some full stroke instead of babying my sore ankle by doing arms only with a pull buoy.
Wish me luck remembering to rest for at least some of the next 355 days!
