#30DaysofExercise . . . and Live to Tell

Leave a reply

Like half of all Americans, I live less than five miles from where I work.

So, no excuses during National Bike to Work Week — except for Thursday, when I have to dress up for a volunteer recognition lunch and attend a fancier work function in the evening.MayisBikeMonth

Exercise-challenge programs such as National Bike to Work Day on May 15 or Run 2,015 in 2015 (whoops, too late now!) are effective motivators — except when they’re inconvenient. I learned that the hard way during the 30 Days of Biking challenge in April.

On the face of it, my mere seven days of biking during the cold, rainy month were a failure compared with the hard-cores who rode their bicycles to bakeries and tweeted throughout the month or posted grinning, thumbs-up photos on Instagram.

What I did instead is what I do every day, every month, every year: I exercised. The particular daily movement that I chose — biking, running, fitness yoga, walking — depended on the weather, on my schedule or on my mood.

The #30daysofbiking challenge did inspire me to log the experience. I kept a daily record of my exercise, and that’s proven to be fruitful now that warm weather is here and I really want to up my cycling miles and train to run another half-marathon.

My daily logs are both instructive and inspiring. I note the excuses, but I see also that I managed to move every day. The journal entries reinforce my midlife exercise mantra: Something is better than nothing. Any exercise counts.

30 Days #2

EXCUSES ARE EASY to come by. It’s harder to sidestep #30DaysofExercise, however, than daily cycling because it allows you to be more a generalist than a specialist.

On April days when it was too windy and cold to bike, I could easily walk the 1.2 miles to work. Likewise, on a day after my running partner had pushed me to run farther than I would have on my own, I could stretch my aching quadriceps and hamstrings in a yoga class.

But the exercise log’s purpose was to record, specifically, whether I had biked. And it revealed more than anything why I failed to get my seat on the saddle for 23 of the month’s 30 days.

  • April 1: Blew it on the first day of the bike challenge! Warm but really windy and then had horrendous rainstorm this evening. Oh, well.
  • April 9: Pouring rain today, 40 degrees. Going to Core Power at noon.
  • April 17: Went for a run with Lou Anne. No energy for more exercise today.
  • April 21: It snowed today. Enough said.

30 Days #4

WITH MY LONG LEGS and short trunk, I seem built to ride a bike. It’s an effortless exercise.

And so it’s easy for me to combine biking with errands, which feels more healthful — and less stressful — than other forms of multitasking.

Movement has more meaning, my cycling log has taught me, when there’s purpose behind it.

  • April 12: Rode to Rainbow Chinese and back to meet friends. As we get more serious about becoming a one-vehicle family, it will become essential to bike.
  • April 16: Still not feeling well so working from home. But I felt well enough to bike to work for meetings. Nobody seemed to mind that I was wearing spandex bike shorts, with bad hair and carrying a helmet.
  • April 26: Rode around the neighborhood and then went to Mom’s. I like combining biking with appointments. It’s a twofer, the equivalent of walking to work.

30 Days #3

CYCLING MAKES ME SMILE in a way that running never has. I love the sweep of scenery, the sense of being one with the natural world.

“You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy a bike,” I read on a cyclist’s T-shirt one sunny Sunday when I was biking home on Midtown Greenway.

Discovering the joy in the simple act of riding was an impetus behind the founding of 30 Days of Biking by Twin Citian Patrick Stephenson, whose idea has gone viral and international. He describes the practice of daily cycling as “transformative.”

  •  April 4: Wore my runner’s mask to bike this morning. Legs and fingers froze. No wind, gliding through the streets. Hills felt good after sculpt class yesterday.
  • April 14: Woke up with sore throat and sniffles. Hunkered down and got tasks done at my desk. Rode the six-mile loop along the River Road after work: 60 degrees, sunny, little wind. I felt better afterward.
  • April 28: Thirty-minute ride at 7 p.m. through the neighborhood. Not enough but it was something. Like any exercise or art or behavior at which I want to get better, biking has to be a practice.

No Easy Out: Here’s How We’ve Stayed Married

3 Replies

My husband and I married in 1985. Ronald Reagan was president, Intel introduced a 32-bit microcomputer chip that year, and Amadeus won the Oscar for “Best Picture.”

Thirty years later, “we are still married,” to borrow the title of one of Garrison Keillor’s books. Our lives are intertwined physically and financially. We are parents and partners and, on the good days, good friends.Marriage 1

We are family, and — like a growing proportion of college-educated couples in which women are financial and decision-making equals — we have chosen, despite the odds, to remain married.

I don’t believe in divorce once children are part of the equation. And so, as a belated anniversary gift to David, and a reminder to those bored and frustrated marrieds who see uncoupling as inevitable or an easy out, I’ve articulated three reasons why.

Cherish your history

We met in a Shakespeare class at the University of Minnesota taught by the gifted Toni McNaron, then a newly sober and recently “out” tenured professor who challenged us to see the Bard through a contemporary lens.

David loves to tell the story of eyeing me from across the room but thinking I was too young to date. I remember being drawn to him in a way that was inexplicable till our first son, Sam, was born in July 1990.

Together, we have invested in property, made homes, made friends, made joint decisions on causes and organizations to support. We both come from small-town, middle-class families with professionally employed, well-known fathers. Born into privilege, we take pride in living frugally.

David and I sometimes muse that we were brought together for the divine purpose of creating our sons. Every mother may believe that. I know it to be true. Sam and Nate are strong, intellectually curious and kind-hearted young men — and our greatest achievement has been raising them well.

Yes, we’ve stayed together for the kids. That is the legacy and lesson of my parents’ divorce, which they announced the day I turned 14.

“Parenting has been a tough haul, but we’ve worked hard at being a team and have started to reconnect on date nights,” says a neighbor, 52, who has been married 20 years. “We both come from divorced families, and that has left a lasting impression on both of us, so we are cognizant of the reason we are together — not just for each other, but for our whole family unit.”

Work through anger

I remember the door-slamming, plate-throwing fights of our younger, more passionate years with detached amusement. Who has time for that now?Wedding_2

In our 30 years together David and I have buried (or scattered) one parent, three siblings, two dogs and even some friends. Time speeds up with each passing decade. Experience has shown me how little we control what twists and turns our lives will take, or how our sense of security may be uprooted.

A boss once told me she feared losing her “edge” as she got into her 50s. Not so for me. I like the softness and compassion that have come with age.

Invariably, when either David or I gets moody or short-tempered, we shift gears, forgive quickly and move on. We don’t have time for sharp words or prolonged resentments, the drama that once fueled what we took for romance.

Laughter and companionship are key in long-term marriage. “We talk, always,” says a friend who has been married 15 years. “We’re honest. We laugh a lot. We take care of each other, not because we have to — but because we want to.”

Love the one you’re with

Stephen Stills’ paean to infidelity has a different meaning to me after three decades of marriage.

David and I are under no illusions that we were “made for each other.” In fact, our temperaments and interests often diverge. His relaxed approach to agendas and timelines drives me crazy. My quick-paced brainstorming and tendency to think aloud set him on edge. He smokes and loves sugar. I eat consciously and exercise daily.

Each of us has friends of the opposite sex and could be happy with someone else — or contented on our own. We’re both readers and contemplative types at heart. But we found each other, and that’s the clay we shape and mold.

Our differences coalesced into a surprisingly congruous approach to raising our sons. Aside from religion — I don’t think we exposed them to enough of it; David went on too many forced marches to Mass ever to inflict mandatory church-going on his kids — we have few disagreements about values in our household.

Growing up together helps. “John and I have a long history together,” says a friend and former coworker who has been married for 23 years. “We met at age 18 and got married at 24. Our life histories are intertwined.”

When I told my husband I was writing a blog post on how long-term marriages endure, he objected. “You didn’t ask me!” he cried.

So, what’s kept us together? His response touched and surprised me, even after 30 years: “Love.”

Women and Money: Earn, Save and Spend (in that order)

1 Reply

St. Paul–based financial educator Ruth Hayden has been giving women the same advice about money for 25 years.

And it’s not because she’s out of touch with the persistent problems of the gender pay gap or the glass ceiling. Far from it. No, Hayden — who literally wrote the book about women and money back in 1992 — is discouraged about how little has changed for female wage-earners in the past quarter century.Ruth Hayden

“I get more sophisticated questions than I got 20 years ago,” says Hayden, whose “Women and Money” classes are consistently sold out and whose four books include one on couples and money. “Women know the language. They know they have to make money. But they’re still deferring too long on investing, and they’re not earning enough.”

Advice may be cheap, but a conversation with the ever-quotable Hayden — a regular with Kerri Miller on Minnesota Public Radio — is like striking gold.

On financial education: “To my toes, I am a teacher. And there are three areas of money I work in:

“One, how do I earn money? Is it enough? Is the income stream sustainable? Because I’ll likely work a lot longer than I thought I would. Two, how do I consume or spend my money? Am I in charge of it? Three, how much do I accumulate? Am I in charge of my savings and investments?

“Without the first one in place — a solid income stream — the other two don’t hold.”

On saving as a necessary discipline: “The biggest risk for women is that we don’t get enough money put away fast enough. Two factors are at work: We don’t earn enough in a job that is sustainable, and we are uneducated about where to put that money. Because we feel incompetent about investing, we ignore it.”

On learning to invest: “Financial advisors tell women to pay off their house. And women like that. They like the concept of home, and they can touch it. But that’s why so many women are living in a paid-off house but don’t have enough money coming in to have a decent life inside of that house.

“Instead of telling women what they want to hear — ‘pay off your house’ — we need to encourage women to come into a field they’re uncomfortable with, and that’s the stock market. It is the only game in town to create money over time that grows ahead of inflation and taxes. All the stock market is, is other people’s businesses.”

On how to have money when you’re old: “I can start a business that I later will be able to sell. Second, I can invest in other people’s businesses, and that’s the stock market. Third, I can invest in real estate, including my own house.

“Men prefer the first one. They assume they will build a business and someone else will highly value it. I like a mixture of the three.”Women invest

On why women resent work: “If you lined up 10 women and asked them this question, they’d say, ‘Oh, no, I don’t resent my job. I have to earn money.’ Then you let the conversation go informal, and it may come out. It’s the resentment at having to do it.

“The women who are always exhausted or resentful about work have an issue with work. Somehow, they expect to be taken care of — and it used to be by a man. It’s not politically correct to say that now. But when I push on this in the women’s class, the room gets very quiet.”

On the ambiguity inherent in making choices: “Very few decisions are either right or wrong. There’s always a downside. That’s how you make a decision: ‘I want this upside, and I can manage and live with the downside.’

“This is where couples get fussed up. They look for a right and wrong. Instead of getting tangled in who’s right and who’s wrong, ask the question this way: What is the upside and what is the downside? Find a process to work through it. Make it a brainstorming session.”

On career vs. job: “When women are really overstressed, they say they’ll work in a flower shop or bookstore. No, those don’t pay well. That’s a job, and a job is temporary. A job is something I wish I didn’t have to do.

“Women need to get more engaged in the way we make money. It’s about learning to develop a career: A career is part of me. A career grows with me. Emotionally and intellectually, I own a career. And then we have to find a way to make the career more sustainable long term, because most of us will be earning money a lot longer than we thought we would be.”

On discomfort with age: “A Twin Cities–based corporation brought me in because their younger employees weren’t enrolling in the 401(k) plan. They showed me a digitized photo of me aged to 80. My brain did not recognize me. If I can’t recognize myself, why would I put money toward that person? Why would I invest money for retirement?

“I recently had a client, at 56, take $18,000 out of her retirement funds to pay for plastic surgery. And she is so happy! But she’s not examining the back end of that choice. Three decades from now, that $18,000 could go a long way toward making her comfortable.”

On women and power: “Women still feel powerless in their lives. When we pull out the credit card and get what we want: In that moment, we feel powerful.”