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.”)
