Recently, I discovered a group of medieval re-enactors in Europe that was planning a “virtual pilgrimage” in the style of medieval pilgrimages to famous holy sites. While undoubtedly some of the pilgrims were walking for religious reasons or in search of a medical cure or other miracle, there was also a fair bit of holiday spirit and tourism involved. Pilgrims even collected souvenir badges.
I wasn’t able to participate in #pilgrimage21 during the official weekend of May 14-16, but I did have a bit of time before work this morning, so I got into my 16th C Flemish gear and headed out. I chose this outfit because it was the closest to what would have been worn by the first French women arriving in Canada. My destination options were very limited, so I decided to walk to the site of a former monastery that has a big statue of Notre Dame de l’Afrique.
Woman in a white headdress in front of a statue of a woman in a blue cloak
Then I went to a recently rediscovered portage trail joining the Rideau and Ottawa Rivers. The trail was in use by local Anishnabe people into the late 19th C to get around the Rideau Falls. I had a surprisingly long encounter with a deer on the trail, which was pretty exciting.
Deer on a pathway, surrounded by woodland.
It was hot, even before 9 am. Still, I was fairly comfortable in my long linen kirtle and chemise, and with my hair covered. My feet were far less comfortable; my unstructured shoes work reasonably well on grass, but after 5 km on pavement, I am pretty sure there is a blister on the site of an old surgery scar on the sole of my foot. Once again, I’m sure the neighbours think I’m a weirdo, but the best part about being in historical clothing is I don’t wear my glasses, so I can’t see their confused looks.
Ottawa River looking downstream with a woods and a church on the far side
Diane Harper lives in Ottawa. She divides her time between working for the government, exploring lots of different fitness activities and historical re-creation.
I love summer. I love swimming in summer. I love lakes, ocean, streams, and pools.
I also love water– fresh, salty, calm, wavy, big, small, still, and fizzy.
Which got me to thinking: are there are fizzy-water sports around?
Person’s feet in water with lots of bubbles. As close as I could come to swimming in fizzy water.
Of course not. That’s just silly, Catherine.
But maybe not. I found a bunch of questions on Quora about swimming pool activities that I thought it was time to share with readers, just in case. So here we go…
Q1. What would happen if you tried to swim in a swimming pool filled entirely with carbonated water?
A1-1. you’d die because of all the carbon dioxide on the surface of the water.
A1-2: you’d float on the principle that all those little bubbles would hold you up.
A1-3: you’d sink/drown, because gases in water reduce its density.
Take-home message: the jury’s out on that one.
Q2: What would happen if you drank a lot of swimming pool water?
A2-1: if you swallowed too much, you might drown.
A2-2: If the pool has chlorine, it might be fine (chlorine kills bacteria), or it might make your stomach upset (as chlorine kills gut bacteria too).
A2-3: don’t drink pool water. Or lake water, or ocean water, etc.
Take-home message: just don’t drink pool water. It’s icky.
Q3: What would happen if you jumped in a pool filled with peanut butter:
A3-1: it depends on what kind. Ones with fewer additives will have a layer of oil on top, although it would be shallow. So you could hang out in the oil layer.
A3-2: you’d be limited as to swim strokes; breast stroke recommended.
Take-home message: unless you’re 7, I can’t believe you’re asking me this.
Q4: what would happen if I swam in a swimming pool during a lightning storm?
A4-1: you’d probably die.
A4-2: even if you didn’t die, you’d become known as the most foolhardy person ever.
A4-3: no one would ever invite to their pool again.
Take-home message: GET OUT OF THE POOL WHEN IT’S STORMY. NOT IN FIVE MINUTES. NOW.
Q5: has anyone actually died from being electrocuted in a swimming pool during a thunder storm?
A5: Uh, no. I found this thorough and lighthearted investigative journalism piece about lightning strike risk at outdoor swimming pools. No one could cite evidence or studies or surveys or anything. But they stood firm on the dictum: no swimming outside during a thunder storm. However, swimming indoors seems fine.
Take-home message: there’s an undocumented rule, issued from the pool-safety cabal about not being in outdoor pools during thunderstorms. Still, better safe than sorry.
Dear Readers– do you have any questions or worries about popular summer pool myths? Put them in the comments, and I’ll get to work on them, as soon as I’ve toweled dry.
After years of planning to buy a rowing machine, I finally got one a couple of months back and I am thoroughly enjoying using it.
I love that I don’t have to put much thought into the how and the what of exercising with the rowing machine. I can use it at any time without having to put on specific clothes and I can choose to have a harder workout or an easier one without having to make a specific plan.
It’s a kind of automatic exercise for me which is really good for my ADHD brain – there are few, if any, choices to make in advance and that means there are very few potential obstacles between me and my workout.
Plus, I like the very nature of the movement back and forth, the repetition has a soothing element to it.
This does NOT look soothing. I hope I look a little smoother than this when I row. Image description: a GIF of a person in an inflatable T-Rex costume is using a rowing machine in a small living room with potted plants all around. Because the head of the costume is so far above the person’s head, their movements look very jerky.
And, I like that I can do a very specific type of multi-tasking – watching YouTube videos – while I row.
I enjoy learning by video but I don’t often make time to do so. Combining my exercise with videos is a win-win situation – I am doing two enjoyable things at once and my brain and body are both busy so I don’t get any of my usual feeling that I should probably be doing something else.
I even pick out my videos the night before so there is little between my pyjama-clad self and my exercise session in the mornings. I can get up, let the dog out (and back in!), grab some water, take my meds, and then head to the basement to row. It’s all part of my waking up routine and it really feels great.
Speaking of feeling great, my rowing has brought me an unexpected positive side-effect – my hips have loosened up considerably.
Maybe they aren’t quite *this* loose but they do feel good. Image description: GIF of cartoon character Daffy Duck standing in a spotlight with his wings up behind his head, his hips are moving in a very loose circle.
Because of long-ago sessions at the gym, I knew that my arms, back, and legs were going to benefit from using the machine but I hadn’t really thought about how the set of movements required to row would help my hips, too.
I sort of have a ‘trick’ hip. It’s mostly fine but every now and then I’ll do something that will wonk it out and it will take me a few days to get it to calm down again.
Practicing kicks at taekwon-do has often triggered my hip in that way but I only realize it *after* I have done it. I’ve done a variety of things to work on it (with various degrees of consistency – I’m still me after all) but nothing has been especially helpful. Until now.
About three weeks after starting regular rowing sessions, our Thursday night TKD class was all about practicing sidekicks and angle kicks. Normally, with a night full of those kicks, my hip would wonk out at some point during the evening and I’d either have to reduce my movements or do something else entirely.
This time, however, I was tired but my hip was completely fine. I was puzzled at first but as I was pulling my leg up and back into position for one of the kicks, I realized that the motion was familiar. It’s not exactly like the position of my leg as I pull all the way forward on the machine but it’s similar.
I didn’t have any trouble with my hips that night. And, more importantly, I didn’t wake up stiff or in pain the next morning. In fact, I rowed for a bit longer than I had the day before.
It turns out that my rowing was setting me up for new success with taekwon-do.
Okay, this is just straight-up wishful thinking on my part. Image description: GIF of a person standing on one foot, spinning in a circle and then executing a very high kick. Their hair is in a ponytail, and they are wearing a pink shirt and black leggings.
That’s a pretty good side-effect for an activity I was enjoying already.
Have you ever had one type of exercise ‘accidentally’ help you in another like that?
Tell me about it in the comments! (Pretty please.)
The two contexts in which I think about cheerful amateurs versus serious professionals are music and sports.
When I’m not dean-ing or blogging or riding my bike, I’m also an professor of philosophy who writes about children’s rights and family justice ethics, among other things. These days I’m working on a paper on the concept of ‘exploitation’ as it applies to childhood. I’m struck by how much time and effort and single minded determination it takes to be good at things. Music and sports are the two obvious examples.
Tennis is the worst. Tennis players start very young and do not much of anything else. Serious tennis players miss out on most of what we think constitutes a good childhood. And tennis parents are so bad there’s a whole applied ethics literature about them.
Have you read Andre Agassi’s memoir Open? “I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have.” The Guardian story Why Did Andre Agassi Hate Tennis? goes on to tell of track cyclists, cricketers, and football players who like Agassi hate the sport at which they excel.
The big ethics question I’m interested in is this– if it takes robbing people of their childhoods to produce the most beautiful music and world class athletes, are those things worth having? Or even if it produces more good, maybe it’s not an outcome we ought to bring about. Maybe we infringe children’s rights when we take their childhoods away.
So Agassi is a great tennis player who hates tennis. Is it time to say goodbye to the joyless perfectionists and say hello to the cheerful amateurs? While obviously acknowledging there is a huge range between Agassi and someone like me whacking a tennis racquet around while laughing, at the local city recreation tennis court, the point is that you don’t have to be good at a thing to enjoy doing it.
Let’s get back to thinking about our middle-aged, middle-achieving athletic lives.
Though I can’t run these days I am big fan of parkrun. And Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian celebrates parkrun and cheerful amateur runners. “They’re also the driving force behind parkrun, which like Joe Wicks’s online PE lesson has been an absolute gift to those of us always picked last for netball. Sure, you can turn up in an athletics vest and take a Saturday 5k around the park unbelievably seriously if you want, killing yourself to meet last week’s personal best and bragging about it afterwards on Facebook. But you can (or could, before social distancing put a stop to it) also walk a bit, and run a bit, and walk a bit more before going to the cafe for cake; you could bring the kids, or the dog, and still raise a chorus of supportive whoops and cheers as you stagger over the finishing line last.”
Ditto at home yoga. I’ve come to like yoga a lot more doing it without other people and with the instruction of my fave non-serious yoga instructor Adriene. That’s Adriene of the greeting “Hey there, party people!”
Hinsliff too found this out about yoga in lockdown: “My own minor lockdown breakthrough was realising that yoga isn’t actually meant to be a competitive sport. It’s not about hovering miserably at the back of classes full of yummy mummies who can effortlessly do the splits, but about unrolling a mat somewhere quiet and being content just to stretch out whatever will comfortably stretch. The one saving grace of being once again confined to barracks now is that nobody outside can judge your faltering efforts to do a headstand, or indeed to come up with wildly exciting yet educational activities to entertain the children through the longest, dullest winter on record. And if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, then who is to say whether the lumberjack is any good or not?”
Here’s me, not being very good at yoga, and doing it anyway:
Yoga in alpaca PJs
In fact, a lot of my coming to love sports as an adult was realizing that I didn’t have to be that good at it to enjoy doing it. Do you remember in school thinking that gym class was about learning to be good at a sport and then the people who were the best got put on teams? Those of us who weren’t any good didn’t play team sports.
But as an adult I came to love team sports. On my middle aged women’s soccer team none of us were great soccer players. I mean, some of us were better than others, but being the best wasn’t what it was all about. We were a team, having fun. We joked that we had day jobs. We weren’t soccer stars. It was fun and a stress relief, not a stressful thing in our lives. We were cheerful amatuers.
During the pandemic the spirit of the cheerful amateur can be seen in knitting, painting, baking, as well as in yoga and running.
While there is a place for high achievement in all fields, let’s continue to celebrate the inclusive attitude of cheerful amateurism.
Hearts
How do you approach these things? Are there some sports you take more seriously than others? Do you celebrate your identity as a cheerful amateur in any context? Arts? Sports? Music?
First, points to Precision Nutrition for the image accompanying the article–not a super thin stereotypical fitness model. I appreciate the more inclusive imagery.
Second, thanks for the nuanced messaging. They report that fitness trackers work for some people who find the numbers and the data motivational. They don’t work for others who find the whole tracking thing oppressive and who are made anxious by the numbers. The article–aimed at fitness instructors and personal trainers–is all about how to work with the client in front of you.
Having read the article, I turned to the bloggers’ group to check with this group about fitness trackers and smart watches.
Who has one? Who loves it? Who hates them? What do we use them for?
Nicole: “I have the Fitbit Charge 3. I “bought” it with corporate incentive points last year. Up until then, I never used a tracker, other than the count on my phone’s Health App. I am generally low tech while running. I have never listened to music, while running, for example. Historically, I’d map out my runs for specific distances, using “Gmap Pedometer” and then just go follow that route.
I bought my husband a Fitbit a couple years ago. He enjoyed the step count and it alerted him to the need to the hospital when he was having a heart event a couple years ago as well. So I could see some benefits, but I wasn’t sure I wanted one. Since I purchased it, I haven’t taken it off. I like checking my exercise stats for the day/week/etc. I find the heart rate information interesting.
One of the things I enjoy most is the sleep stats. I find it interesting to see how much REM/deep sleep I’ve had, and also the fluctuations in my oxygen levels. I don’t feel it’s made me DO more, because I’ve always maintained a regular exercise schedule, but I have enjoyed seeing some of the stats.
My only criticism with this model is the light is so dim that I can’t see the numbers outside sometimes. My husband bought a newer model recently and I like the bigger face, and would get that type when it’s time to get a new one.”
Bettina: “My fitness tracker journey started with a Misfit Ray. Then I upgraded to an Apple Watch because I wanted more detailed tracking and stats, which I absolutely loved. Until one fine morning I dropped it on the bathroom floor and its screen shattered into a million pieces… Fixing it – I stupidly hadn’t bought Apple Care for it – would have cost more than replacing it with a new Garmin Forerunner 245 Music, which I have been using and loving ever since. Sometimes I still miss the sleek look and the various bands I had for the Apple Watch, but overall I’m super happy with the Garmin. My main challenge in all this was that I have really small wrists and was worried the Garmin would look way too chunky on me, but I’ve completely gotten used to it.”
Martha: “I wear a fitbit Charge 4. It’s my third. I like using trackers for steps (more accurate than my phone) and I like also how the current one monitors sleep and heart rate. It has a weight tracker which I don’t care about one way or the other. Some people find this a trigger and there doesn’t appear to be a way to delete it. I tend to ignore it. You can also track water and food intake. I used it once to check if I was eating all my fruits and vegetables. My favorite part is how I can program alarms. As a writer, I tend to spend a lot of time with my laptop sitting down. I set an alarm to remind me to get up from desk on the quarter hour. It gives me enough time to get a snack, have an exercise or stretch break, and just change my POV. I find it keeps me focused and I can track progress on my mini goals quite easily.
Sam: I’ve blogged about fitness watches a few times. I am destroyer of fitbits. I’m rough with things and I used to joke that our house should be known as a product testing stations. Car door handles have come off in my hand! I feel like most contemporary consumer goods are flimsy. Having broken more than my share of fitbits, I said goodbye to watch style fitness trackers. Also with my damaged knee, I can no longer be driven by step counts. I need to moderate how much I walk.
And then Covid hit and I started to want to track my daily temperature. I discovered that the new Garmin fitness trackers also have pulse oximeter and can measure blood oxygen levels.
Here’s my Garmin vivoactive 4 acquired during the pandemic. In addition to pulse oxygen it measures the usual stuff–heart rate, stress, sleep, steps etc. The one measure that interests me is the “body bank” score which compares rest with activity and tells you how rested you are.
Vivo active 4 Garmin
Tracy: When Sam called for our thoughts on the tracker issue, she assumed I would be posting about going from hating trackers to loving them. That’s understandable since I have compared tracking to the panopticon and after a workplace step counting challenge, I came to despise counting steps. But I have always loved my Garmin Forerunner for tracking runs. It’s not an everyday/all day thing though. Then when the pandemic hit I became painfully aware that I might need to start tracking steps or something again because some days it feels as I don’t even move.
So when my Garmin needed replacing (it’s almost ten years old) and I asked around, people suggested that I consider an Apple Watch. So I did. And I LOVE my apple watch. It does count steps, but it does so much more than that. My main complaint about the step challenge a few years back was that it ONLY tracked steps. And that is not (in my view) a comprehensive approach to fitness.
I won’t hijack this post by going into all the things I love about my Apple Watch, but here are the top four:
1. It tracks and encourages without feeling oppressive (something about the tone of the reminders).
2. It is way better than the Garmin was for setting up custom intervals for my runs (that was after I bought the intervals pro app, worth every penny; and I get that the new Garmins are probably at least as easy as the Apple Watch for this so it’s more about new technology than about Apple v Garmin)
3. I have two close friends who share their accomplishments with me and vice versa – I wouldn’t want a large circle for this, but I love the sense of support and connection I get from Diane and Vicki.
4. It integrates with my phone and has a world of apps and features that have nothing to do with fitness, so in that sense it’s a fun gadget of the “how did I live without this?” kind. (bonus feature: it looks nice and there’s a marketplace overflowing with third party funky straps online for cheap).
p.s. I still hate food tracking.
Christine
My Fitbit Inspire HR is one of the most helpful pieces of tech I own.
I love the fact that I can keep track of my activity levels and my heart rate without actually having to remember to stop and write anything down.
Why is it important to me to track these things?
Well, I’m not naturally a very active person and my ADHD gives me a strange perception of time. If I wasn’t paying close attention, I could end up very inactive for a very long time but I’d have the feeling that my last exercise session was ‘just the other day.’
But the ritual of putting on my Fitbit in the morning and taking it off at night gives me some fixed points to note how much I have been moving.
I have also set it to notify me if I get less than 250 steps in an hour so I can make sure I move regularly throughout the day – instead of accidentally sitting in one position too long if I am hyper-focused.
Since my perception of my own efforts is also affected by my ADHD, having a heart rate monitor on my wrist also helps me see how hard I am working when I exercise.
And the Fitbit helps me be curious about my efforts, too. I’m not one of those people who thinks that exercise that doesn’t register on my tracker doesn’t ‘count’ but movement that doesn’t count as steps or as activity minutes does make me wonder. I like that it draws my attention to how I am moving and whether I want to push a little harder or move differently.
I also love the fact that I can have multiple timers right on my wrist (a blessing for my busy brain.) I can set alarms, I can set a regular countdown timer, and I can use an interval timer, all with something I am already wearing.
While I am not breaking any records or getting epic amounts of movement because of my Fitbit, it does help me keep moving without adding the frustration of keeping track of things.
And even though my current daily goals are pretty modest, I love when I achieve them. And I especially like those days (like Saturday past) when I am an overachiever.
How about you? Do you own a fitness tracker/smart watch? What do you use it for? Love it or hate it? Tell us your story in the comments below.
“And there was much rejoicing.” Those Python boys never fail to crack me up.
For me (and academic friends and many others), the end of the school year, whenever it comes, means an end to one routine and the beginning of a new one. I’ve been dreaming of a new routine that includes:
open windows, blue skies, warm temps, gentle breezes
no more Zoom class meetings (at least for a while)
gathering with friends and family, in actual person, face-to-actual-face
venturing outside more to walk, bike, swim, paddle, do yoga, etc.
Oh, how lucky to have a life with discrete periods of prescribed activity, along with shifts to and from less structured, flexible time! The way I figure it, I get 4 new beginnings each year as I shift from fall term to winter break to spring term to summer. Whoopee!
Whoopee!
Full disclosure: I’d also like a break from some of the patterns I’ve been living with in the past 14 months. Those changes include:
feeling less anxious, isolated, depressed, inert, stuck, indecisive
sleeping better and longer and on a more consistent schedule
cooking and eating in ways that feel like I’m taking good care of myself
resuming outside activity in ways that feel doable, joyful, safe, and sustainable
New beginnings are touted as prime opportunities to reset, start afresh, and take on new habits for a better you. In this week’s New York Times promo article for the latest “10 Day Fresh Start Challenge” (if you’re interested, text hi to (917) 809-4995 to sign up), the experts are lined up to cheer us on.
“I think this fresh start is really a big opportunity,” said Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School… “I don’t know when we’ll have another one like it. We have this blank slate to work on. Everything is on the table to start fresh.”
“Covid-19 was an awful time for many of us,” said Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale… “There’s lots of evidence for what’s called post-traumatic growth — that we can come out stronger and with a bit more meaning in our lives after going through negative events. I think we can all harness this awful pandemic time as a time to get some post-traumatic growth in our own lives.”
The notion of the reset, the fresh start, seems almost magical. Turn the calendar, click your heels three times, and before you know, you’re transformed into a more ideal form of yourself. But, like all magic tricks, it’s an illusion.
An illusion of a person (in gold lame outfit and hood) levitating over the floor, holding a metal pole.
Yes, there are studies (cited in that NYT article) showing how the use of fresh start language or milestones or turning points (e.g. beginning of the year, month, summer, etc.) increase motivations and initial actions for behavior change. But it’s also true that these efforts peter out fairly quickly (again, there are lots of studies, but also witness any gym in mid-February).
Behavior change is hard and it doesn’t come quickly. And, it’s a long process to set up, reinforce and ground any new behavior. I want to be different, to live differently, to eat and move differently than I have in the past 14 months. And it feels like there’s an opening:
my semester is over and summer is coming;
I’m fully vaccinated, as are my family and most of my friends (some are still in the process);
We’re getting messages from the CDC (in the US) about easing up of mask wearing (teaser: more about this on Wednesday’s blog post);
I really really want that opening to be there, with me walking through it.
The benefits of new beginnings are that they’re new, and they’re beginnings. This means they’re bright and shiny and promising.
The burdens of new beginnings are our susceptibility to believe that Shazam!– we can transform ourselves just by signing up for motivational texts; and our disappointment and self-recrimination when that change it doesn’t happen or look like we thought it would.
So what’s a naive, ever-optimistic lover of new beginning to do? Turn into a crabby cynic?
No to cynicism!
Nope. I went ahead and signed up for the 10-Day Fresh Start Challenge. I admit it. It was free, I was curious, okay? But I’m going into this shift in routine with more modest goals, namely to notice what gives me satisfaction, and look for openings to do those things when I can. I’ll report back after the 10-day challenge.
Any of you want to try this with me? Let me know if you do. Are you making any changes as we shift into the next stage of routines? I’d love to hear from you.
Woohoo, our family has emerged from the weeks of survival mode! We’re more tired than before, but who isn’t these days? In any case, I’m trying hard (and not managing very well) to shift my priorities back and include more movement in my life.
The youngest member of our family is now nearly 9 months old. In some ways this helps (we can do more things) and in some ways it doesn’t (increased mobility means less ability to just plop him down next to me and do 20 minutes of yoga while expecting him to still be there afterwards) with my exercise quest.
One thing that does help is that he is now fairly good at sitting up on his own, so yesterday we risked putting him in the bike trailer for the first time. Here we are, mama grinning from ear to ear about being back in the saddle and baby looking sceptical behind the yellow star I use to cover his face in an effort to keep his privacy on the Internet:
Bettina in cycling gear next to a bike trailer with a strapped-in baby in it. Both are wearing bike helmets, which makes one of them look rather like a mushroom – up to you to decide whom.
If that bike trailer looks familiar, it’s because it’s the same vehicle as our jogging buggy, which converts to a bike trailer. But while it’s safe to go running with a baby who can’t sit up on their own yet (provided you follow the manufacturer’s instructions and common sense), biking is a different story due to the speed at which you might fly over obstacles. It requires the little human to have a bit more body tension and stability.
Anyway, yesterday was the day. We strapped on his bike helmet (so cute!), hooked the trailer up to his dad’s bike, and off we went. We didn’t get very far because it started raining, as it is wont to do these days around here. But it was fun anyway! Baby didn’t complain much and even fell asleep at the end. So even if we didn’t go for a long ride, we have proof of principle: the parents had a good time and the little one didn’t hate it, so we can attempt a longer family ride next. YAY!
What sports and fitness activities do you enjoy with your kids, if you have children? If your they are older, what did you enjoy doing with them when they were small – and in particular, what did the kids enjoy?
That advice came from a session on safety when open water swimming I attended this week. The session was organized by the Rideau Speedeaus, an Ottawa swim club, and there were three presenters.
Chris Wagg has been with the City of Ottawa as a lifeguard and trainer for 35 years. She started out with some drowning statistics for Canada. Next up was Nadine Bennett, a well-known open water and cold water swimmer in Ottawa, who blogs at https://www.wildbigswim.com/. The last speaker was Jeff Mackwood, a lifeguard and the person who set up the Swim Angel program for Ottawa’s 3 km Bring on the Bay swim, which has made it very accessible to those with disabilities, recovering from injury, or nervous about open water swimming.
On average, there are about 500 drownings a year in Canada, with 64% in May to September, 64% in lakes or rivers, and over 60% when swimming alone. The percentage of drownings among middle aged and older people swimming alone is much higher. Obviously, not all of these drownings are among open water swimmers, but it was a good jumping off point for some basic swim safety when swimming outdoors.
Swim with a buddy. If you can’t then at a minimum let people know where exactly where you will be swimming and when you expect to be back.
Medical emergencies are more frequent as you get older – have a buddy who can call for help, loan you a float, or just coach you back to shore.
Make yourself as visible as possible in the water. Wear a brightly coloured swim cap and a tow float. If available to you, especially for longer swims or where there might be boats, having a kayaker to go alongside is even better. If you are swimming early in the morning or late in the evening, invest in some lights you can attach to your wrist and swim goggles
Tow floats are not official flotation devices, but they do float, so you can use them to rest on. They are also good for holding snacks, drinks, your car keys, phone and other valuables (be sure to put them in a waterproof bag just in case the float leaks). Write your name and a phone number on the float, in case of an emergency.
If you don’t have a tow float, tie a rope to a pool noodle. It won’t hold your keys, but it will make you visible and you can rest on it in the water.
If you are new to swimming in open water, or out of practice, start out easy. Do short loops. Stay close to shore. Stop for a rest or snack as needed, then go back in if you are ready. If you are nervous or out of shape, find a supervised beach and swim along the buoy lines.
Learn to breathe regularly even when there are waves (bilateral breathing is a really useful skill). Also practice swimming in a straight line by picking a target, then peeking up every few strokes with “alligator eyes” just barely out of the water to make sure you are still heading in the right direction.
Listen to your body. Especially if you are going in the shoulder seasons of May or late Fall, pay attention to your breathing and heart rate, and whether you are losing the ability to move easily in the water because you are cold. Make sure you have a plan to get out and changed into warm dry clothes quickly. You may experience “after drop”, shivering as the blood starts circulating. Wait until that has passed before trying to drive home.
Pay attention to the weather and be prepared to get out quickly if a storm rolls in. Swimming in the fog or dark can be dangerous. This is what can earn you that Darwin Award.
Above all, have fun. Practice some drills. Do other strokes than freestyle. Take pictures. Admire the scenery. Revel in the freedom of being in a wide open space with glorious water all around.
Diane and her sister floating in a river.
Diane Harper is a long-time open water swimmer from Ottawa. She isn’t fast, but she has a lot of fun.
Hi readers– we’re reading a new book for this installment of the FIFI book club. It’s called Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui. Some of the bloggers are long-time and even year-round swimmers, inside and outside. Others of us have dipped a toe in from time to time, but are newly intrigued by wild swimming, lake swimming, open-water swimming. We’ve written about it recently.
COVID-19 and the Tyranny of the Pool, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2
We’ll be reading and commenting on the various sections of the book over the next five Fridays. We’d love to have you join us and add your comments to the mix.
To start, we’d like to introduce ourselves in terms of our past, present and aspirational relationships with moving around in water.
First up, Bettina:
I’ve been a swimmer for most of my life. My mum signed me up for a course when I was five and for the local swim club when I was in primary school. Later, I became a lifeguard. When I was 17, I moved to Wales and qualified as a beach lifeguard too. That was the only time in my life I’ve been anywhere close to an open or cold water swimmer though. Back then, we were in the ocean even in the winter, admittedly with very thick wetsuits.
Unfortunately nowadays, I don’t live close enough to a body of water large enough not to give me the heebie-jeebies. Small, murky lakes and rivers creep me out for some reason. I prefer the pool. I love the flow I can get into while doing laps. Swimming is my favourite way to get away from things and clear my head. Nothing quite compares!
Here’s Diane:
I’m a water baby. My earliest memories involve playing in the water at a lake. My hair would turn greenish in the summer from spending so many hours in the chlorinated public pools. I was even a lifeguard and swim instructor for a while. Masters club swimming, and the friends I have made there, have been central to my life for the past 15 years. I love the drills focusing on making every stroke streamlined and efficient. I swim outdoors with friends year-round. My goal is to do a 10 km swim this summer.
Next up, Sam:
Try as I might, I am not a fitness swimmer. I wish I were a fitness swimmer. I try and I try but it never seems to take the way that running did and cycling has. I know it’s great exercise and it’s easier on my joints than other forms of exercise, but still. My last attempt was just a couple of years ago, when my knee was really bothering me, and I paid for small group swim coaching/stroke improvement at the university pool. It worked for a few months but then didn’t.
The only time I’ve been successful as an indoor pool swimmer was when training for triathlon on campus with the university triathlon club. I was the anchor person for the slow lane. People came, got faster, and moved on. But I stayed. I really liked the team drills and having a coach suggest what I should try next. Apart from the team environment I’ve never been able to make it work on my own.
My struggle with indoor swimming is in contrast to my love of the water outside. I grew up on the east coast of Canada, in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and lots of my childhood summer memories are of days at the beach playing in very cold waves. Now living in Ontario I love swimming in the great lakes. What do I love about it? It makes me feel like a kid again. I feel very relaxed and comfortable in the water. I never feel like I’m at risk for drowning. It’s fun and playful. I’m drawn to the water. And I still hold out hope that eventually I’ll be a lane swimmer. Someday!
Here’s Kim:
I love swimming and miss it so much right now. I’m a lengths in the pool kind of woman; I really enjoy the smell of chlorine, the light through the windows on the water in the winter, the clear view to the bottom of the pool and the lines marking the lanes. I love indoor and outdoor pools, and I really really love cooling off in outdoor pools, stretching after other kinds of fitness activities (for example: long summer cycle tours).
I lived in the UK for several years and became quite attached to winter swimming in the outdoor lidos – generally the heated ones, as I do not own a wetsuit. That said, I am now very cold-water, wild-swimming curious: I have a chronic inflammatory condition and have heard cold water immersion is a source of terrific therapy. I’ve started standing in my shower under a flood of cold water once a day to begin getting used to the concept. I cannot wait for my local pool – Victoria Park Outdoor Pool!! – to reopen in July, and I’m very keen to read Why We Swim and share my thoughts with my fellow flutterers.
And now, me, Catherine:
I’ve always loved swimming for fun. I learned at age 4 in this creek near my grandparent’s house:
Black Creek, near Darlington, South Carolina.
I spent summers at the local pool and loved playing games with other kids, practicing dives, and swimming underwater when I wanted some solitude. In high school we lived in Myrtle Beach, SC, and I went to the beach and swam often. The beach and the warm waters of the Atlantic are my happy place. My sister and her kids and I go as often as possible.
Like Sam, I’ve never been a fitness swimmer. I’ve tried, but going to the pool and doing laps has never become a habit. Honestly, I don’t like it a lot. I always feel slow and my stroke techniques feel awkward. It’s recently occurred to me to get some swim instruction, which I think I’ll do.
But, the main thing I love about swimming is the ability to go outside my lane– to paddle around to the middle of a lake, float on my back and look at the sky, to use my own body to power through and on top of water to get places. In the ocean, to jump up or dive through waves, to swim out past the breakers, tread water and look at the scene– I love it all.
Then there’s the experience of being in water: the weightlessness, the hydrodynamics of movement, the quiet world of underwater swimming (I’ve scuba dived a bit and loved it). I’ve not pursued swimming for pure pleasure since adulthood. I think it’s high time now.
Well, readers, that’s us. What about you? What’s your currently relationship with swimming? Do you want to change it? Are you looking for inspiration, community, warmer weather, a cute swim cap? Let us know, and join us next week as we talk about section one of the book: survival.
Do you ever have the kind of day where working from home seems to put you to sleep? The home office set-up isn’t great so you have migrated to the comfy couch. You have no physical meetings to attend, so you just sink deeper and deeper into the upholstery. No-one ever seems to schedule breaks between those virtual meetings, so there is no chance to get up and stretch, grab a fresh cup of tea, or even go to the bathroom. Suddenly hours have gone by and you can barely move. Maybe that’s just me.
I am trying really hard to break this pattern. I use an app on my phone to remind me to get up and move for five minutes every half hour – when it doesn’t interfere with those meetings, or my flow when trying to write or revise documents.
When I do use that app, or just have a few free minutes, what to do? There isn’t enough time for a yoga session or a walk around the block; I feel silly doing jumping jacks or squats. But I can get behind a quick YouTube dance video. Today it was a couple of six minute videos from MOOV, a hip-hop/street dance studio in Ottawa.
There are so many to check out on YouTube. Zumba, hiphop, salsa, African dance, Bollywood, even Disney tunes – all in 10 minutes or less. But right now my favourites are the Caleb Marshall dance workouts. Inclusive, easy to follow, and just a little bit goofy so I don’t stress about messing. They are perfect. Check this out and see if it doesn’t bring a smile to your space as you bop around on your “way to the next meeting”: https://youtu.be/zxbN_r3Xx-w
