This weekend I have the choice between running, hiking, walking, via ferrata and probably more. Years ago I would have automatically gravitated towards Via Ferrata because that is a sport I really loved. These days I’m not so sure. It’s especially that the VF would take one and a half hours of driving, which isn’t really the issue, but that it starts at around 11:30, which, for me, is late.
This year, as I walk and hike with others, and as their activities are shown along my own, in the list of participants, so I begin to follow people I know on Strava, Komoot and other social networks focused on sports. Notice how I didn’t call them social media. The reason for this is simple. We’re sharing GPS tracks that are categorised by sports.
This weekend I saw that one or two people I know seemed to do group activities and I felt left out, because I had not seen them advertised on GoSocial or Meetup.
Recently I have been hiking so regularly, and on such long hikes that I rest during the week. Two weeks ago I hiked a lot and we had Vision Du Réel so I didn’t run or cycle much.
This morning I could have gone for a group run with people in Geneva but it felt like a big effort to see just four people. It’s not that I didn’t want to go, but rather that I didn’t want to drive or travel to Geneva twice in one day.
If you live in towns it’s easy to do things. You walk half an hour to an hour and you’re ready to do something. In contrast, if you live in a village doing the same thing would require a lot of traveling.
Tomorrow, for example, I could travel into Geneva in the morning, to run with a group, and then go home, have lunch. Eventually I could drive back to the same town, but this time for the cinema.
Normally I like to go for a run in the afternoon, after I have had a productive morning. This morning I went for a run first. This afternoon I have to go to an indoor meeting, which doesn’t fill me with euphoria. I feel an e-mail would achieve the same thing within a few minutes. Having said this I have skipped that meeting for three or four years so I feel obligated to go this afternoon.
Yesterday or recently I had a discussion about running. The discussion was about whether I have a favourite time of day to run and whether I can eat before a run and still run.
The answer is that I’m flexible in the time at which I run. I can run as easily first think in the morning at 5am as right before lunch, as after lunch. it really doesn’t matter.
Apple push us to get the Apple Watch Series 10, the Ultra 2 or the Apple Watch SE in third place. If you’re a runner, and you don’t feel like spending on the Ultra or the Ten then it makes sense to get the SE instead.
Although the SE is the cheaper option it still provides us with plenty of running metrics. It provides heart rate, pace, power, cadence, vertical oscilation, ground contact time, stride length, workout time, distance, elevation gain, average cadence, average pace, average power, active kilocalories, total kilocalories and more.
All climbers are familiar with this. You’re on a climb or a via ferrata and you look up but you don’t see what to do so you feel stuck. As a result you try one hold, and then another, and then a third and eventually you stop. That’s when you remember to look down.
If you look down you see that there is a foot hold 10 to thirty centimetres higher that will give you the extra reach that will allow you to climb onwards.
Recently I have been walking and running into and out of Nyon and in the process I have had to cross busy roads regularly and what has struck me recently, especially when running is that people stop to let me cross the road, even when they don’t need to. I really appreciate this.
When you cycle and walk between villages cars skim you, fast and close, and after several years of it I grew tired of it so I shifted to walking towards Nyon, along pavements, and avoiding busy roads when I could.
Today I followed a link where a writer wrote “My every-other-day workout is walking three miles, fast, on a high incline on the treadmill—often times with hand weights too.” and I find it amusing. It’s amusing because in Switzerland, and especially in the old town of Geneva, Nyon, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Fribourg and other towns it is impossible to go for a walk without having a steep climb or a steep descent.