I’m afraid to open the veluxes because of the threat of finding yet another large spider. I don’t mind having to dispose of it, but I hate the idea of having one walking around without me knowing. A great alternative to open windows is to go for your daily walk. You’re far from neighbours, from smokers, from metalworking and more. You are free to daydream. Today the Mont Blanc was clearly visible. The image is at max zoom with an iphone 8+.
Yesterday and today the harvesters are out collecting corn and sunflowers. I captured a harvester as it dumped sunflower seeds into a trailer before moving on to finish the field. It is a shame to miss it at work.
Today I got a step closer to being able to control WordPress more proficiently than I can at the moment. With hierarchies related to taxonomies via specialist post creation. Coding your own post types and your own taxonomies gives you enormous control over what you can do with WordPress. I have projects. I know how I want to use this newly acquired knowledge.
This website will be overhauled. The static part will be moved into the CMS, and the CMS will behave, as the old website did, but with ease of new post creation and more. The challenge is in updating to new technologies, and using this process as a learning and consolidation phase, as I did with CSS and other technologies over the years and decades.
I don’t feel comfortable writing about my trials and tribulations on Linkedin because it feels as though you need to be at your peak, rather than as a between achievements point. With the blog, I can document the learning curve, and the progress I make as I work towards acquiring new skills, in my efforts to build a different career path than the things I have done so far. I also have a project to work on in my free time, aside from the website. The second project is ambitious, and useful. You will learn more, as I get ready to reveal more.
The pandemic continues. People continue suggesting to do things in the physical world but I find little to no desire to be in close proximity to others, The only moment I am, is when I am cycling.
Today I didn’t bother wearing a mask to recycle, not because I didn’t have it with me but because there were no people around. This proves that when the pandemic is over and that risks are minimal, I will resume normal life, without a mask at all times.
I can keep dreaming of that day.
Just as I was thinking, “I have nothing to write about because I have been walking around in circles for three or four years I find that at least virtually I have almost achieved a big project. Walking 819 kilometres on the Camino De Santiago. I am now four kilometres from the end. By the end of tomorrow morning I will have completed this goal.
In reality nothing special, as I haven’t had to change my routine, suffer or anything else. What does surprise me is how quickly I completed the challenge. I could have accomplished the goal in more time. I have more than 100 days left to complete the challenge. Now we know how long it would take me to complete, in the physical world.
Pacer, for one year, costs 29CHF and for a while I thought that this was prohibitive for what is essentially a step counting app. I eventually did pay because I like having the longer term virtual goals. I like the idea of walking around the Mont Blanc, or walking the Camino De Santiago. It is also nice to see some of the additional data you get. The app tells me that I have taken taken 18 million steps over 768 hours over a period of 1890m days for a total distance of 21,142 kilometres. I am also more active than 97.2 percent of the users within my age group.
I suspect that this app is aimed at people who are not in the habit of walking two hours a day. I think it is aimed to the type of people who walk half an hour to an hour a day but want to achieve more. It provides audio coaching, simple goals for steps, duration and more. It also offers nutritional advice and more. It also offers a group of people to interact with, who are not striving for KOMs, legendary status or personal records. It is aimed at runners, walkers, hikers and people who like to feel that their circular walks are leading to somewhere interesting. That’s why I eventually decided to play with the premium features for a year.
This is an image of Nyon on a day when the thermometer indicated at least 31°c on a sunny Sunday afternoon. In this image you can see the CGN boat leaving Nyon and heading towards Geneva. You can see the Jet D’eau in the background. You can see a sailing boat in the distance, some kayakers nearby and two pedalos. What you don’t see in this image are the people playing volleyball, other people sitting at Nyon Plage or yet more people at the Nyon Swimming Pool.
From Nyon you can cycle along the lake road to Geneva or Lausanne and if you feel you have the stamina you could cycle from Nyon to Nyon by taking the long way around. This may take 10 hours depending on your level of fitness and endurance.
If this does not tempt you then you could go up to the Jura. You can either go up towards La Dôle and choose one of three routes to get to the doppler radar or you could go to St Cergue and walk from that side to the peak. The walk is short but physical so make sure to take appropriate shoes and something to drink.
If those options do not tempt you then you can catch the boat you see in the image above or the smaller boat that you see below. These boats are regular. People like to take the boat from Nyon to Yvoire, have lunch, dinner or an ice cream and then come back. If you have the right friends then you could do this trip on a sailing boat as we used to do frequently with one friend.
Nyon has quite a few activities to distract people in summer so if you’re in the region there are a few events and activities to choose from.
In three days I will have closed the activity on an Apple Watch 1750 times. I have a love hate relationship with the device. That Love/hate relationship started when I broke the screen on my Series three watch when climbing but continued on when I got into the habit of allowing the move goal to be raised every single week. In the end I was walking four hours per day, every day, during lockdown, to fill the rings. I eventually got fatigued.
Although I say that I have almost reached the daily activity goal 1750 times this is rubbish. I have reached it far more than this. There are plenty of cases where I was wearing an apple watch, a garmin or a suunto and Apple either counted all three and then counted none, or it didn’t count anything at all.
It might sound impressive to wear the Apple Watch and fill those rings 1750 times but to me it is a sign of Apple’s desire to turn me into a quantified self addict. Does reaching a calorie goal count for anything?
According to Suunto, Garmin, Xiaomi and even Apple daily walks don’t count towards Vo2 max, so the Apple Watch is pushing me to reach 10,000 steps per day, and pushing me to burn a certain number of calories per day, but in reality a three or four kilometre run would count for more.
My fitness shoots up when I walk and cycle, but it stagnates, or even declines as I walk daily.
I want my daily walks, runs and my regular bike rides, via ferrata and more to be enjoyed in the moment, without it being about a badge. Garmin and Apple make it about badges. Sports Tracker, Suunto and others make it about the experiences. I prefer the yearly distance by Strava as a measure of progress.
When I did the via ferrata on Sunday last week I was curious to see whether I would break the screen or not. A few years ago I broke the screen on a series four when indoor climbing. I don’t know whether it’s the rope, or hitting a plank of wood that fractured the screen. Since then my passion for Apple Watches has been muted.
Although I love to hate the Apple Watch it does give more data than the Suunto Peak 5 and the Garmin Instinct Solar. It gives me power as watts for running, HRV (heart Recovery Value) and Vo2 max for running and cycling. Without this data I believe I would stop wearing the Apple Watch.
Reaching the daily calorie goal for 1750 days means that I have reached that goal for 4.8 years. I have had an Apple watch since around the 11th of July 2018. In three days I could write about what I have learned after reaching the daily activity goal for 1750 days. I think it has no value. It’s a way for them to ensure loyalty to what I see as a mediocre device.
Normally I walk from village to village. My walks can take me through four to six villages per walk. I walk from village to village in part because I live in the middle of a landscape where walking from village to village is easy.
I had doubts about today’s run because I can feel various parts of my legs. I can feel that they are under a different strain than usual, due to the running. I felt fine when I was running, but after sitting I could feel ligaments and tendons. I find myself considering taking proper rest days where I don’t walk at least ten thousand steps as I think that running and walking puts a lot of strain on my body. It could simply be that I need to perfect my running technique.
I seriously considered delaying the run. I started walking and when I felt fine I decided to run, and when I ran I felt fine for the entire run. I was ready to stop running when I met the required distance for today. Somehow the running distance, and what I feel comfortable running are well matched.
The next run will be on Sunday. 2.4 kilometres should be easier than this three kilometre run. After that it will be a four kilometre run. I think that for that one I will either run by the lake or around the Lac De Divonne.
I am getting close to running the distance I set out to run. From then on it will be about having the discipline not to push to cover a bigger distance, and to work on style and speed. I don’t want to make the same mistake as I did a few years ago. The aim is comfort, and time, over distance. The run and walk combination is working well for me.
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@admin Now it should work