You never know when you’ll perform your last heavy deadlift

November 3, 2025November 2, 2025 Sam B8 Comments

I was going to title this post “You’ll never know when you’ll lift your last sailboat” when I realized that it’s the functional impact of my recent health news that will hit much harder.

What’s the health news? I’ve been diagnosed with a hiatus hernia–see here for what that means. It’s also called hiatal hernia. They’re the same condition.

I’m trying not to be dramatic about this, given that in the scheme of things the health news could have been much worse. I’m aware of that since some of the diagnosis involved ruling out the much worse things that could have been causing my symptoms.

What the diagnosis means for me, among other things, most immediately, is no more heavy lifting or intense efforts on my bike.

I think of myself–and this matters to me, perhaps more than it should–as a strong person. I know that’s connected to feeling good about my size. I’m large but I’m large and very strong.

I am all about lifting heavy things and intense efforts on the bike. Power and speed are my go-to fitness places. Rawr!

But no more. No more heavy lifting and no more racing. I feel like my entire fitness personality will need a rethink!

The pamphlets on living with a hiatus hernia all talk about the importance of exercise for weight loss and emphasize that low-intensity activities are just fine. You can still do lots of gentle movement, they say reassuringly.

Gentle movement!?

That is not at all reassuring.

Readers may know how much low-intensity exercise bores me. And you know for sure what I think about exercising for weight loss.

I’m giving myself some time to pout and mourn, but it’s very clear my life will need to change.

I won’t miss planks and crunches. They’re on the no-go list along with heavy weights and intense efforts. There’s also to be no more pull-ups, and lots of yoga poses aren’t recommended either. No cobra or camel but chair pose is okay. Fine then.

I don’t know yet how bad it is and if surgery is called for (most likely not), but I’m not really writing today to talk about the medical issues. I have an excellent family doctor. I feel very well cared for by the Canadian health care system. I’m lucky. And to be clear, I’m not looking for medical advice. I’m writing mostly to share the fitness impacts and the way I’ll need to adapt my fitness story.

Tracy has blogged about entering her 60s and changing her thinking about fitness. For Tracy, it’s now more about walking and yoga, less about racing, and more about sustainable fitness that will see her through the decades ahead. I confess that hasn’t been my plan. With my big knee surgeries behind me, I wanted to get back to fast cycling, heavy lifting, and intense efforts. Now that won’t be happening, and I am trying to come to terms with it.

Swimming seems to be fine according to most things I read. All my swimming is slow swimming. Maybe this is the thing that finally gets me into the pool. I have a month free membership at the Y that starts today.

There’s always aquafit. I did aqua yoga Saturday morning. And there’s seated bicep curls. (Yawn. ) Long slow bike rides are still good. We’ll know more as I track what does and doesn’t aggravate my condition. There’s also physio to help with a hiatus hernia. I might try that too. See the video below.

In addition to all the movement advice, there are some serious food impacts. I have already given up afternoon coffee (all coffee in fact except for one in the morning), carbonated beverages, and chocolate for dessert. I’m moving on to eating smaller meals and not eating late in the evening. The medication I’m taking requires 3-4 hours between meals. It’s also recommended I eat a few hours before exercising. (And I know the fussy eating regimens are familiar to many of you. Not me. I’ve always been able to eat a normal sized meal and hop on my bike. But no longer.)

Anything else to worry about? There’s also some worry about tightly fitting sports bras and any clothing that fits snugly around the waist. I guess I’ll be switching to bib shorts for the bike.

Sorry if this sounds a bit dramatic. I know slowing down with age is normal. I’ve been siding with team “it’s normal but not necessary, you don’t have to slow down” and yet here I am, now deliberating slowing down.

It feels like a lot right now.

I’m giving myself time to get used to this news.

By the way, my family doctor was surprised I even went to the website the specialist recommended and read the exercise section. Most people, he said, just ignore that and keep doing what they’re doing. Just take it easy, he did, but keep moving.

He makes it sound so simple. But he also seems like not an over-thinker.

Wish me luck!

Aikido · Crossfit · cycling · Dancing · fitness · Rowing · sailing · Sat with Nat

Memories of my best fitness times and planning my fitness future

April 8, 2024April 9, 2024 Sam B2 Comments

In thinking about life after knee replacement and planning my fitness life for my sixties, I’m trying to remember my happiest active times. I’m wondering what aspects of those times it makes sense to think about getting back, as well as what new stuff I want to add.

And, of course, what old stuff I’m ready to give away. I mean, some things are right out of the picture. That’s running and all sports that involve it, like soccer. Other things are back in, for sure, like recreational cycling.

But what form does this take in my ideal life?

I’m still reflecting on Tracy’s piece about how turning 60 feels different than turning 50. And part of that, for Tracy, seemed to be giving up on a bunch of external fitness should talk. Her interests also changed, and she’s approaching sixty with a more integrated and sustainable approach to fitness.

Writes Tracy, “When I was approaching my fifties, I had an intensity and focus around my fitness activities that was extremely goal-oriented. I had an eye on one thing and one thing only: the Olympic distance triathlon. Though of course the goal yielded some internal change (mostly in the form of perseverance), the goal itself was external.”

Truth be told, Tracy’s approach differed in that she had a much more ambitious goal. And she took up more new things than me. So it’s not a surprise that our attitudes about the difference between 50 and 60 are different.

Me, I want to get back to some aspects of the life I created leading up to 50. I loved it. I loved the biking, the rowing, Aikido, and CrossFit. By the end of the challenge, I wasn’t so focused on an external goal. Rather, the fittest by fifty challenge helped me appreciate how much physical activity matters to me and how much it’s part of my version of a good life. I might have started with an external goal–fittest by fifty–but it ended with a real love and appreciation of sport, physical activity, and joyful movement. I knew it was an important part of my life, going into the challenge, but the fittest by fifty challenge helped me appreciate how much it mattered.

My goal for the challenge was the Friends for Life Bike Rally, which I did as part of our challenge, but I did it again in August of 2022, right before my first knee replacement surgery. I don’t think I’ll manage it this year, the year I’m turning 60, but I’ve got 2025 in my sights. I’d like to do it in my 50th and my 60th year and I’ll still be 60 then.

Fit at Midlife the book on the left, Tracy and Sam in a publicity photo on the right

So I did keep some of my cycling fitness after the fittest by fifty challenge, and I hope to keep that up for a very long time yet. So what’s missing for me?

There are four themes that keep coming up when I think about the fitness future I want.

First, it’s community. When I think back over my various fitness pursuits, the best times involve working out with other people. I think about bike clubs and teams, my soccer team, the Aikido dojo, the rowing club, and so on. Even CrossFit’s appeal lay mainly in the community. Soccer, Aikido, rowing, and bike clubs are all team efforts where you work with others. I like that a lot. They’re also all community associations where people are drawn from all walks of life and from all corners of the community. It’s what I like about the Guelph Community Boating Club.

Sam and Sarah racing the snipe at Guelph Lake

Second, it’s active, outdoor adventure. I love being outside. I love moving my body. The combo is perfect.

Two photos of Sam in red shirts in her canoe

Third, it’s intensity. I do my best work in teams and there’s something about the group effort that makes me work harder. Team time trials are one of my favourite kinds of bike races and they’re intense, co-operative efforts. Of course, that’s also true of rowing. I like sports that have intensity built in. I’m not sure what form that will take as I get older, but I still think about one of our earlier blog posts, about aging as a choice. Is Aging a Lifestyle Choice? I talked about Gretchen Reynold’s book on exercise science, The First Twenty Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can: Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer, where I was particularly taken with her chapter on aging,

I wrote: “The old view was that muscle loss and a decline in aerobic capacity were inevitable with old age. We slow down with age and become more frail, starting in our 40s, it seemed. But new research suggests the connections may run the other way. We become slower and more frail because we stop moving. Older athletes get slower and less strong, not because they’re older, but rather because they train less than younger athletes.”

Fourth, they’ve involved some element of competition. I’ve never been a serious racer but I like club level competition, in most physical activity that I do. (Obviously that’s lacking in yoga and hiking.) It provides some benchmarking and gives a purpose to training.

So, purposeful training, outdoors, in a community, with intensity, and some competition…that’s where we are so far!

Canberra’s Vikings above, Dunedin’s Women on Wheels below

What happened to my fitness community? Where did it go?

Well, my knees for one thing. Knee pain led to saying goodbye to running, soccer, Aikido and CrossFit. My big move was another. Bye-bye cycling coach and the community of cyclists I rode with in London. And then there was my big new job. That’s a lot.

Also there’s age. In Canada it’s harder to find groups that include older adults. I often think back fondly to my racing days in Australia where the master’s cycling group had an active over-80 group. You needed a doctors note to race after 80. It’s hard to imagine an active group of seniors racing bikes in Canada.

As I try to construct a ‘fitness after sixty’ plan, I’m thinking about activities in three groups–things I’m saying goodbye to, things I’m keeping and new things I want to add.

And I also want to recognize the pieces of the plan that are already in place. Zwift hits both the community and competition buttons. The Guelph Community Boating Club is very much of the volunteer association model I like.

On the bye list are running, soccer, Aikido.

On the keep list are hiking, cycling, sailboat racing, yoga, paddling, and weightlifting.

And on the new list are bike packing and dancing. I’m not sure where to put swimming but it’s in there.

Oh, there’s also a fourth category–to pick again after retirement–rowing for sure!

Look this is obviously very much a work in progress. Stay tuned!

Also, I’ve been trying for better blog post titles.

Here’s some AI suggested:

1. “Rediscovering Joy: Embracing Fitness After Knee Replacement”

2. “Creating a Vibrant Future: Planning Fitness in Your Sixties”

3. “Reflecting on Active Happiness: Reimagining Fitness After Knee Replacement”

4. “The Next Chapter: Designing a Fulfilling Fitness Journey in Your Sixties”

5. “From Recovery to Revival: Crafting a Dynamic Fitness Routine After Knee Replacement”

Let me know what you think!

boats · competition · fitness · race report · racing · sailing

Sam and Sarah Race in Snipe Nationals

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021 Sam B

Last weekend I did something brand new. And I had fun. And I will definitely do it again.

Sarah and I raced our Snipe, a 15 1/2 foot dinghy, in the Canadian National Snipe Championships. It was two days of racing over Saturday and Sunday based at our home club, the Guelph Community Boating Club, on Guelph Lake.

We had one goal, and one goal only, and that goal was to not slow down the racing. The next race doesn’t start until the last boat finishes and sometimes, earlier in the season, we were far enough behind that people had to wait. But not this time. We weren’t even last every race and often we were right in the mix with the other boats, having to worry about right of way rules and the like. Starboard! (That’s a thing you can yell when you’re on starboard tack and have right of way. Other boats need to move.)

We also had the perfect amount of wind. Yes, gusty. We have enough weight to be able to deal with that by getting up on high side and hiking. But also not dead calm which can be a bit of an issue this time of year.

What else to love? The community. One of the things I like best about Snipe racing is the range of ages of people racing the boats. Best guess? 12 to 70, but with a fair number of teenagers. There’s a perfect mix, for me, of community and fun and competition.

Our strengths? We got better over time and I think we’ve got lots of endurance and stamina. Thanks bike riding! We’re also good at paying attention and concentrating.

Our weaknesses? We need more time in the boat. We have to go out and deliberately practice mark roundings.

For me, I’ve been getting better moving around in the boat. With my severely arthritic knee, it’s taken a bit work but I am getting there.

After two days in the boat we both felt incredibly beat up, after a fair bit of crashing around. Both days we came home, grabbed food, and fell hard and fast asleep. That was a lot of work and concentration. Zzzzz!

So next year, and we will race again in the Nationals next year, we’ll practice and we’ll also break out our race sails. It was fun to be close enough to the fast boats to think that with work we can actually be competitive.

Here’s hoping that next year pandemic restrictions remain eased and we can actually get out and sail earlier in the season. Fun times!

And here’s some photos! Thanks to the lovely volunteers for taking them.

cycling · fitness · sailing

Labour Day weekend, last summer days cramming in all the fun

September 7, 2021September 6, 2021 Sam B1 Comment

On Saturday Martha suggested that we aim for a labour day long weekend triathlon, one in which we walk, breathe, and connect.

If you substitute “biking” for “walking” (which given the state of my left knee, I have to do) I think our long weekend worked out pretty well. We rode bikes, raced sailboats, and connected with friends. It’s the weekend before the university opens to students and classes and so it wasn’t all leisure. But I feel like the work/rest blend was pretty balanced.

On Friday after work we biked in Prince Edward County with our friend Alex. The trip included three of my favourite things–connection and conversation, observing alpacas, and eating ice cream. The Millennium Trail is pretty wonderful. This time we rode from Wellington to Bloomfield and back, just over 20 km all told.

And then on Saturday Sarah and I raced our Snipe in the Guelph Community Boating Club flat water race. Usually it’s out to the damn and back but the wind died and the course was cut short. We’re getting better and working lots on our boat speed. We finished in the middle of the pack, 5th out of 10 boats.

And then we snuck in a short 15 km ride on the riverside bike trails in Guelph with our friend Rob who stopped by for a bike ride and pizza.

Sunday was a fun day on campus for me. I was part of the team greeting parents and first year students moving into residence. I rode my pink Brompton. My sparkly bike helmet got a lot of positive attention. The bike allowed me to move between residences saying hi to a lot of the new University of Guelph students.

Sam’s pink bike and sparkly helmet in front of Zavitz Hall at the U of G

I know the next few weeks will be much less balanced. More work and more stress as we navigate our way back onto campus for the fall semester. It’s a time of vaccine mandates and hybrid meetings and long work days. But it sure felt good to get outside and have some fun this long weekend.

How did your weekend work out on the balance front?

cycling · Fear · sailing

Sam thinks about doing scary things

October 8, 2019October 8, 2019 Sam B1 Comment

Is there a thing you do that you always find scary but you do it anyway?

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years of this blog and I confess it’s mostly been in the context of trying to problem solve for Tracy and road biking way back when. She loves triathlon so much, I thought. Surely there ought to have been a way to get over the fear of road cycling? In the end there wasn’t, she gave it up. And that was the right choice for Tracy.

Since then I’ve often thought about fear and the role it plays in our lives, in particular in the role it plays in what physical activities we do. Downhill skiing anyone? Fat biking on ridge trails? Camping in areas of high bear activity? Paddling in wind and waves?

Back to cycling, for a minute: While I’m road cycling I don’t find cycling scary. I can zoom down big hills, ride fast in a group, and ride in city traffic without fear. The only cycling related fear I have is sometimes after a ride. Sometimes I play over the ride in my head and think about the ways things might have gone differently. Sometimes I get scared then but the activity itself is done. And next ride, I’m happy and relaxed and ready to ride again.

Here’s a thing that I find scary when I do it: small boat sailing, like Snipe racing.

There I’ve said it. I haven’t talked about this before. But here’s the thing. Although it’s present every time I get in a small sailboat it goes away after the first race or the first half hour or so that I’m out. I’m puzzled by it. I know it will go away. I no longer want to go in and get off the boat when it happens. I can’t figure out what it’s about. I get shaky. It’s very much a physical sensation. I kind of freeze in place and I feel like everything could go wrong.

What exactly am I worried about? You name it really. Capsizing, hurting my knee, hitting other boats. And these are all things that could actually happen. It wouldn’t be the end of the world. I know that but still, I’m nervous and shaky.

It goes away when I start to focus on the tasks at hand: making sure the sail is trimmed properly, making sure I’m in a good position on the boat, making sure that we have all of our lines untangled and running freely, making sure we’re in a good position comparatively speaking.

It’s different than the fear that led Tracy to stop cycling in three ways: I love sailing and in particular, sailboat racing. It goes away each time and I know that. The worst case scenario I imagine is not that bad in the scheme of things.

I keep waiting for it to go away. Instead, it persisted all summer and yet I kept sailing.

I’m curious to see if next summer feels different.

Small sailboats racing. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

fitness · racing · sailing

Is dinghy racing exercise? (with update!)

October 8, 2019October 8, 2019 Sam B3 Comments

Is sailing a dinghy a workout?

What is a dinghy anyway? Let’s start with basics, “a small boat for recreation or racing, especially an open boat with a mast and sails.” My family has two different sorts, a Laser (raced singlehandedly) and a Snipe (a double handed boat.) Sarah and I have been racing the Snipe.

My participation in the 219 in 2019 group was the impetus to think about the question of “does dinghy racing count as exercise?”

I knew it was tiring. And racing sure felt like a workout so I listed it as a workout. A few hours went by and someone asked why it counted. Wren’t you just sitting on a boat letting the wind take you where you want to go? Maybe on a big boat, I thought. Maybe if you’re not racing. I got bit defensive. I did what defensive academics do. I went and looked things up.

I found this: How sailing can be a workout.

“Sailing is a sport that will work many aspects of physical fitness:

Core and muscle strength: Pulling on lines, hiking your boat, and maneuvering the rudder will all help develop core strength and general muscle strength. If you want a few sailing specific exercises, try partial crunches, squats, and single arm rows.
Aerobic fitness: If you’re on a relatively small sailboat, you will constantly be on the move doing things like adjusting the sails and moving from port to starboard. Do additional aerobic activity (cycling, hiking, dancing) to build up more stamina for when you next leave the dock.
Balance and agility: Manoeuvering around the boat and its tight quarters and finding your sea legs will all help improve your balance. Get a head start by trying activities like Tai Chi or balance exercises, to help prevent “spontaneous” swims!”

For me the there are three physically tough things:

As with rowing, it’s a workout in itself getting the boat in and out of the water. The Snipe weights 381 lbs. Yes, it goes into the water on a small trailer but you still have to lift the front end and pull. It takes two of us working hard. We struggle to get the boat into the water and a few hours later, tired from sailing, we really struggle to get it out the water. “Out” is also uphill! That’s the first hard thing.

The second hard thing is me-specific. With my bad knee I can struggle with balance and agility and finding a good spot to be on the boat where I can reach and see the things I need to reach and see. You also need to be able to change positions quickly and gracefully. It’s not easy and I’m constantly working on it.

The third thing is hard for everyone. It’s hiking. There are hiking straps on the boat. You use your weight to keep the boat as flat as possible. It’s like one continuous crunch. What is hiking exactly? Our friends at Wikipedi say, “In sailing, hiking (stacking or stacking out in New Zealand; leaning out or sitting out in United Kingdom) is the action of moving the crew’s body weight as far to windward (upwind) as possible, in order to decrease the extent the boat heels (leans away from the wind). “

(UPDATE) Sarah, late to the blog party, chimes in: ” I think an important distinction to make is between “going for a sail” and racing a dinghy, which are as different as “going for a stroll” and race walking. In the latter, one’s body is actively engaged in going as fast as possible. Even if winds are too light to hike hard, sailors have active cores and legs as they balance the boat for optimum speed. In Sam’s case this can look like an extended deep squat while twisting her upper body to look around. In my case, with the main sheet in one hand and the tiller in the other, all of my movements must be “hands-free”. By the end of a race I am breathing hard and smiling. Dinghy sailing may not always be the most intense workout, but it’s definitely a fun one! “

Here is Sarah Douglas hiking. Douglas aims to represent Canada in the 2020 Games. The Torontonian is the 2019 Pan Am Games champion. Also a University of Guelph grad! (That’s where I’m a Dean.)

I’ve often wondered about the comparison between rowing and dinghy racing. I know rowing is physically more demanding. There’s mental effort but it’s in things like maintaining a rhythm, following orders, withstanding pain! Sailing is less physically demanding but more varied and much more about strategy and timing. You interact with other boats tactically in a way you don’t when rowing.

Here’s one comparison: Dingy sailing versus rowing

And here’s our racecourse from a recent race. It’s from Sarah’s Garmin.

advice · aging · fitness · sailing

Meet 25 year old Sam: She got some things right but others very much not when it comes to fitness

August 26, 2019August 26, 2019 Sam B1 Comment

Sunday we hosted an end of summer BBQ in our backyard. That meant Saturday we were cleaning the basement putting some summer things away, taking out others.

Okay, we were drying and putting away sails for the season. After Jeff’s DNF due to rudder failure during the Lake Erie solo challenge, Tin Lizzie is home in Guelph for the season.

In the middle of cleaning I got carried away with a box of old photos and correspondence, as one does. I found a letter to my parents from 25 year old grad school me in Chicago, a relic from life before children. Also back before email and social media. I would write letters on the computer, print them, add physical photos and mail them off to my family in Nova Scotia.

What was striking about this letter though is that it captured the beginning of my fitness journey. Boy did I get some things right. Boy did I get others things wrong.

At 25 I wrote to my parents to say that:

1. I was hanging out with a 55 year old faculty member who still, at her age, rode a bike and played squash. At her age! Geesh, 25 year old me, get a grip. Now I’m that 55 year old professor who still rides a bike. I’m wondering what the 25 year old grad students think. Still!

Miss you Dorothy!

About 14 years after grad school, my daughter Mallory and I visited Dorothy in New Zealand. She was still super active, hiking, dancing, and playing tennis. I began to see the advantages of an active life.

2. I was riding my bike pretty regularly on the Lake Shore bike path, sometimes riding as far as 26 miles. I aspired to ride a century, 100 miles. There was a ride called the Chicago century, Chicago to Wisconsin, and I told them I hoped to do that the following summer. This is notable because I was riding a pretty heavy hybrid bike back then. Also my beginning cycling ambitions were about to be interrupted by baby 1. Hello Mallory! It would be about 15 years before I rode a 100 miles. I didn’t do it on a hybrid either. The funny thing is until finding this letter I had no memory of distance ambitions prior to getting my first road bike in my 40s.

I couldn’t find any grad school pictures of me on a bike. No cell phone cameras yet. But here’s sleepy me and baby Mallory.

3. I was doing aerobics classes in the gym in our building, River City, three times a week and between that and bike riding feeling pretty fit.

“I surprise people a lot in the aerobics class because I’m far from skinny, a pretty constant size 14, but I can do the full 90 minutes with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Some new people, about half my size can’t, and I think that shocks them. I’ve heard women behind me making comments to that effect. I think it’s good to break the tight association between being thin and being fit.”

Go 25 year old Sam! Size 14 then, same now.

4. I was out on the water pretty regularly on boats of various shapes and sizes and configurations due to Jeff working for Sailboat Sales in Chicago. I went lots of years in the middle without sailing and now with Snipe racing at Guelph Lake and sailing Tin Lizzie, it’s back in my life again. A special surprise finding this on a day I’m busy flaking sails once again.

Dear 25 year old me: You will eventually ride a century. At 55 you’re still singing the “fat can be fit” song. And your views about aging will change.

River City. One of the places I lived in Chicago while attending graduate school there 1988-1993.

25 year old me waking up on the boat, peeking out of the companionway in the morning.

Continue reading →

boats · competition · fitness · racing · sailing

Serious sailing, serious fun: Sam and Sarah race the GCBC Commodore’s Cup

July 27, 2019July 27, 2019 Sam B2 Comments

Sarah and I raced our first weekend race today on the Snipe. We’ve done a couple of evenings of short course races at the club but this was our first longer event.

“Serious sailing, serious fun” is the motto of the Snipe class. The Snipe is described as a tactical, racing dinghy. It’s 15.5 feet and it’s raced by two people. Today Sarah was skipper and I was crew.

The good news? We had fun and no one drowned. We finished the course and didn’t crash into any other boats. Our peak speed was 7 knots. We had a good amount of wind. Also, thanks to us an 8 year old racing a laser is very happy he wasn’t last! We’re a pretty good team and we’re getting better at communicating on the boat.

Also it’s a great community. People were very happy to have us out there and recognize that we’re beginners and have lots to learn. We’ve been attending Thursday night race training where an experienced sailor follows us in a motorboat offering tips and advice. Thanks Harri!

The bad news? We lost Sarah’s hat overboard, attempted to rescue it but didn’t succeed. The line for our pole which allows us to fly the jib like a spinnaker came undone and we had to do some fixing underway. We were very much dead last.

But we’re learning lots.

Our experience reminded me of a conversation I had on our Newfoundland trip about the advantages of racing, both bikes and boats. I like riding in a community of cyclists where everyone races because there are skills you only only acquire in that context. It’s true for boats and sailing too. Everyone learns to race as part of learning to sail.

Our day ended with a moving ceremony to remember Mark Parkinson, former Commodore for Life of Guelph Community Boating Club. His grandchildren were there to raise the colours and a bench overlooking the race course has been named after him. We also awarded the Commodore’s Cup to the winning boat. At GCBC it’s filled with jujubes not beer or champagne. Congrats Julian!

Oh, and a friend asked recently about sailing as a fitness activity. I guess it depends. There’s always work getting the boat in and out of the water, even on a trailer. It weighs 380 lbs. There’s moving about the boat as we tack and jibe across the lake. Today we did lots of hiking, getting our body weight out over the edge of the boat to keep the boat flat. That’s a pretty good ab workout.

boats · fitness · Guest Post · sailing

Vulnerability, Sailing, and Naked Yoga, Part 1 (Guest Post)

June 17, 2019June 16, 2019 Sam B5 Comments

by Ellen Burgess

Vulnerability

I recently watched a Netflix special by a woman named Brene Brown on the topic of vulnerability and courage. She defined vulnerability as “the courage to show up and letting ourselves be truly seen” (weaknesses and all), when you can’t control the outcome (or reactions of others). She was talking primarily about emotional vulnerability but as I discovered this week, that can show up in all areas of life including in sport and fitness.

So this two part blog is all about two new activities I tried this week, which required two distinctly different types of vulnerability: 1) learning how to sail which involved a willingness to make mistakes in front of my loving, but sarcastic cousin Dale with 60 years of sailing experience and 2) participating in a naked yoga class! Yep, that’s right folks, nothing but my birthday suit…aka: totally STARKERS! However this week’s blog will only address the sailing component. You will have to follow up on next week’s post to hear all about the Naked Yoga!

Sailing

My cousin Dale had invited me to sail with him several times in the past but I had declined. This year he told me he was selling the boat by the end of June, so this was my last chance.

So off to Michigan and Lake St. Claire I went. Prior to this week, I had planned to do an online sailing course, which I proudly announced to my veteran sailing cousin 6 weeks ago. Sadly, I bit off more than I could chew and only finished chapter 1! So, when I got on the boat, all I could do was name basic boat features including: the main sail, jib, boom, port, starboard, bow, and stern. In fact, that was about all I knew. Dale was duly unimpressed since I was one of only 2 crew for his 30 foot boat and we were racing that night and the next. He mumbled that it was “a good thing we have 2 hours before the race gets started!”

He then began giving me directions to rig the boat on my own instead of enlisting me as a helper which would have been easier for both of us. This was a great strategy for me to learn quickly, albeit somewhat embarrassing at times, as I was prone to confusing port with starboard and right with left!

Shortly after I finished rigging the boat, it started pouring rain and there was zippo wind. Things continued that way until we got off the water at 9:30 pm. I was hoping the race would be cancelled since I was tired after all that learning and rigging, but no such luck, so off we went. And we sat… for a long time… in the boat… in the rain…with no wind.

After 30 minutes of 2-4 knots per hour, I started engaging in some idle chit chat with my cousin, because really, what else was there to do? I was quickly informed that “this is no time for chatting, we are in a race, not on a pleasure cruise!” Okay, so this sailing thing can be really serious business I guess. On the bright side, since there was practically no wind the entire evening, Dale was able to teach me to tack and steer without any serious safety risk.

The next night the weather was much better and I was happy to demonstrate my new found ability to rig a boat on my own with minimal direction. This time I was able practice some more tacking of the jib. I learned that the combination of tacking and steering at an angle as close to the wind’s direction as possible, can get me to just about any destination that I choose (although I can’t say I personally experienced this!).

All in all this was a great experience and I look forward to trying it again in Guelph sometime, maybe with Sam and Sarah one night.

So what does this have to do with vulnerability? Well at the age of 55, I do not learn as quickly as I used to, so I had to be willing to make mistakes without personalizing my cousin’s sarcastic and sometimes impatient remarks. 10 years ago, I would not have been emotionally strong enough for this type of situation. At that time, I had a thin skin and took myself way too seriously, so I probably would have wound up crying and feeling sorry for myself at the end of it all. Instead, I felt proud of myself for trying something new and was really happy to have the opportunity to bond with my cousin.

Overall, I would say there was both personal growth and learning in my sailing adventure. I am learning a new sport and stretching my limits physically and mentally as I attempt to learn something new. I was also able to vulnerable by “showing up and being seen” when I am not feeling strong and confident… first by trying with no success, trying again with some luck, and then finally, trying and succeeding…all in a day’s work on a sailboat!

Ellen Burgess is from Guelph, Ontario and is a runner, yoga practitioner, meditator, and cycling enthusiast. She is currently fulfilling her career dream working as a mental health RN within the greater Wellington community.

athletes · blogging · fitness · injury · monthly check in · motivation · sailing · weight loss

Sam’s monthly check-in: What’s up, what’s down, the July version (CW: long, some sad bits, some discussion of weight loss)

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 Sam B14 Comments

Down, is of course, my knee

Saw the surgeon and his team on Monday. I’ve been crying on and off since.

The easy bits are that I got another shot of synvisc under my kneecap. What is it and what’s it for? “SYNVISC is a viscosupplement injection that supplements the fluid in your knee to help lubricate and cushion the joint. SYNVISC is for people with knee osteoarthritis who have not received enough pain relief from diet, exercise and over-the-counter pain medication.”

Category: sailing

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