While I don’t think any of our regular contributors on the blog are Randonneurs (someone who has completed at least one official club brevet of 200 km or greater) we sure have written about it over the years.
And uh. Sam, Cate and a few others have been wondering, is 2025 the year to get into Randonneuring?
That first 200 km ride is a big milestone. It can feel like a big stretch from a metric (100km) or imperial (160km) century ride.
But maybe you too are “Rando Curious”.
I have great news! Your local Randonneur club likely has shorter distance rides called “populaires”. I think of them as popular for the people!
There are some better explanations on this amazing cycling YouTube channel by Randonneur Regan Arendse. He interviews my friend Randonneur Fred Chagnon and American Randonneur Joshua Haley
What I love about my local club, Randonneurs Ontario is that nearly every 200 km and longer brevet in 2025 has a Populaire distance ride paired with it.
It’s a great way to sample the sport, meet the humans and see what self supported rides can look like.
I completed a 100 km Populaire last year at the Railway City 200 km brevet. It was humbling so I didn’t go for a 200 km later in the season. I didn’t have the legs for it.
This year I’m volunteering at Railway City on August 9. The 200km is a figure 8 shape and the 100 km Populaire is the eastern lobe. It’s relatively flat and late enough in the season to find your legs. You can get the details Here
My current plan is to sign up for the women’s brevet hosted by the Toronto chapter on Saturday Sep 20. You can find details Here
So if you want to get a taste of the kind of riding the club offers I hope you will give a Populaire a try!
🐑 Well, it feels like the world is falling apart. There’s a fascist coup underway in the United States, the country with which we share the world’s longest undefended border. And Trump et al are talking about taking over Canada, either by force or by crushing us economically. We’re all worried about external influence on our upcoming election. So there’s that. I’ve written a bit about the mess we’re in here and here.
🐑 I am currently on research leave from my big job. I spent the first half of the month of March in Dunedin, New Zealand where it’s autumn and still warm-ish. I was a visitor in Philosophy at the University of Otago.
🐑 The second half of March is back in Ontario where it’s spring (but not really yet). Here, I’m a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto.
Centre for EthicsCN tower as seen from Centre for EthicsSam selfie
🐑 The good news is that it’s now light for more than twelve hours a day here.
🦁 I’m at 95 workouts so far in the 2025 workout counting group, on track for 400 workouts this year.
🦁 I’m way way behind on my reading goals. I’m in the middle of about six different books and I can’t seem to finish any of them. But I am reading lots of non-fiction while on my research leave, so there’s that.
🦁 I sensibly dropped my cycling distance goal down from 5000 km a year to 3000. Here’s the plan: “A more reasonable goal for me I think is 50 km a week when I’m in Zwift mode and say 75 km a week in the summer months. Let’s say summer is 12 weeks, so that’s 900 km. The other 40 weeks, I’ll aim for 50 km, and that’s 2000 km. If I add and then round up, it’s 3000 km.”
🦁 I’m walking lots in Toronto, 10 km one day. I woke up the next day and my legs were sore but it wasn’t my knees. That was a good thing. Public transit, esp. streetcars, make me more likely to attempt big walks since I know that at any time I can change my mind and get a ride. One of those walks, the longest, involved a meet up with fellow blogger Nicole. It was so nice to see each other in person. The bloggers don’t often get to do that!
10 km of walkingScenes from Toronto walking
🦁 Swimming! I struggled to get into the pool for lane swimming/stroke improvement because I’m so not good that it’s not much of a fitness activity but this year I found an answer. I go early for aquafit so aquatfit is the workout and my lane swimming is the warm up. Mallory also had some good tips for me, since she both teaches swimming and she’s a very experienced lifeguard.
🦁 Yoga! Sarah and I have been taking hot yin yoga at the fancy gym and I’ve done some anti-gravity restorative yoga. One of the perks of my more flexible research leave schedule is being able to take group fitness classes during the day. Going back to my regular schedule might be hard but I’m also missing my job so I think it’ll balance out.
🦁 So far I’m still riding indoors since we returned to Canada (after lots and lots of outdoor NZ riding) but that will change in April. I plan to bring my Brompton to Toronto.
Usually, it occurs to me to share the Action for Happiness calendar once the month has already started but, for once, I have remembered to share it in advance.
You may even have time to plan!
I always really like the ‘small’ steps approach outlined in these calendars and I am slowly, slowly, slowly learning not to try and ‘catch up’ if I miss a day. I hope you can do the same or even just pick a few things to try here and there.
I also enjoy how Active April invites us to take action for our own happiness AND reminds us that being more active can help boost our mood and our feeling of well-being.
And, to be clear, suggesting that we seek these small moments of well being is not about being in denial of the state of the world right now. Instead, it is part of fortifying ourselves so we can do the necessary work of supporting our communities and resisting evil.
image description: a calendar of daily suggestions for Active April. The blocks are in different shades of blue and green and there are cartoon images of people doing a variety of activities around the edge.
An embedded video of Vanessa King from Action for Happiness entitled ‘No Happiness Without Action: 3 top tips with Vanessa King.’ The still image shows Vanessa Kind, a middle aged woman with shoulder length hair and bangs smiling toward the camera.
By the way, if you are looking for other things to try/celebrate/do in April, check out the list here of national days, weeks, and month celebrations here: National Days in April.
My continuing quest to improve my posture and knee health has taken me down the weird road of re-learning to walk. I didn’t quite realize that was what I was doing until I read Breath, by James Nestor. He writes about a multi-year drought project to learn about breathing, and how it has affected his health.
Obviously, I know how to walk. What I’m less good at is walking with my shoulders back, my torso lifted, and my head and feet at optimal angles. My new habit is to walk during my shifts on desk at the pool. I wiggle my shoulders to remind them to be wide both front and back. I peek at my reflection to make sure my feet are facing forward, rather than turned out like a duck’s.
I walk backwards sometimes (most of the benefits may be overstated, but it’s a good way for me to keep scanning the pool as I move around). I walk sideways. Sometimes I stop and go up on my toes 20 times, or do little leg lifts.
A Lego image of a lifeguard wearing a red bathing suit and pinny.
Similarly, I am trying a few of the techniques in Breath. I breathe in through my nose and exhale slowly out my mouth as much as possible when exercising. Sometimes I try box breathing, especially when I’m trying to relax. Occasionally, I’ll even do a bit of yoga alternate nostril breathing. The rest of the time, I focus on breathing only through my nose, at least when I’m awake. I have not yet resorted to taping or strapping my mouth shut for sleep, though I confess to having considered it.
Mina wrote recently about some of the alternative medicine things she is trying alongside her prescription medications. I thought it was an interesting approach.
Like Mina, I’m just doing them as entertaining supplements to my physiotherapy and prescribed medications. I think they’re helping a little. If not, that’s fine; they won’t hurt me (as long as I don’t trip).
I have started this post approximately 8 million times today and I just couldn’t get any momentum.
Some topics were too small to get anywhere with and others were too big to wrap my head around on this kind-of-low-energy, didn’t-sleep-well, had-a-Covid-booster-shot-this-morning day.
And I had actually posted to the other bloggers to see if anyone had something they wanted to post today instead of me but before anyone could take me up on it, I remembered my best ways of getting things done.
a) do the easy thing
b) make it small
For this post, doing the easy thing meant focusing on writing ANYTHING instead of focusing on writing something good. I didn’t have to be profound or comprehensive, and I didn’t have to have some actionable conclusion, I could just write about how things are for me today – fitness-wise, mental health-wise, or wellness-wise.
And making it small meant that I didn’t have to write an essay, I could write a paragraph, I could post a photo, I could write a list.
So I did!
Here are three things that are making me happy today and that have the potential to bring me happiness in the longer-term, too.
1) Usually, Khalee and I walk by ourselves in the afternoon but a few times over the past week, thanks to the good weather and brighter evenings, Steve and I have taken her for another short walk together after supper.
More time with my husband, more time outdoors, a bit of extra exercise, and a definite break between the different parts of my day? I love this new routine!
image description: an evening photo of Khalee, my light-haired, medium-sized dog standing on a sidewalk next to some grass. She is looking back over her shoulder towards the camera and she has her tongue stuck out. There are two shadows on the sidewalk between her and the camera because the streetlight that just came on is behind me and my husband. You can’t tell in the photo of course but I’m laughing as I take this photo because the angle of where I am holding my phone makes my shadow-head look kind of rectangular.
2) I saved this Instagram post this morning because I loved how the ideas felts and I appreciated the simple (but not easy) suggestions about how to incorporate yoga principles into daily life.
I haven’t really put this into practice yet of course but I am trying to figure out ways to remind myself to return to these ideas repeatedly so they can become part of my routine.
An imbedded post from Instagram in which @johuttonyoga is talking about small moments of yoga in their day – trying to stay present, to deal with uncertainty, and to live yoga principles in a way that is more being than doing.
3) I’m reading Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s book Tiny Experiments: How to live freely in a goal-obsessed world and, so far at least, it’s a marvellous match for how my ADHD brain likes to get things done. I’ll be writing more about it when I’m finished reading but I wanted you to know about it in the meantime.
Yes, I did think it was funny to take a photo of my (e)book with this post in the background. Gotta find your fun wherever you can, right? Image description: a photo of the ebook cover of Tiny Experiments on my Kobo ereader. The device is propped up in front of my monitor on my desk and this post is displayed on screen. On the lower left of the monitor is a white piece of paper with text reading ‘Own Your Time’ and on the right is a sticker with a human skull and text reading ‘Pick Your Poison’ both of which are notes-to-self reminding me to choose how to spend my time instead of just letting it gallop along. My reading glasses are on the desk on the left.
Breakaway Femmes comes to Canadian cinemas in April.
Demand Film is presenting theatrical screenings of Breakaway Femmes in Cineplex cinemas across Canada on Monday, April 7. Tickets are only available at demand.film. For each screening to proceed a minimum number of tickets need to be reserved in advance at each location by March 27.
So order your tickets now!
Here’s the trailer:
From Canadian Cycling Magazine: “For six years in the 1980s, the Tour de France included a women’s race alongside the men’s: the Tour de France Féminin. It gave women cyclists the chance to compete on the same roads, face the same iconic climbs, and ride in front of the same crowds. Despite delivering dramatic victories, intense rivalries, and remarkable displays of endurance, the women faced constant challenges—including financial struggles, injuries, discrimination, and the growing influence of doping in the sport.
Yet through it all, they built something more lasting than trophies: a deep sense of camaraderie. Now, more than 30 years later, these women reflect on their time at the pinnacle of professional cycling in a new film. Their stories shed led on what their experiences mean for the next generation of female athletes. That’s what the film, Breakaway Femmes dives on into.”
Capsized is a documentary film about Emily Kynaston-Williams, co-founder of Every Body Outdoors, and her friend Lisa, who embark on a canoe adventure in the Isle of Lewis. One focus of the film is the challenge of finding size-inclusive outdoor gear and promoting adventure for all.
The film follows Emily and Lisa as they navigate the lochs of the Isle of Lewis, with a focus on Emily’s unconventional adventure dreams, including dragging a canoe across a bog.
From the film description:
“Some people dream of summiting the highest peaks, of visiting a remote island, of being the fastest to navigate a route. But not Emily. Emily dreams of esoteric adventure, and of dragging a canoe across a bog. Enlisting her friend Lisa to join her, the pair set off to the Isle of Lewis, to navigate its intricate system of lochs. But before any trip comes the prep, and part of that means finding the right kit. For Emily, this can be a tough adventure in and of itself. When outdoor shops only stock technical clothing up to a size 16, how is adventure possible for the 45% of women in the UK who wear larger sizes?”
Here’s just a few things I’m worried about: democracy, universities, economic collapse, nuclear war, trans rights, world health, future pandemics, starvation and disease in countries that relied on US aid, Canadian sovreignty.
We’re adding those to my existing base-level worry about ongoing environmental devastation due to climate change. Whenever I start to write the list, I get a prompt from whatever writing tool this app uses to alert me to the danger of run-on, very long sentences.
WELL, IT’S NOT MY FAULT THERE’S SO MUCH ON THE LIST.
What a nightmare.
Here’s a simpler list, a happier list. It’s six things I’m going to do more of this summer, the summer I’m 60 years old.
☀️SWIM
☀️LONG WALKS
☀️SAIL
☀️BIKE
☀️CANOE CAMPING
☀️CONNECT WITH FRIENDS
I love this list!
It’s hard to balance the anger, frustration, and sadness with the joy and love that’s in the world. It’s hard to balance awareness of one’s own privilege with the current state of affairs.
No wants to be the person fiddling while Rome burns. Or to fit it to our context, the person canoe camping while democracy dies in the country next door.
But I do want to be the person who notices beautiful things and makes room for joy in her life.
Also, I’m excited about summer and about eating ice cream! You?
I confess I’ve been thinking a lot about travel to the United States these days.
I’ve turned down one invitation to keynote a conference south of the border and also declined one conference acceptance.
I think, as long as Trump is in office, I’m just not going to do it.
I’ve also been thinking about about American academic colleagues in Canada, the border, and their need to visit family. It feels like the situation at the border is going to get worse, not better, in coming months.
Lately I’ve also been thinking about friends and colleagues in the US who can’t leave because they’re worried about re-entry. Trans friends and colleagues, are obviously worried but so too are friends and colleagues with student visas and green cards etc. It’s not just that I’m cut off from the US. Lots of people in the US may also feel trapped inside the country.
I follow these conversations in my academic circles but they’re also affecting music and sports. They’re both global activities that bring people together, across borders, in normal times.
“Eves of Destruction charter team manager Sloane Chomeakwich said they knew things would deteriorate when Donald Trump was re-elected as U.S. president in November, but didn’t anticipate it would happen as fast as it did.
“We could not have imagined that things would get this bad, this quickly,” Chomeakwich said. “It’s honestly very wild to watch and witness.”
Chomeakwich said the league made the “preemptive safety call” not to travel to the U.S. last month, though they had been discussing it since November.
Sonja Pinto, the representative for the Hard Core derby league team, said the decision was made in reaction to Trump signing an executive order that called for the federal government to limit gender options to male or female and for that to be reflected on official documents such as passports and policies such as federal prison assignments.
“So many of our skaters identify under the trans umbrella,” said Pinto, who is non-binary and uses she/they pronouns. “They’re worried they might run into issues crossing the border … it’s causing skaters to feel really nervous, to feel really uncertain.”
Roller derby has historically been a sport that has been more inclusive of trans people, Pinto said.
Chomeakwich, who changed their passport gender designation to X three years ago, said the league in general is “so gender diverse.”
“That’s really important as a value to our league [and] something that we’re not willing to give up just so that we can have a bit more competitive play.”
Pinto said reducing travel to the U.S. is one way that the league can support its trans skaters.
“We can choose solidarity and prioritize games in Canada.”
The league is now playing primarily at the Archie Browning Sports Centre in Esquimalt, where it is based.
In June, the Eves of Destruction are hosting the Capital City Chaos tournament and inviting teams from Washington, Alaska, California, and Oregon to come to the capital region instead.”
Early spring flowers are among my favorite things. Daffodills, fortsythia, crocuses– they are all happy harbingers of spring, even when the rest of nature is not budging (yet). Yesterday I enjoyed another early spring floral display– an orchid show at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, about an hour from my house.
This botanical garden is set on “200 acres of conservatories, formal and naturalistic gardens, a café, Garden Shop, walking trails, accessible pathways, and expansive views of the Wachusett Reservoir”, says their website. I’ve been at all times of the year, and there’s always something interesting to learn about local nature and art.
Some friends and I motored out there together and used passes from our local library to get reduced admission— two more fine features of the day.
We spent time both inside and outside, but the main attraction yesterday was the orchids. I love orchids. I grow them in my house, which has bright indirect light that orchids enjoy. And they have flourished for years. Really, it’s not me, it’s them– they seems to like it at my house.
But the orchid display in these conservatories was positively outlandish, in the best possible way. Take a look.
Here are some more.
And these.
And finally, these:
We walked around outside to a newly landscaped garden/children’s play area. My friend Rachel’s daughter Teagan enjoyed the flowers, but she really got into running around with all the kids in the area. We got into watching them.
I bought an orchid to take home with me, and it’s now settling into its new home. On my way back into the house, I stopped to talk with a neighbor about gardening– we are planning a trip a a local nursery together.
Moments of pleasure and respite. Reminders of the promise of a new season, come what may. Connections with friends and neighbors. The glory of nature. These are simple and necessary joys, open to all of us.
