Back in May, Sam and I both wrote about grandmothers as athletes in the context of an amazing marathon swim by Amy Appelhans Gubser. At the time, Sam’s son Miles told her “All your athletic achievements could be so much more impressive if I had a kid.”
I struggle to think of myself as an athlete, despite all the positive self-talk. It is getting harder now that I’m retired and we are living through a miserable wet summer that has me unmotivated to go outside. And now I am about to be a grandmother.
A young couple standing on a dock at a lake. The man has one hand around his partner, and the other on her belly. Both are smiling.
I’m thrilled, but also wondering what that will do to my self-image and the preconceptions of people around me.
Will I continue wanting to do my own fitness things or will I turn to a pile of granny goo who just wants to play with the baby whenever I can? How can I adapt what I enjoy doing to incorporate the little one? When I do those activities with a baby (or toddler or child, eventually) will I still be seen as an independent person or just an extension/caregiver playing along? Will it matter what other people think, or can I be comfortable in my own skin?
In other words, can I be a little bit like Amy Appelhans Gubser, even if I never do an amazing marathon swim?
In a few days, I will be on vacation to use up accumulated leave before my official retirement date at the end of July. It is time.
A balloon bouquet from my work team.
I thought the changes of adolescence and early adulthood were huge, but somehow I don’t remember them being as profound as what I’m going through right now. Is it because we’re just too young to recognize how big those changes are? Or too excited? Or too resilient?
Maybe it’s because we have changes happening in the rest of the family too. My role as a daughter has been shifting as I take on more responsibilities to support my parents. Nothing too serious yet, but I am doing the gardening, washing windows and filing taxes and medical claims. at the same time, my kids are moving into new phases of their lives; nothing absolutely confirmed yet, but I anticipate being an empty-nester soon.
I don’t have any big fancy plans – next week I’ll drive up to my cottage property to retrieve a tent for my daughter. There will undoubtedly be a group bike ride, and an extra swim practice.
I’m looking forward to the luxury of picking daytime dance classes for the summer. And going to swim at the Pond, which has very limited hours, any weekday morning instead of hoping the weather is nice on the weekend. And doing a deep clean of some part of my house (closets? All the windows? TBD).
And I want to read – just sit back and dig through a large stack of unread magazines and books. I’m really curious to see how much simply relaxing will affect my sore shoulder and neck. They are already feeling better than they have in months.
Sam invited me years ago to guest blog on FIFI, and back then as someone in her late 30s I’d wondered how my musings would fit as a not-quite-yet “midlife” feminist. Aside from her forward thinking (as of course we all grow into middle age), while planning for holiday travel recently I’d realized that perhaps I had finally made it to mid-life. Why? Because I was, for the first time, packing two of things.
I like to exercise to music, but what if my lightning charge cable breaks? Solution: Bring two. What if the busted sneakers I usually bring don’t have treads for the hike I want to do? Answer: Bring a second pair. What if the luggage with my swimming towel doesn’t arrive? Remedy: pack my microfibre travel towel (when I know towels will be available). What if I run out of face 60 SPF while I’m out in the sun. Yes: Pack a second bottle.
A few years ago I blogged about treetop adventures and my reflections on realizations about value of preventative injury measures and safety thinking. Admittedly, for most of my life I have never had a “safety first” attitude (sorry mom). Due to youth, inexperience, and limited financial means I’ve usually winged it with what I had, or I just went without.
These days, in contrast, I’ve noticed my brain has been thinking ahead: planning back ups and paying more attention to minimizing risk. Is it because I can financially afford doubles of stuff, I’ve become wiser in my older age, or I’ve eventually learned from my mistakes?
It’s probably a combination. It’s pretty neat, this sudden impulse to be more prepared, because I know as I grow older I know I can less afford to be injured, and the added preparation measures give me more piece of mind (even with slightly heavier luggage).
My goal is not to reinforce stereotype about middle age. I can see how these “solutions” tend towards comfort, even excess. And I am sure there are plenty of free spirits who are reading this and, out of necessity or confidence, connect with very little of it. I celebrate you!
But today, I recognize it’s a privilege to be able to bring two of what I might (or might not) need for my holiday fitness activities, and I am appreciating that, for probably the first time, I am caring for myself in this new way.
So, as I move steadily into the middle of my midlife, I find myself twice grateful for such abundance. 💜
I love the Facebook group where we track our workouts, training to smash the patriarchy.
I joined the group in 2020, when the goal was to hit 220 workouts. By November that year I had hit 276, and was confident I would hit 300, but then forgot to record the final number anywhere.
In 2021, I hit an astonishing 461 workouts of purposeful movement of at least 20-30 minutes, largely thanks to lunchtime and after work walks since I was working from home. I wrote at the time that 221 workouts “is a body positive and friendly gang, where there is no talk about diets or weight loss, and people define what a workout means to them each day. Some are amazing and some days we count things like ‘I left my house and walked to the store because that is what I could manage today’. Every single one is appreciated for what it is, and celebrated”.
Late 2021 was also when this grumpy eagle going on a stupid little walk for his stupid physical and mental health (#SLWFMMPH) first showed up.
Image: a grumpy-looking eagle stomps through water with the words “Me going on a stupid little daily walk for my stupid physical and mental health” below.
Last year, I was back to the office four days a week so my workouts changed – more cycling, less walking and workout videos. I also stopped meeting up as often to swim with friends. My gang has scattered somewhat and I miss meeting up with them all. Even so, I managed 372.
This year I’m at 392 so far. I’ll make it to 395 for sure, and I am aiming to put in a bit of extra effort so I’ll hit 400.
Image: fireworks with the word 400!
What does all this tell me about my fitness habits?
Being active every single day, on average, is now my norm. Retiring is unlikely to change that, except in possibly in the direction of even more movement.
Being part of a group is vital for keeping me accountable to myself. I have known this for a long time, which is why I prefer swimming with a master’s club to lane swims on my own. I need a social component for motivation, even when tracking my workouts.
Flexibility matters a lot. Allowing myself to count both an amazing long bike ride and a short walk to the store keeps this from being an all-or-nothing proposition that sets me up for failure. As Christine would say, I am allowing myself some grace, so I get a gold star for my efforts no matter how big or small.
My goal for 2024 will be to continue on as I began, finding joy and ease in movement, and maybe getting to meet some lovely people along the way. And stretching!
Image: A four panel cartoon with two black cats talking about the future is and the punchline “please start stretching”. Cartoon is by Luis Coelho of purrin.ink.
What are your fitness goals for 2024? What will you do to maximize your chances of success? I would love to hear about it in the comments.
I have terrible posture. I know that my slouching shoulders and downward gaze are directly related to the sore neck and back that have plagued me most of my adult life.
Thirty years ago I started to realize that I didn’t need to hunch over to hide my breasts. And yet… it has been (and remains) a huge struggle to undo the habit that came with with being a bigger girl in a world where role models were stick-thin.
Good posture would help me with all my fitness activities, especially dance and horseback riding. It’s really hard to engage your core properly if one half is stretched and the other half is squished.
It will be increasingly important as I age. A strong, straight spine will help with balance (and lower the risk of falls). It helps maintain a wider range of motion, increased lung capacity, and reduce pain.
Changing the habit is at least as much mental as physical. I do all my little stretches and rolling my shoulders down and back, but what really works for me is visualization. A favourite dance teacher used to tell my class to stand up straight and show off our jewels. The double entendre always made us giggle, but we did make an effort to look a bit more like this:
A dancer from the Cincinnati Ballet poses en pointe. She is wearing a white and gold tutu with a lot of jewels attached at the neckline and upper chest.
Imagining myself as a real queen helps too – my favourite is Queen Latifah. She looks so tall and confident in every picture I can find. Look for yourself and you too will be exclaiming “Queen!”
Remembering to hold my head a little higher and pull my shoulders down and away from my ears makes me feel more like a Queen!, or at least a queen. I can feel my abdominal muscles lengthening and engaging the moment I sit or stand up straight. I even get a little smile going.
I hope I have at least another 30 years to work on wearing that imaginary crown and showing off those jewels.
A cartoon woman with red hair, a big smile and a green shirt is putting a shiny crown on her head. Image is from freepik.com.
Physiotherapy isn’t actually all that fun, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration.
Sam has been doing lots of physiotherapy for her knees, and I have noticed increasing numbers of other friends who are doing physio for various ailments and injuries. My only experience until now has been after I broke my arm a few years ago.
Lately, however, my various aches and pains have been getting worse so I decided to see if a physiotherapist might be able to help me correct my posture or whatever it is I am doing wrong. It turns out I am dealing with arthritis in my knees, sciatica, some scoliosis, and trapezius muscles that are rock hard (not in a good way). This was not a complete surprise, but I had been in denial about naming the pains.
During that first session, I mostly got poked, prodded and stretched, which was surprisingly tiring. I then got sent home with a set of ten exercises to do every day until my next appointment. None of them are very big but they are surprisingly challenging. And I guess that’s the point.they are supposed to target my weak spots.
It feels weird to be doing something I associate with injury as preventive medicine, but it also feels wise. The more mobility I gain/retain at this stage, the higher the likelihood I will be able to stay active in future.
My artist’s model doll showing off all their bendy joints. Like me, they’re a little worse for wear, but still pretty useful.
On Sunday, my world got just a little darker when one of my oldest friends died suddenly.
I first met Jennifer 37 years ago in the context of a medieval group I belong to. She was one of the first people I knew who broke the second-wave stereotypes of feminism. She was married for over 40 years to Henry. She studied classics at university. She loved to cook, garden and do textile crafts. She was a woman of faith who shared her love of music with her church community.
She also worked in the high tech industry, then moved on to run her own business as a career coach. She was a fierce defender of rights – for the disabled, for the LGBTQ community, for visible minorities. She taught me my example about grace, tolerance and the value of diversity.
On the fitness side, it was more complicated. Jennifer never looked stereotypically fit, and she had mobility issues, but did do her stretches and some yoga, in addition to gardening. In the spirit of this blog, she did what she could and accepted herself as she was. And she was pleased that I was contributing here.
In recent months, and despite all her precautions, COVID caught Jennifer. She had some long COVID symptoms and then a series of “cardiac events” and died less than 48 hours later. Was it COVID related? I don’t know.
I do know is the world has lost a big-hearted and generous soul. This will be the reality for all us aging feminists going forward, no matter how fit we try to be.
Jennifer in her element — in the kitchen, doing some sort of craft, and laughing. Photo courtesy of Michael Cohen.
I have been involved in a lot of conversations about active transportation in the last few weeks. And about the reasons both kids and seniors may be less active than they would like. And Mount Alison University geograph Professor Leslie Kern talking about her book Feminist City (my copy is on order).
And far too many rants where cyclists were blamed for being struck by cars, articles were written about pedestrians hitting cars (the cars drove away – never the drivers – and the pedestrians were hospitalized). The worst was blaming an older man for daring to go for on walk on a bare sidewalk in regular shoes, after he broke his ankle when trying climb over a windrow left by a snowplow.
What if we designed our living spaces so that more of us that are enticed to walk, bike and take transit, because the more that they do, the better it is for everyone?
Women in Urbanism Canada points out that women make up more than half of Canada’s aging population, so building age-friendly cities must be gender-inclusive. Women are more likely to outlive their partners, live in poverty, earn less, own less property, and have children and grandchildren to care for. They are more likely to suffer from mobility-related disabilities and physical impairments. They may also outlive their ability to drive. They need affordable and well-connected public transportation, areas to exercise and socialize and homes that allow them to live, independently, and with easy access to services resources and community amenities.
And the city of Ottawa, in a zoning review paper currently under discussion notes that “the impacts of car-dependency are most acutely felt by women, youth, elderly people, low-income people, and people with disabilities, as these are all people who are less likely to have access to or afford personal vehicles. A mobility-rich neighbourhood is a 15-minute neighbourhood where kids can walk to school and recreation, where people have the option to run a quick errand on foot, and people of all incomes can affordably access their needs.”
So what would that activity-friendly neighbourhood look like? It would have public transit, wide sidewalks and bike spaces (maybe even car-free), with benches, bathrooms, trees for shade, meeting places and playgrounds, plus a variety of shops and services close to home.
A street with dense housing, trees, playground, bike racks, and people of all ages walking or cycling. The drawing comes from The cover of Curbing Traffic, a book on the human case for fewer cars by Melissa Bruntlett and Chris Bruntlett.
For winter in Canada, I would add ploughed sidewalks and bike lanes. Sweden has already led the way on this. Following a gender analysis of its street clearing practices, Swedish cities began clearing sidewalks first, because they discovered that women were more likely to walk. There were three times as many injuries from falling on slippery streets as there were from driving, and the cost of treating those injuries far outweighed the city of snow clearing.
For millions of short journeys, the right tool for the job ought to be walking or cycling, but the way too many streets are designed makes this a difficult choice. Cars go too fast, there are no safe spaces for bicycles, and sidewalks have obstacles including high curbs, unsafe crosswalks, and buttons to beg for a pedestrian light that my not even be accessible to all users.
That’s a shame, because person on a bicycle can go three to four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. Equipped with this tool, humans outstrip the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well (Ivan Illich, Energy & Equity, 1973).
Brent Toderian, the former chief planner for the city of Vancouver, has written that “the recent Paris transformation of key streets to add bike infrastructure is intensely pragmatic – more mobility choice and more trips using a lot less space, lower public cost, lower emissions, less pollution, better public health, etc.”
All this infrastructure is not just a feminist concern. It can also have a real impact on our health. Recently there was a meta-analysis of the impact of moderate physical activity on health. According to the report I read, about one in ten deaths could have been prevented with a little as eleven minutes of moderate physical activity a day. I’ll leave it to Catherine Womack to assess the claims; why I thought was important for this blog was the final quote:
´Dr Leandro Garcia, of Queen’s University Belfast, emphasised that moderate activity did not have to involve what people normally thought of as exercise, such as sports or running. “For example, try to walk or cycle to your work or study place instead of using a car, or engage in active play with your kids or grandkids,” he said.´
Imagine if we had safe and accessible places to do that…
Diane Harper lives in Ottawa. She has been a commuter cyclist for over 20 years.
As a kid, my bike was for fun. As an adult, I have always thought of myself as a commuter cyclist. I was never interested in road racing, or cross-country cycling or any of the other specialized cycling options involving fancy bikes and Lycra.
I have realized, however, I actually need my bike as a mobility device. I live close enough to my work place that I can walk. Except:
when it is too hot
or too cold
or when the sidewalks are icy
or when the sidewalks are unploughed.
or I have my laptop and my lunch and who know what else to haul in a backpack.
or when it’s raining
or when my feet (knees, hips) are sore.
My poor sore feet. The left one has a scar from past bunion surgery. The right one show a growing bunion that will eventually need surgery.
I am not the only one. People who have e-bikes use them for far more than short leisurely rides. A recent study about e-bike use in Norway found that “The people who bought e-bikes increased their bicycle use from 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) to 9.2 kilometers (5.7 miles) on average per day; a 340% increase. The e-bike’s share of all their transportation increased dramatically too; from 17% to 49%, where they e-biked instead of walking, taking public transit, and driving. You can read more about the study here.
Melissa and Chris Bruntlett are Canadian urban mobility advocates and authors of Building the Cycling City, The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality. In their view “Cycling is, for many people, a powerful mobility tool. Moreover, building wide cycle paths also helps create space for people that are on tricycles, adapted cycles, mobility scooters, and other modes.”
Adult tricycle with two child seats on the back and a wire basket on the handlebars. Photo is by Peter Biczok, who spotted it in Hungary.An older woman with her hair in a ponytail and wearing a large knapsack rides an electric tricycle in Leiden, Netherlands. The tricycle is laden with packages and bags in the back, on the front and from the handlebars. Photo originally shared by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett on Twitter.A woman rides a hand-powered adapted electric tricycle in Amsterdam. She is accompanied by a husky-type dog on a leash. Photo originally shared by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett on Twitter.
For now, I am perfectly content with my regular winter and summer bikes to get around. But I can definitely see a an electric bike or a regular/electric cargo bike or trike in my future.
This post shares about general, non-specific body aches. My reflections are based on my personal experience. As everyone has different bodies and experiences, I welcome you to share your thoughts in the comments.
Image by Jackson Simmer CC-By2 .0
Body aches have become a common fact of my mid-life. My low-level, everyday aches are unique to my body and its history; yet, my friends and I seem to share an increased frequency of body aches as we age.
Body aches are mysterious to me because they can be (to use a word I am making up) contramonious. In other words, opposing causes can result in similar aches. Some examples:
I can ache from exercising too intensely or too often, or from not enough or not frequently enough.
I ache when am dehydrated, or when I feel I am retaining water.
Aches can come from new injuries, but also from old healed injuries.
Aches in the body can also present in contrasting ways:
Aches can be dull and generalized, or sharp and localized.
Aches can come from one’s body attacking its own healthy cells, as in an autoimmune disorder.
Aches can be uncomfortable but indicate nothing serious, or they can be symptoms of a condition that requires immediate medical attention.
Aches can be a mystery when their causes are not clear. My body has been been aching this week, and I can’t exactly pinpoint why. Maybe it’s because I sat all week at my desk. Or it’s because I went rollerskating in the mall on the weekend. It could be from recent my flu vaccine, or because I am getting sick and I haven’t hydrated enough. Perhaps there is a specific medical reason, or perhaps I am just tired and burnt out in general.
Body aches are literally a pain, but the small upside of mine is that they are a general warning light for me: inflammation is happening in my body, and things could get worse if I don’t take action. Aches force me stop and self-assess—how severely am I aching, what impact are these aches having on me, and what can I do to alleviate them?
I’m also happy that, though my aches may have many different possible causes, the treatment is fairly simple and standard:
Fluids
Rest/sleep
Anti-inflammatories
Warm bath (or my heating pad!)
Light, safe movement
As I age, my low-level body aches are little mystery novels that remind me to do more simple self-care, no matter “what-dunit.”
What is your experience with everyday, low-level body aches? Is there an upside to your aching?
