Fitness Tip: teens aim to stay active this summer
On the last day of school we asked some of the students at Dickinsfield Junior High School how active they planned to be this summer and what sort of things they were going to do. We chose this age group knowing that kids, especially girls, stop being as active as they were once they become teens when physical activity can take a back seat to other priorities.
We put the same questions to their uber-active principal, Karin Kincaid.
Here’s what they said. Katelyn Curtis, 14: I have three cheer camps to do. I play soccer with my brother all the time and I always play basketball with my friends. I’m going to be constantly active. Lisa Downie, 14: Honestly, I don’t really have a plan for keeping active this summer. If my family wants to go kayaking I’ll go kayaking, if my family wants to go swimming I’ll go swimming. If my family wants me to do activities, I’ll do them. I won’t complain. But honestly, I’d just rather be in my room on Facebook most of the time. I play games too. Sims is my favourite. Jimmy Rodriguez, 15: I’m going to play basketball with my friends. Brooklynn Mills, 13: I have numerous summer camps, I have two basketball camps, and I’m actually going off to California for a gymnastics camp, and it’s the top in the world, so that’s going to be fun. And I also have taekwondo at Londonderry Mall, and I’ll be volunteering there a lot; in fact, I teach there. I just have so much going on. Dylan Spindler, 14: I’m really fairly active throughout the summer. When I go camping, I love to go hiking. I love going biking — I go biking around the complex where I live, or at Rundle Park for an hour to an hour and a half. I also love going competitive swimming — it’s what I’m good at. I’m not so good at other sports, but I’m willing to try them. Desmond Douglas, 14: I’m going to be extremely active because I’m going to be biking around the city a lot and I also have taekwondo tournaments I have to go to. Also, I’m going to go hiking with my mom. I try being active mostly every day. Riley Cummings, 13: I’m somewhat active, but I’m going to be pretty active this summer. I’ll probably hang out with friends, go biking, do a bit of sports like play soccer, basketball, stuff like that. When I have nothing to do I’ll probably watch TV or play games. That usually happens later in the summer. William Monga, 14: I’m going to be kind of active and kind of lazy. I’ll come to the basketball court and play basketball or I’ll go train with my big brother, Nelson, like drills or I’ll like go to practices with him. He plays on the Red Storm, a community basketball team. On my lazy days I’m usually sleeping in, or I play video games with my little brother. There are usually more lazy days than active days. I choose to be lazy because I don’t want to put in that much effort into playing sports. I wouldn’t have a problem with being active every day, I can do that, but I choose not to. Principal Karin Kincaid, 42: My husband, Jason, and I are taking our road bikes to Europe and road cycling from Vienna to Paris. He’s a triathlete training for Ironman, and I do running races. We’re meeting up with friends from Australia, Germany, Eastern Canada — there are nine adults. We’ve self-organized the trip so we had to find the cycling routes that are going to be the safest. Our goal is to do some of the big mountain passes in Switzerland and Italy, so we’re going through parts of the Alps, some of which are on the Tour de France. There’s a big one called the Stelio Pass which is 35 kilometres uphill and, at an average grade of 18 per cent, it’s exceptionally steep. That will probably be the most challenging day. Our entire lives are so active, every holiday, every break we have, is involved with something to do with training or racing.