This former figure skater shook off her extreme hibernation and found freedom by rediscovering Toronto’s outdoor rinks

I've always been the indoors type, but the pandemic has dramatically increased my homebody tendencies. I'm too embarrassed to reveal how many consecutive days I have spent inside. Even in the summer as people flocked to Trinity Bellwoods and a car-free Lake Shore, I remained cocooned at home. According to the Health app on my iPhone, there was a day in July when I only took 172 steps. Then as the temperature dropped and Torontonians began mentally preparing for a long winter, I came to the horrible realization that I had squandered away the precious warm months. So when the city announced that skating rinks would open in November, I jumped at the chance to make up for lost time. I made a simple pact with myself: go skating as much as possible on as many different rinks as I could.