Tag: swimming

fitness · swimming

Drowning Prevention Week

Diane Harper

The Lifesaving Society’s National Drowning Prevention Week is July 20-26, 202.

It has been a bad year for drownings and water rescues in my part of Ontario: ten drownings so far, and I have lost count of the rescues that were sufficiently dramatic to make the news.

According to The Lifesaving Society, older adults are at highest risk of drowning, and that is the only group where numbers are increasing. Men and boys make up nearly 80% of the drowning victims. Indigenous peoples are at much higher risk, and drowning rates in the territories are about eight times higher than in the provinces.

What can we do? Lifesaving organizations have divided responsibilities to focus on different priorities: The Red Cross runs learn-to-swim programs on northern and Indigenous communities, while the Lifesaving Society teaches in the provinces.

Individually, we can wear lifejackets. Always when on a boat or SUP, and if you are not comfortable in the water. This one deserves its own paragraph!

We can support friends and family to ensure they take lessons (whether as cheerleaders, helping them navigate city programs to find suitable lessons, or assisting low-income people financially).

Recently, I bought a swim float for a friend who was feeling uncomfortable in open water but had resisted buying one. She now uses it every day, and her confidence (and endurance) is improving.

I also volunteered as a swim angel, swimming along with a participant at Bring on the Bay, a huge open water event in Ottawa. I have done it three times now and I love it!

Top: my friends and I at swim angel training, with our swim floats. Bottom: me with the three people I have been an angel for (Penny, Sarah and Irene)

World Drowning Prevention Day takes place on July 25. In honour of this global event, I’ll be wearing blue, using #DrowningPrevention on social media, and tagging the Lifesaving Society on social media.

Stay safe, everyone!

beach body · fitness

Belated Happy Bikini Day!

Diane Harper

It was July 5, but I missed it.

I didn’t miss my the photo of my friend Michaela rocking her bikini on July 6, though.

Michaela in various poses and bikinis.

Nat has written about her bikini body H here and I have written about the challenges of finding good suits for different bodies H here and H here and showing off my own power suit H here

The Sandra Boynton cartoon that prompted this post
fitness · motivation · swimming

Finding Motivation When Your Triggers are Gone

Diane Harper

My main pool closed a month ago, and will stay closed until January. My other pool closed at the end of June. It will be closed until the fall, at least. That means no lifeguarding, no teaching swimming and no mandatory training where I need to ensure I meet the fitness standard. My swim club is also on hiatus for the summer.

What’s an externally -motivated girl to do?

Rest was a good start. I “allowed” myself several weeks of not swimming. By allowed, what I really mean is I didn’t bother looking up lane swim times at nearby pools. I felt guilty about not going but just couldn’t get myself organized. Hence the air quotes around “allowed”.

Then I started getting messages about people I knew going for swims. I decided that I would see each of them as an invitation and join if at all possible. So far this week, that has meant one pool swim, one swim in Gatineau Park, and one at the nearby lake. I’m already far ahead of where I was in June, distance-wise.

I’ll be a swim angel again this year for the annuals Bring On the Bay swim, so there will be more swimming this week to ensure I’m ready to support my swimmer on Saturday.

Going forward, I’m keen to try out some new swimming venues around town. I know I’m more likely to do so if I go with friends. For the next little while, my challenge will be to make some of those plans and follow through, even if others don’t have the time or interest to join me.

But also, if I don’t feel up to swimming, won’t. As much as I am motivated by peer pressure (in a good way), swimming when I’m overtired is not fun.

Wish me luck finding the right balance and checking out some new places to swim!

Three swimmers with bright floats in the small lake near my house in Ottawa.,
clothing · fitness · swimming

Advantages and Disadvantages of Two-Piece Swimsuits

Diane Harper2 Comments

Following up on my post about swim shorts, I wore my new suit to work. I haven’t tried swimming in it. Already, I have discovered some good and bad things about my two-piece bathing suit.

The disadvantages are well-known but some to the advantages are new to me. My goal is to learn to ignore the disadvantages (aka get over my own body image hangups), and learn to embrace the advantages. I may need to buy more suits to help with my continuing quest for excellent swim gear.

Advantages:

  1. It is possible to buy tops and bottoms in the size you need. This is probably self-evident to most people, but I only figured it out when my most recent suit arrived and I realized I might have gotten away with a bottom that is one size smaller;
  2. I can mix and match suits, at least in theory. My matchy matchy brain is still trying to wrap my brain around that one, but I admire people like my daughter, who does it all the time.;
  3. When I’m lifeguarding, I don’t need to strip out of my lifeguard pinny and take off a one-piece to go to the bathroom;
  4. If I forget my underwear, I can wear the top as a sports bra. Going commando to go home is usually just fine, but I hate going out in public without some sort of breast support.

Disadvantages:

  1. That “sports bra” is wet. I often do errands on the way home so my shirt ends up wet. If I go straight home, then I have to take off a wet sports bra. Wet sports bra removal should be an Olympic sport;
  2. I have yet to find a bathing suit top that doesn’t give me uniboob. Every promising one I have looked at so far has an underwire and that’s a hard no for me. I don’t mind being squashed while in the water because it helps me be streamlined. But it’s hot and sweaty out of the water;
  3. If the top doesn’t give me underboob it’s because it has ruffles, ruching, bow tie, baggy matching bottoms, or some other thing that adds drag when I’m trying to swim.
  4. I’m still coming to terms with exposing my less-than-perfect belly.

I still dream of finding a great two-piece training suit that fits my slightly-larger-than average body but I’m beginning to think it’s a unicorn. In fact, it’s so rare I couldn’t find a good image of a unicorn wearing a bathing suit so you will need to settle for this unicorn on a bathing suit.

Image is a bathing suit decorated with The Unicorn in Captivity, one of the Unicorn Tapestries. The suit is for sale on Etsy.
fitness

Swim shorts

Diane Harper2 Comments

Recently, I had a lovely interaction with a tall woman at the pool, and she got me wishing for new swim gear, again.

She was wearing cute flowered bicycle shorts with a sports bra, because she can’t find a one-piece that works on her very long torso. I have written about this challenge before, and the only thing that has changed is that I am increasingly bold about asking other people about where they got their non-standard suits and what they like about them.

Apparently; bicycle shorts with no padding work pretty well, though having them in proper swim fabric would be even better. a wider selection of colours and sizes available just when people are starting to think about summer swimming would be great!

Sports bras are much more of a problem: someone really needs to make one with a zipper or a back clasp, ideally with no pads, and keep it in stock beyond the end of April.

After lots of searching, I did manage to find a pair of flowered swim shorts and a matching sports bra top in my size. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m still looking for that perfect pair of longer swim shorts/bicycle shorts in swim fabric, and a bra top I can remove without feeling like it should be an Olympic sport. Wish me luck!

Five styles of swim or swim bicycle shorts,

What do you wear to the pool or beach? Have you tried long-sleeved bathing suits, or tunics and leggings (whether for modesty or to prevent sun exposure)? How do you weigh a decent fit against ability to move easily in the water?

equality · fitness · swimming

Swimming skills equity

Diane Harper

I have a new gig teaching a class of swim-to survive-students. It is offered by a local school board to third graders in at least some of their schools. The program recently restarted after being stopped during the COVID lockdowns.

Students get three one-hour lessons. There are about 12 kids per instructor. That’s a very high ratio to supervise. My regular learn to swim classes have between five and eight students, depending on the age and skills.

My group all needs lifejackets because none can swim even half a length of the pool. Some of them are afraid to put their faces in the water.

It’s not enough! We live in a country with a lot of lakes and rivers. Even if these kids never leave the city, there are plenty of opportunities to get into trouble in one of our rivers or ponds, or the canal. Many of these kids are newer immigrants, or from low-income families. Private swimming lessons may not be an option for them.

I’m happy I can give these kids the basics of a few survival skills, but what happens if they don’t have access to a lifejacket except during these lessons?

I feel like we are failing these students, as we have failed to provide equitable access and opportunities for water safety and sport so many poor and visible minority kids for generations.

Three children in red lifejackets in a swimming pool. Adobe stock photo.
Women’s Day at the Pool
accessibility · diversity · fitness

Women’s Day at the Pool

Diane Harper

On Monday I had the privilege of lifeguarding at a women-only swim event in Ottawa. As far as the staff there know, it’s the first one organized at that particular pool, although we were told that a similar space was rented years ago for a privately-run swim.

Why women only? There can be many reasons, but one of the biggest in our multicultural society is that some women are not comfortable being seen by anyone other than their male family members. Other women may be self-conscious about their bodies. And some may simply enjoy sharing space with women.

A 2020 Danish study found that “The participants connected swimming with well-being and self-care and portrayed women-only swimming as a space of belonging, where they felt comfortable and safe and were not only protected from the male but also the ‘white’ gaze that they encountered in other situations, such as when wearing a burkini on the beach.”(Women-only swimming as a space of belonging, December 2020, Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise 14(2)). UK-based The Women’s Journal noted in March 2023 that “female-only swimming sessions can provide a safe and comfortable environment where women can exercise without feeling vulnerable or exposed. This is particularly important for women who have faced harassment or assault”. They also offer a a sense of community and camaraderie to women who may feel isolated or unsupported in other areas of their lives. And finally, they ensure more equal access to fitness and exercise for women who feel uncomfortable in mixed-gender environments.

The swim took some effort to set up: we hung tarps over every window in the facility so that no-one could peer in. At the last minute, we were advised that people could still peek through some cracks, so there was a scramble to tape things more firmly closed, and cover up gaps with garbage bags when we ran out of tarps.

Some of the many tarps put in place for privacy near the pool area.

We worried that not many people would come, but in the end there were some 120 participants for three hours. Not bad at all, considering that people told us they had only heard about the event the day before. But they were happy to come from all over the city of Ottawa.

So who did come? Women of all ages, many with young girls and their friends. I would guess that the majority were originally from North Africa or the Middle East, but there were also women who appeared to be of sub-Saharan or Indian sub-continent descent. There were women in burkinis, in tunics and leggings, in dresses, in bathing suits, wearing hijabs, head scarves, bathing caps, and glorious braids. There were women and girls of all ages from senior citizens to toddlers.

Will it happen again? I hope so. The head lifeguard on duty also runs women-only swimming lessons and mused about whether similar events could be run on a regular basis. Certainly the women who came to swim would welcome it, judging by the feedback we got. Several asked who they should contact to tell them what a wonderful experience it had been and how much they would like to see it repeated. If they do, I’ll be volunteering to lifeguard again.

The pool just before opening. The artificial beach and wave pool is in the foreground, with warm-water wading pools, a lap pool and giant slide in the background.
fitness

Checking in, Three Months into My Post-Retirement Dream Job

Diane Harper1 Comment

Just over three months ago I got hired as a part-time lifeguard and swim instructor with the city of Ottawa. At 63, I’m one of the oldest lifeguards in the city. It has been exciting, fun and humbling.

My children are older than almost everyone I work with. I came into the job knowing I would need to put my ego aside because they’re the experts, not me. I think I have mostly succeeded, but I still laugh at myself when I have to call my teenaged supervisor for help. On training nights, when there is a physical fitness component, I’m not above being a little smug when I’m faster or stronger or have better technique than some of them. But most of the time I am listening hard and trying to absorb everything those young people can show me.

The teaching is as satisfying as I had hoped, but more challenging than I expected. I teach five classes of 3-6 year olds, and three of adults. I am building up a repertoire of games and activities, but I still struggle with when to give individual feedback and when to get everyone to do the same drill. This is especially the case for adults, where I can have people fearful of putting their face in the water learning to swim in the same class as folks who are almost ready to tackle swimming a length of the pool.

Lifeguarding is better than I thought it would be. I have a regular morning shift one day a week and I recognize all the regular lane swimmers and aquafit people. The occasional busy public swim is no longer as scary as it was at first. I even did a couple of training shifts at a large pool complex with a wave pool and giant water slide, in preparation for lifeguarding a women-only event next week. I’ll report on that in my next post.

I used to think it would be nice to do some work for a foreign affairs think tank or university when I retired, but I’m really happy I chose to do the goofy fun thing instead. It’s nice to feel like I’m making a difference in a small but tangible way. Former work colleagues who bring their kids to swimming lessons say I look like I’m having a ball. They’re right.

Diane in her red lifeguard pinny, with a view of the pool behind her.
disability · fitness · inclusiveness · swimming

Spirit Orcas Masters Swim Team

Diane Harper

My friend Susan Simmons in British Columbia has a passion for marathon open water swimming and for coaching swimmers with disabilities.

She and her swimmers have done some amazing things over the years, but today marks a new step.

The Spirit Orcas, Canada’s only inclusive Masters “para” swim club, is competing at a Masters Swim Association of British Columbia (MSABC) swim meet in Nanaimo today. Five adult swimmers with intellectual and physical disabilities are set to compete amongst neurotypical and able-bodied swimmers in several events.

The Spirit Orcas, many of whom have their roots in Special Olympics, formed a swim club last year when British Columbia’s only para swim club halted its program. To promote inclusion in sport, the club members opted to take the bold step of registering as a Masters rather than para or “disabled”.

The Spirit Orcas have become well known for their open water achievements, including their relay swims in the Great Bear Rainforest and an 80km staged around Victoria’s peninsula. The swim meet in Nanaimo, however, is their first official competition outside the disability community.

As Susan says “It is only when we compete in the same spaces with each other that we have achieved inclusion”.

Maria, Drew, Melisa and Dixon, all members of the Spirit Orcas, prepare for a relay

Good luck to everyone! I hope you have a great time.

swimming

Amy Appelhans Gubser in Her Own Words

Diane Harper2 Comments

Earlier this year, Amy Appelhans Gubser achieved what many considered impossible: swimming nearly 30 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands—a feat that no man or woman had ever completed before.

Amy faced unimaginable challenges: freezing 43-degree water, shark-infested depths, and hours upon hours of relentless swimming without a wetsuit. 

We have written about her here and here. At the time, Sam was outraged by the lazy journalism that focused on her weight and family status, and didn’t even mention her name. I was interested to see how experienced swimmers reported on her feat, and and noted her many swimming achievements before this swim.

Now you can listen to Amy herself, in this podcast where she is interviewed about her swim.

Photo of Amy Appelhans Gubser in the water, wearing a swim cap with goggles and a huge smile.

I still think Amy is pretty darned cool. And I appreciate that the written intro to the podcast made no reference to her weight or her status as a grandmother. It even mentions her name!