Hi readers and Happy first day of September! It’s time:
Time to turn from vacation-mode to at-home-and-working mode
Time to shift (gently) into the fall season
Time to get back to work
Time to check out of this hotel where I’m speed-writing my blog post
It’s been such a fun week visiting Canadian friends, vacationing with American friends, and enjoying the refreshing water of (great) lakes, quarries and hotel pools.
Just this morning, Norah and I headed to our hotel pool before going our separate ways (me back to Boston, her back to her rental cottage on Lake Huron for another week– lucky duck!). But we couldn’t leave without trying out this pool and its big green slide:
In real-pool like, there were kids, parents, us, a nice lifeguard, and lots of sound effects from everyone going down this surprisingly fast green spiral slide.
I’ll be back on my regular non-hotel-pool beat for Fit is a Feminist Issue starting this week. But as I check out and roar down the New York State Thruway, please enjoy this post about the silliest hotel pool I ever experienced (thus far; I’m always looking for other contenders, so do let me know if you have intel).
This week has been all about the vacationing for me, a final pause before scurrying home to begin my school year 2024-2025. And it’s been a wonderful pause that refreshes, in no small part because water has played a significant supporting role.
Even before I crossed the Peace Bridge and entered Canadian jurisdiction, there was swimming and frolicking in water. Yes, it was a hotel pool, and yes, it was Saturday night in Rochester New York (which turns out to have some lovely and interesting neighborhoods and parks). My friend Norah and I shared a hotel room, a meal and then a swim in their modest but thoroughly enjoyable pool.
The pool area was friendlier than it looks here, and we got a chance to recover from our respective long drives and relax.
Once in Guelph visiting Samantha, Sarah, Kathleen, Jeff, and a slew of animals, I enjoyed a mix of relaxing outdoor activities. My favorite one was a Wednesday swim with Sam in the Elora quarry, about a half hour from Guelph. The town of Elora looked very charming, and the quarry swim was super fun. The water felt cold at first, but once we were in, it was great.
The rain held off but I think the clouds scared away a bunch of folks. We shared the water with only a few other people.
Thursday I woke up in Goderich, Ontario, having driven the very remote back roads from Guelph to get there Wednesday night. I joined Norah and her daughter and son-in-law, who are at a lovely cottage near Lake Huron. On Thursday we had multi-mode fun: we cycled the Goderich-to-Guelph rail trail, and then visited Rotary Cove beach for swimming and sunning.
Not many visitors on a bright sunny late August day. This is where we went in. The water was, uh, rather chilly. But also fun for swimming.After all that activity, a short snooze in the sun seemed in order.
Friday we’re headed to Black’s Point beach, an even quieter (and I think even colder-water) location. But I’m looking forward to it.
After a Saturday celebration at Sam’s place, Norah and I are once again headed for a hotel pool before I drive back to Boston. This one, in Guelph, has a pool, hot tub, and spiral sliding board. Oh yeah.
A hotel pool with blue water, a hot tub, and a bright green spiral sliding board. Am definitely trying it out.
Hey readers, are you taking any last-minute dips before the month of fall is finally upon us? Let me know. I also love tips on interesting hotel or public pools and beaches.
It’s nothing as bold as Cate’s solo cycling adventures, but I’m having fun. I brought my Brompton to Toronto for a visit with my son. He had to work, so I am exploring a bit of the city.
I started out by taking it for a ride around Mount Pleasant Cemetery because I knew it would be a safe mostly car-free spot. I ignored all the signs warning cyclists not to speed because I was too busy stopping to look at monuments and Google the more interesting ones.
The next day, I tried out the bike share service in order to ride to Cherry Beach, a destination I had wanted to visit last year; I was thwarted then by a week of unrelenting rain. As a cycling advocate, I really wanted to see what was possible, what was scary, and what was brilliant in a different city.
Aside from walking around my son’s neighbourhood, my experience of Toronto dates back well over 20 years. At that time, I knew a car-clogged section of Scarborough and had paid occasional visits to the downtown. My recollection of busy downtown streets was that they were not at all car friendly, although a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum a couple of years ago showed that things had changed: cycling was was possible (and possibly even pleasant).
The first thing I noticed when I picked up an e-bike at a nearby station was how many bike parking options there were. Every corner had racks, and most of the racks would be useable by non-standard cargo bikes or bikes with trailers or baskets, too. That’s key if you want people to ride: they need to feel confident that their bikes won’t be stolen.
The very first instruction was to ride down Yonge Street – yikes! Well, yikes until I realized that there was a separated bike path protected by a pin curbs with bollards or flexiposts. It was great! From there I worked my way to The Beaches area, mostly using lanes that were physically separated from cars. In 10.5 km of travel, I came across only one vehicle parked in a bike lane, and one spot of construction where I briefly needed to share the road with cars (but it had good signage and the drivers gave me plenty of space, as they did whenever I was at an intersection or had only painted lines for protection). Even in quite industrial areas there were some lovely paths.
A Bike share station; a section of bike lane along Yonge Street; a quiet bike path surrounded by bushes. Just past the bushes were busy roads with lots of construction vehicles.
Google Maps was not my friend, as it took me along Lakeshore Drive to Woodbine Beach instead of to Cherry Beach, but I’m not mad about that. Woodbine Beach turned out to be gorgeous and I had a lovely swim.
Diane, still wet from her swim, with Lake Ontario in the background.
I planned my ride home to take me past the store that was the main setting for Kim’s Convenience, a popular Canadian TV show. It meant more busy downtown streets, a few of which had no bike lanes, but it felt no worse than downtown Ottawa, and most of it felt considerably better.
Kim’s Convenience, a variety store that was the setting for the TV show of the same name. Yes, I’m a Canadian content nerd.
The ride home took me up Sherbourne, which was a lovely mix of bike lanes that were separated by being at level with the sidewalk, or had pin curbs or speed bumps topped with either bollards or flexiposts to keep cars out of the lane. I paralleled a bus most of the way; it was nice to have my own lane so I didn’t have to stop behind it all the time, and it was easy to avoid riders getting on and off at the stops.
Google Maps tried to kill me right at the end of my ride: first directing me down a one-way steep hill to merge into busy traffic so I could turn left across multiple lanes less than half a block away. That was a big old nope so I walked my bike back up the hill on the sidewalk, and headed into Rosedale looking for an alternate route.
The second attempt was when it took me right past the park where I was pretty sure I could find a bike share stand, and down a little path that led to a steep flight of stairs to the bottom of a ravine. Also nope! I got myself back to the park, off-loaded the bike and walked home in time for a shower and quick nap before walking to dinner.
Total count for the day: 33+ km cycling, 10.5 km walking and a 1 km swim.
Day 3, my final day of this holiday, was dedicated to exploring trails along the Don River. Growing up, the Don had a reputation as a terribly polluted place, and the Don Valley Parkway was considered well-named because of the stop-and-go traffic. The reality today is quite different.
The day started off badly as I believed both Google and the Toronto trails map, and was too stubborn to go back up a steep hill once I discovered the trail was closed. Instead, I half carried my bike along a narrow dirt path that was sometimes muddy, sometimes under water, and sometimes blocked with roots or fallen trees. Something that should have taken 12 minutes took an hour.
A narrow rough path beside a stream in a wooded area.
But after that, I had a delightful ride down to the Brickworks park and then north to the botanical gardens and then along another trail that took me into Don Mills. At that point, I was faced with very busy roads and no bike lanes, so decided to head home. Total distance for the day was just shy of 33 km.
I’m glad I brought my little Brompton on this trip, but also glad I had the option of the bike share. Both turned out to be really handy for exploring the city.
Next stop: points west to visit friends and hopefully use the Brompton some more.
This week I’m exercising my summer right to a last hurrah before school starts: I’m in transit to Ontario, where I’ll be engaging in many fun activities with Samantha, Sarah, their families, and dogs (and cats, although I’m not sure of their commitments). Also, I’ll be dipping into life at Lake Huron with my friend Norah and her family– swimming, biking, and exploring. Yay!
At the end of this last-hurrah-week, I’ll roar back down the New York State Thruway to Boston to begin the school year Sept 3.
A full report on the week’s festivities will be arriving at your inboxes next Sunday.
During yesterday’s almost-7-hour drive, I passed the time listening to a variety of podcasts, which is super fun– I can indulge my idle curiosity about anything from Archery to Zen Buddhism, absolutely free, unfettered by anything other than the need to stay on my side of the road (that went well, by the way).
My favorite podcast of the drive was one by the Washington Post called Field Trip— a five-part series on the complicated past and present of some national parks. Reporter Lillian Cunningham gathers a variety of perspectives from rangers, indigenous residents and scientists, outdoor guides, engineers and politicians. I highly recommend the series, which focuses on five parks: Yosemite, Glacier, Everglades, White Sands, and Gates of the Arctic National Parks.
Yesterday, while driving through the farmland of western New York, passing grazing cows and barns and silos, my attention was drawn to Florida wetlands, saw grasses, and the roseate spoonbill. What’s that, you might ask? No problem– take a look:
The roseate spoonbill in the Everglades.The spoonbill showing off its wildly pink plumage. Take that, Barbie!
I won’t issue any spoilers here, but these birds are a bit squeezed for habitat these days for the obvious reasons: development, very bad decisions 70 years ago by the Army Corps of Engineers, and of course climate change. Listen for all the details and plans to fix the messes we made.
This gets me to the travel planning part. For years, I’ve been wanting to visit natural Florida– the Florida of springs, manatees, marshes, and everglades. Way back in 2005 I spent four days cycling on rail trails in Central Florida, and it was a blast. I hung out in small towns off the tourist circuit, ate at local diners, and even staying at a motel that offered secure, dedicated kayak and bike storage.
This time I want to go back for more aquatic adventures, exploring the Florida springs that host manatees in the winter and invite us to swim, snorkel, dive, and kayak in their clear water (which ranges from 66F/19C to 75F/24C). I can handle that.
Kayaking down a quiet river.The swampy lowlands of Central Florida.Manatees in one of the springs.
So I think I’m gonna do it. Early January is a great time to visit these places. The air temperatures are mild and the waters are invigorating but not super-cold. I’m now thinking about starting in Central Florida near Ocala, which isn’t far from Three Sisters Springs and also Homosassa Springs. There are so many springs (more than 100 in the state), so planning and research is a must. Unless I just want to meander and see what I encounter as I set out each day. We’ll see.
Then there’s Everglades National Park. A little more than a 4-hour drive from Ocala, it offers both biking and kayaking trails. I would love to do some of both.
So, the planning begins. Well, I’ll probably wait until I’m done with this trip to make any hotel or plane reservations. One adventure at a time…
When I check into the blog in the morning–usually about 6 am–to share today’s post to our Facebook page, I usually glance at the stats. It’s fun and sometimes interesting to see what’s trending.
No surprise that this week, it’s all of our past Olympics related posts. This morning this one, Swimming the 1500m: Why No Olympic Event for the Women?, is top of the heap. Tracy wrote, in 2015, about Katie Ledecky’s 1500 m time and the shocking fact that at the Olympics women race the 800 m and not the 1500 m.
When I teach sports ethics and gender equality, I find students are shocked to discover the differences between men’s and women’s events that make absolutely no sense. Whether it’s women track cyclists and the kilo, or high school runners and the 10 km versus 8 km, or the number of sets in a tennis match, it’s striking to me how unequal men’s and women’s sports can be. Do we really think the women playing tennis now can’t handle 4 sets?
Luckily this one has changed. In 2021 the 1500 m freestyle made its debut as a women’s event. It’s been part of swimming world championship competition since 2001. Of course, Katie Ledecky won that event. See Katie Ledecky breezes to first women’s Olympic 1500m freestyle gold.
Oh, and here’s my fave Katie Ledecky video. Not that we don’t know there’s a difference between us and the Olympic athletes but some things make it very clear. There’s me splashing and thrashing around in the pool and then there’s Katie Ledecky swimming with a glass of milk on her head.
Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, is the subject of a new movie on Disney, called A Young Woman and the Sea.
Gertrude Ederle is has been a hero since I first heard of her. She was just 20 when she made the crossing, smashing the men’s record in the process and setting a time that lasted until 1950. She was also a medal-winning Olympian and holder of multiple world records.
Gertrude Ederle at the end of her swim from France to England in 1926. Photo from the Facebook page A Mighty Girl.
What struck me most about the movie was the other women who were forces in her life: her mother, who insisted that she and her sister learn to swim and worked to pay for their membership in a women’s swim club, her female coach at the club, and the support of her sister throughout. They, along with Ederle herself, fought hard against the sexism of the time.
The movie takes a couple of liberties for dramatic effect, but is reportedly quite true to the biography of the same name. Her coach probably did sabotage her first attempt (though not by making her sick by adding sleeping pills to her tea), and her second attempt took place almost a year after the first, not mere days later.
If you want a feel-good movie to inspire you to swim, I highly recommend this one.
In the ongoing struggle to address my Shoulder issues (which now stretch well down into my hip and thigh), I have a new physiotherapist. My old one was great, but has gone on maternity leave.
My old therapist had given me a whole lot of exercises over our time together. I hate them. They work, and my shoulder is significantly better than it was six months ago, but it would probably be even better if I did them more regularly.
My new physiotherapist says the only good exercises are the ones I’ll actually do. She has given me exactly two, plus using a ball to roll my hip against a wall. One feels very much like doing butterfly stroke, which is perfect. It’s an exercise I can connect with my love of swimming. The other is a leg lift at a slightly different angle than I am used to, so familiar but also a challenge.
Do I do them all every day? No. But I am making a serious effort to do at least some of them every day. They are stinking hard and when I do them all, I go to bed exhausted. Even this limited work is helping enough that I am able to swim more often and I’m gradually able to do longer distances using freestyle.
Top: the peaceful little lake where I swim most often these days. Ignore the time. Strava on my phone is terrible for time but accurate on distance in the water. Bottom: Willow the dog gets a kayak ride. She also understands the value of doing less.
Yesterday, I finally got to swim in a pond- my first time this summer!
Yes, the angle of the photo, the fact that only my head is above water, and the colour of my swimsuit contrasting with my pale limbs does make me look like some sort of strange pond creature in this shot. I hope you find it as funny as I do. Image description: a photo of me swimming in a pond. The photo was taken from a dock and you can see my head above the water and my arms underwater out to the side and one of my legs kicking out behind me below the water. My hair is pulled back in a ponytail and I am squinting in the sun.
It was big fun and it felt summery and relaxing and like I was letting out a breath I had been holding for a long time.
And it was all because I decided to reprioritize my summer fun.
But then some work projects went off the rails, and my foot started hurting, and the weather kept getting in my way (too hot, too rainy, too windy…you know the deal), and my weekends and evenings were crammed full of stuff and…
The short version is that I got overwhelmed.
And once I got overwhelmed, my ADHD went into overdrive and made it impossible for me to tell the difference between ‘meh, I don’t wanna’ and ‘this is actually an obstacle.’
And, as usual, it kept trying to get me to finish the stuff on my list before it would let me go into relaxation mode.*
Note: You might think this tendency is about needing to be productive or to really earn my rest, but that’s not the goal there. Instead, my ADHD wants me to finish this stuff so when I do rest, I can ‘really relax without this stuff hanging over my head.’ Alas, it also gets in the way of me actually finishing the stuff so it simultaneously keeps me from working and keeps me from relaxing but pressured me about both things. (This situation is just as fun as it sounds.)
I have been doing some fun things and relaxing here and there but I haven’t been able to really get into the plans I laid out in that post.
Here’s how things have stacked up so far:
I’ve been doing some relaxation exercises (imagine how tricky the past month would have been without them!)
I haven’t done any cycling.
I’ve done some yoga on the patio but not the 3-5 times a week I had planned.
I haven’t done any hiking.
I’ve done some hula hooping and had fun with it – I’m not any better yet, though.
And until yesterday, I hadn’t actually gone for a swim in a pond this summer.
Luckily, last Friday, my friend sent me a message asking me to hang out and swim with her on Monday afternoon.
My instinct was to say no but when I looked at the date on the calendar I realized that we’re well into July and I have barely done any of my summer fun!
That realization pulled me out of my ‘don’t relax until you can REALLY relax’ loop and reminded me that stopping to rest and to have fun is not only good in its own way, it might actually help me be able to focus when I head back to my desk.
So, on Monday, instead of trying to work on ALL OF THE THINGS, I picked three main things, worked on them until noon, had lunch and then headed out to see my friend.
I basically made fun my priority for the afternoon and I followed through.
And I had a glorious time alternating between being a pond creature and a creature who eats chips and chats with her friend.
When you’re packing to go away for a weekend or a week, to the beach or the lake, think about this: you might want to pack more than one swimsuit. Why? Let me tell you.
5. Trying to put on a still-wet swimsuit is not fun. Having a second one means you can swim twice a day if you want, giving each one proper time to dry out on a hook in the bathroom, or slung over a deck chair.
4. Many of us own more than one swimsuit. Why not use them? Variety is the spice of life, which may well include swimwear.
3. Sometimes wardrobe malfunctions happen. If a strap breaks or a seam unravels, you don’t want to have to rush to the beachwear store to buy an overpriced two-piece with the face of a lion imprinted on it (unless you do, in which case great). To avoid such bathing suit emergencies, bring an extra.
2. Also a variety-based reason: some people like different swimsuit style for different purposes (e.g. one-piece tank for swimming, two-piece bikini or tankini for walking/sitting/lolling on the beach). Bringing more than one bathing suit provides us with choices.
Tatiana from RuPaul’s Drag Race offers her wisdom: Choices…
1. In case you happen to leave your swimsuit drying on aforementioned deck chair, forget it’s there when it starts to rain one night, and the rain turns onto a microburst windstorm and tempest, sending your bathing suit, the chair it was on, and the glass patio table flying across the street, it’s good to know you’ve got another suit in reserve.
Yes, 1. happened to me when I was at the beach with my sister and her kids. Seriously, it looked like a beach-item yard sale the next day: chairs and tables and towels and buckets and little shovels were strewn everywhere. I despaired of finding my new blue speedo tank suit. Luckily, my niece Gracie spied it in some bushes about 100 yards away. The glass table from our deck was about 30 yards away. That was some microburst.
Dear readers, I hope you will benefit from hard lessons learned by me: bring an extra swimsuit!
Do any of you have harrowing or ridiculous stories about swimsuit emergencies or mishaps on vacation? Share them in the comments and I promise to be extremely sympathetic.
Bring on the Bay, an annual open-water swimming event in Ottawa, has a unique feature to accommodate swimmers who might otherwise not be able to participate: swim angels.
The swim angels program has been running since 2016. I first learned about it when I had foot surgery but wanted to swim despite my lack of training and fears about foot cramps. My friend Nadine volunteered to be my angel. It was a huge comfort to know she was there, ready to call for help should I need it, or just keep me going when I wasn’t sure about my abilities.
You can read more about the swim angel program here, and its origins as a way to help one swimmer with epilepsy achieve her goals. Since then, angels have supported people with a variety of disabilities and medical conditions, but also those who are simply anxious about open water swimming.
Last year, I decided it was time to become an angel myself. I wrote about it here. It was so much fun that I’m back again and looking forward to swimming with Irene, the mum of my swimmer from last year.
This year’s swim angel crew, some 25 swimmers standing or sitting on a dock and holding their swim floats, with the Royal Lifesaving Society instructors who coached us on how to manage emergencies and keep ourselves and our swimmers safe.Swim angels show off their “wings” in the Ottawa River.
