The first two days of the Friends for Life Bike Rally this year (see here and here) were ridden during heat alerts. Increasingly I’m worried about spending time on the bike in July and August in Ontario. It’s hot. It’s often the kind of hot that prompts the weather alert to remind you to “avoid outdoor exercise.”
I trained on one of those days in the month leading up to the rally and discovered heat cramps.
I know it’s a small thing in the scheme of changing climate and ecological disaster. I know lives and entire ecosystems are at stake and it’s trivial to complain that global warming might be making my favorite athletic activity a lot less fun.
Still, it’s a loss. And it’s a reminder of the changes ahead of us.
Did you watch the Tour de France in the heat waves this summer?
The bike rally needs to be at the end of summer so people have time to train and get ready but I do wonder about the sustainability of July/August cycling events whether it’s the Tour or the Bike Rally.
How is the changing climate affecting your summer activities?
As part of my monthly updates–originally serving to track my progress to knee replacement surgery and recovery!–I’ve been reporting on how much I’ve been reading.
Why, you ask, on a fitness blog have I been reporting on reading goals? That gets to the why of tracking. I’ve been tracking reading as a way of motivating myself to read more. Tracking does that for me, YMMV. (I also use Goodreads.) And I’ve been wanting to read more because as with physical activity, it’s a big mood booster for me. Reading fiction helps me slow down, but slow down in a deliberative way.
Now that I have been meditating a bit, I think reading works in some similar ways. I’m not saying it has all the benefits of meditation, but I do feel more relaxed, happier, more at peace when I read more.
Also, to be clear I also read fiction because it’s important and pleasurable and intellectually engaging in and of itself. It’s not all about the instrumental motives.
So, a new plan! Reading at lunch. It will help with work stress, make me take a break, stop me reading email on my phone through lunch.
Here are the books I’m currently reading but I’ve brought Becky Chambers for my lunch time relaxation reading:
I’m going to pack a lunch, find a picnic table, take out my book, and chill. You’re welcome to join. BYOBook!
Just to be clear, I’m not complaining about the heat. We don’t get enough good weather here as it is. I don’t want to complain and risk a weather deity’s vengeance.
So, this is not a complaint.
It’s an observation.
I’m just observing that it has been especially warm and humid (for this part of Newfoundland) this past week or so and I am not acclimatized to it at all.
In fact, it often leaves me feeling a migraine is hunting me and it could catch me at any minute.
And that’s just about as fun as it sounds.
So instead of trying out new exercises or adding a bit more time to my usual routine, I’ve just been sweaticating.
According to the lexicon of my 9 year old self (and that self’s friend Rochelle) sweaticating is when you are so warm that everything you wear sticks to you and you mostly feel like lying around eating popsicles.
She’s just sweating, not sweaticating but she does look like she could use a popsicle. Image description: GIF of Alexis from the TV show Schitt’s Creek is reclining in bed fanning her armpits with her hands and saying ‘I feel like I’m sweating.’
Popsicle lounging what I *feel* like doing but since I’m an adult (or a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile, at least) I know that lying around eating popsicles will eventually leave me feeling much worse.
So, while I have eaten my fair share of popsicles and I have done a nice bit of lying around recently, I have also been following my bare minimum self-care plan.
What does that look like?
Taking Khalee for walks after supper instead of in the late afternoon.
I picked this photo because Khalee’s expression cracks me up but that particular evening it had rained a bit so it wasn’t quite so warm. Image description: Khalee, a light-haired dog in a harness and leash, stands next to a fence. Her body is pointing away from the viewer but head is turned back toward the camera and she looks like she is asking ‘Are you going to catch up or what?’
Doing some writing on my patio under the shade of a tree.
I set up one of my outdoor tables so I can stand and write/draw. Foolishly, my first attempt had me facing my neighbour’s fence. This view is way better. Image description: My notebook is open on a white table that is attached to my patio rail. My pencil case and pen are covering most of the lined page of my notebook and I have a travel container of iced tea on the wooden railing above it. There’s an orange lawn chair and an empty fire pit amid the grass beyond the patio rail. (The firepit is on concrete slabs but the grass is too long to see them in this shot) Tree trunks, lower tree branches and a wooden fence are in the background.
Yoga, stretches, slow-motion TKD patterns, and other low-key exercises outside once it gets dark.
Night yoga for the win. Image description: An inviting nighttime photo of my patio. My railing is lit with string lights and a small patio burner, my yoga mat stretches out from the right hand side of the photo and in the far corner is a chair with a red cushion and a table with a flowering plant on it.
I’m not following my ideal plan but I am doing what I can and taking good care of myself while (mostly) avoiding that predatory migraine.
How about you?
How are you taking good care of yourself these days?
PS – If things haven’t been going so well on that front, why not give it a whirl today.?
Start small, rest a little…maybe have a popsicle.
A GIF of a small brown dog in a striped sweater eats a yellow popsicle that is clutched between its front paws. The words YUM YUM are at the bottom of the image.
Now that the stresses and fun of the past month or so have passed, I’m looking forward to the mixed blessing of a flexible summer schedule.
I mean, I love having my evenings free and since I work for myself, at home, I can shift things around to take advantage of good weather or some pop-up fun.
This is fun, right? Pop-up fun? Image description: a light-coloured meerkat popping up from its den in a sandy surface.
BUT
Since my brain has a very casual relationship with time under any circumstances, the flexibility of summer can also be a challenge for me. If I don’t make my decisions in advance or if I don’t pay close attention to how I spend my time, I can suddenly find myself at the end of summer, frustrated about all of the things I missed out on for no good reason.
So, one of my projects for this weekend is to figure out how I want to spend my summer.
One thing is for certain, I want to make sure this view plays a big role in my summer. Image description: the view from my patio chair on a bright sunny day. In the foreground is a chair with a red cushion and a table with flowers in a pot next to the rail of my patio . In the background is my red shed, wooden fence, and green trees against a warm blue sky.
I’m considering when to work and when to rest (and thinking about what ‘rest’ includes). I’m figuring out what to include in my day-to-day and which larger summer activities I want to organize and do. I’m thinking about the projects I want to complete in the house and in the yard and deciding when I’d like to work on them.
Basically, I want to make sure that I actively choose a shape for my summer instead of just reacting moment by moment.
(By the way, if a summer of reacting moment by moment is your ideal, please have at it! Do what works for you.)
I’m planning to include things like revising my novel, practicing my TKD patterns outside where there’s more room, hula-hooping, going swimming, reading in my hammock, taking a few hikes, taking Khalee on longer walks, going for longer bike rides, creating some zines, and spending a lot of time hanging out outdoors with my friends.
This little one and I have a lot in common with our hoop skills but I think we both have fun all the same. Image description: a GIF of a small child with long brown hair and glasses in a department store aisle. They are trying to use an orange hula hoop and even after it clatters to the ground, they keep wiggling their hips back and forth.
What do YOU have planned for your summer? Let me know in the comments!
Or if it isn’t summer where you are, what do you have planned for the next few months?
Today is the first of June and we have already had a few days of delightful weather.
Perhaps people who live in places where there is an actual Spring might not find that worthy of note but here in NL, it’s kind of a big deal.
And those few fine days mean I have my yard mostly tidy, and my deck furniture arranged and I am all set up to maximize my outdoor fun this summer.
Well, it’s all set up except for the white table that needs to be hung on the deck rail but my rail is too wide so I need to invent a solution. Image description: a corner of an outdoor deck made with a brown lawn chair in the corner. The chair has a red cushion on it and it sits between a small blue table with a mug and a pot for plant on it, and another plant holder that also contains a pot for plant. The pots contain dirt but no flowers (yet!) there is a white metal table lying on its side on the left of the photo. A string of silver, star-shaped patio lights is hanging off the railing.
Every summer, I do some outdoor yoga, I practice my TKD patterns outdoors, and I keep my hula hoop handy, but this year I am expanding my ideas a bit.
I’m thinking of setting up some sort of outdoor circuit so I add some extra variety to my exercise AND I can spice up my outdoor workdays with some quick fitness breaks.
When my kids were small, I used to set up obstacle courses/circuits for them in the yard and I am using that for inspiration but I’d also love to hear your ideas.
Maybe not this. Too overwhelming. Image description: GIF of a black dog on a deck chasing a single ball at first but then many, many balls are released at once and the poor dog can’t catch them all.
Have you ever set up a circuit in your yard? What did you include?
Have you got any ideas for stuff that I can leave out most of the time? (I know me and I probably will quickly talk myself out of anything that needs setting up over and over.)
Bonus points if your ideas are goofy and/or add significant fun.
If you haven’t got any ideas for the circuit, feel free to just cheer me on. 😉
It’s what cyclists (runners and triathletes too) do as we’re about to turn the corner, past midwinter, into days of more light (if not necessarily, for awhile at least, more warmth)…
We start planning and scheduling summer rides and races.
Sadly I’ll miss Paris-Ancaster (next year I’ll definitely hold the date) and the Ontario Randonneurs’ Devils Week as I’ll be speaking at philosophy conferences. Pesky day job!
The photo above is me on the bike course of that race a few summers ago…I can date the picture by looking at the bike. I have a better, faster bike now.
I’d also like to throw in a duathlon or two. And depending on how the transition from indoor to outdoor rowing goes, I might be doing some of those events as well.
And of course there’ll be a cycling holiday thrown in for fun, not speed.
