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Running Around in Loops
Over the last week or two I decided to run and to swim. These are two sports that are easy to do if you have access either to a pool, or the right shoes. Swimming was in 14°c water for 17 and ten minutes. The first time my hands and feet were cold so I wore gloves. It’s a way of enjoying a different sport than usual. It’s a way of using different muscle groups too.
With walking and cycling you use your legs but the upper body doesn’t do much. By swimming my upper body has the opportunity to be kept in better shape.
Running is a very easy sport to do. You need shoes, and the motivation to go for a run. I often feel that I need to do bigger distances than I have the endurance to do. For two runs I went just one kilometre. After that, today, I went for 2.4km. This isn’t far, but it’s better than zero. I also want to preserve my knees. I stopped because I could feel pain in my knees begin.
The Casio Moves app displays run information in a similar way to Garmin. It shows the run with colours that represent heart rate and effort. Blue for easy, green for slightly harder, orange for another zone, and red for a bigger effort. I use the data imported from the Garmin instinct exported as a TCX file from Garmin to the Casio Moves web interface. It takes seconds, and doesn’t require a Casio watch. With Garmin, Apple and Suunto you do not have this option so it’s nice.
And finally, I will try to keep the habit of running at least one kilometre every day or two. It’s an easy habit to keep and it will keep me fitter. The advantage of running, rather than walking is that you cover the same distance in half the time. It makes the daily walk half as time consuming, once I increase my endurance.
The Daily Struggle to Find Something to Write About – CloudNeo Shoes
For three hundred and sixty two days I have struggled to find a topic to write about. In that time I have, more than once, felt, during my walk, that I had a great idea for the next day, only to deflate the next morning.
On CloudNeo
Yesterday as I was running I considered writing about the On CloudNeo Shoes. They’re shoes that you pay for, monthly, rather than weekly, and you can get them replaced every 90 days. If you browse to the site you will see a count down for when to get them replaced.
They started being so clean and white that I didn’t like having such obviously new shoes on my feet. I don’t like when clothes are so obviously new. I prefer them to have a little more character.
Or maybe I just prefer darker colours on my feet. Light grey shoes are fine. The thing about white shoes, in rainy weather, is that they quickly get caked in mud. Once they’re muddy the’re less obviously new, so they’re more comfortable to run in.
Cost Spread Over Time
The CloudNeo are interesting for two reasons. The first is that they enable you to get running shoes at a monthly cost, and the faster you wear them out, the better the deal you get. The other advantage is that running shoes are often 200-300 francs per pair. That’s a lot to pay for shoes, that, in the end you don’t find comfortable.
Years ago I bought expensive hiking shoes, and I used them in the arctic circle, at first, before using them for hikes, via ferrata and climbing for years to come. That’s right, years. I then bought another pair of hiking boots and they lasted days, or weeks. It’s not the boots that failed. It’s that they were too tight around my ankles and I felt as if my ankles would break if I continued to wear them.
I then bought a cheap pair from Decathlon and these are nice and comfortable. The point is that expensive shoes can just as easily be fantastic, as cheap shoes, so it’s worth trying cheap shoes first.
The Experience
When you get the Cloud Neo shoes they come in a white bag with velcro. You open the velcro, pull out the shoes, and wear them indoors for a bit, to see how they feel. This is because you have 30 days to test these shoes before you’re commited for six months. If you try them outdoors and find they’re uncomfortable then they’ll be dirty and will be recycled, rather than sent to someone else.
When I determined that they were comfortable, walking around indoors, I tried running with them, and they felt okay so I kept them. I’ve been with them for several runs now and they’re fine. My knees don’t hurt as I run with them.
I did notice with normal shoes, after wearing barefoot shoes, that my ankles tend to roll more, especially on rough surfaces. I don’t know whether it’s because the shoes are not stable, or because I lost the habit of wearing normal shoes. In either case I have had to relearn to run, in normal shoes, on uneven surfaces.
I like a little more rigidity in the back. I often find that my heel folds the back of the shoe as I put them on. Other than that I like the shoe laces and I like that they’re light. They’re not weatherproof but they’re so light that if they do get wet it doesn’t matter because they dry without any concious effort.
Minimal Grip So Mud Removal is Quick
The base of the shoes has very basic grip, so if the ground is slippery you’ll know. Some people might see that as a drawback but I see this as an advantage. If you go running through mud, for any reason it takes seconds to clear mud away from the shoes, rather than minutes. Last year I regularly spent 10-20 minutes after every walk clearing the mud from my shoes. With these shoes I don’t need to.
They are aimed at road runners and dry trail running, not muddy or uneven surface running. It’s on roads that you want good padding so they’re well suited to various types of road running.
After 90 days, or when you’ve worn them through, within six months, you can get them replaced and get brand new recycled shoes and start again.
These shoes are made from bio-based resources and the expectation is that you will recycle them every three to six months. They say “You don’t own these shoes, you just use them for a bit, and then return them.
When you get the shoes they come in a white bag with a velcro fastening. Within this bag you have the shoes, but you also have the return address for the shoes. You can send the shoes back, and a new pair will be sent to you.
Recycling Shoes
With conventional shoes you wear them, and once they’re worn out you attempt to get them recycled but they’re counted as bulky recycling so I don’t know what happens to them. With these shoes they’re sent back to their home, they are shredded, cleaned, and then turned into new shoes.
An added bonus to having shoes that are made from “bio-based resources” is that as they get worn down through use, their remains are not harmful to the environment. Mine will, in theory, be ready for recycling in over 65 days from now.
Estimated Cost
If you replace these shoes every three months then they come to about 105 CHF. If you replace them after six months they come to 210 CHF. The faster you wear through a pair of shoes, the more affordable the plan is, but conversely, the worse your habit is for the environment, since shoes require energy to be recycled and reused.
Although they are sold as running shoes I wear them for running and walking. I usually run for a set distance and once I have finished the run I walk. These shoes are okay for both but I don’t like these shoes like I like the Merrel trail glove 7 shoes. If I had this deal for Merrel Trail Glove 7 then I would be very happy. I have been using Merrel shoes for years and I like them, especially since some of them are so cheap, but I wear them out too fast. With a subscription model I wouldn’t worry about how fast I wear them out because I would get a new pair when I needed it.
Children and Shoe Rental
As I write this I believe that a good niche market for this would be children, because children grow out of shoes, before they even wear them out. By renting children shoes you would ensure that children always get new shoes when required.
Side of the Road Walking
The moment when I don’t like these shoes is when I am walking in the grass to avoid being run over by a car driver who doesn’t slow down or take precautions when seeing pedestrians by the side of the road. I feel my feet and ankles twisting at unsafe angles. That’s why I walk on agricultural roads where I know there are very few cars.
And Finally
Running shoes are usually expensive, so paying monthly to spread the cost makes sense, especially if they are replaced every three months. If they’re replaced every six months then they’re much more expensive and the deal is less interesting. You have one month, tho choose to keep the shoes, and then you’re committed for six months, before you can terminate the contract. There is a huge “cancel plan” button, should you decide to cancel the plan.
These shoes fill a niche. They fill the niche of the person who runs 600 kilometres every three to six months and wants their shoes to be recycled, and turned into new shoes. It fills the niche of the person who wears through shoes at a rapid rate. I do, so such a deal is interesting for me, especially if I burn through 600km per three months.
At a rate of 8km per day it would take 75 days to walk/run 600km. This puts me comfortably within the 90 day recycling window.
Garmin Expedition Challenges
Garmin have had challenges for years. Most of them have been about distance, or vertical climbing. Now they have new Expedition challenges. Each expedition is named after an expedition or adventure by the same name.
The Camino De Santiago challenge is a challenge to walk 784 kilometres. The Denali challenge is to climb 6190m. There are two Mont Blanc Challenges. The Mont Blanc challenge is to climb 4808 metres whilst the Mont Blanc Circular (Tour Du Mont Blanc is to walk 160 kilometres.
Due to my character I have chosen to take on the Appalachian Trail challenge. It’s 3500 kilometres of walking, approximately 4.9 million steps. So far I have completed just 17.5 kilometres of that challenge. I have walked four million four hundred and twenty three thousand steps in the last year with an average of twelve thousand six hundred per day.
In theory the challenge will take me more than a year to complete, if it wants me to walk and run the distance. If I can cycle part of it then I will complete this goal within the year.
Climbing and Stepping
At the time of writing this blog post it is possible to take on one climbing challenge at the same time as taking on one stepping challenge. Both progress bars are shown together. With climbing the progress is shown in metres, and for distance it is shown in kilometres.
Pacer Challenges
If you want to try these challenges without paying for a Garmin device Pacer has offered such challenges for years now. You pay 29 CHF per year, and you can try the Camino De Santiago and other challenges. These are based on walking distance rather than height gain.
With Garmin you get a progress bar but with pacer you get your progress shown on a map, alongside everyone else trying the same challenge at the same time. You see how you overtake or keep up with them.
A Month to Completion
I would complete most of the walking challenges within a month, except for the AT and the Camino. The climbing challenges would take me a few weeks at the moment, but if I hike in the mountains in summer then I can reach those goals within three or four hikes, depending on goals.
Frustrations
These challenges count floors climbed and steps taken, rather than distance. This means that you need to walk or run for your efforts to count. Cycling will not count. In a few weeks or months we could find that they add cycling and other challenges, as people work their way through what is already around.
Another frustration is that you can’t save the progress in one challenge, to complete another challenge, before resuming the last. The Camino and AT will take two months to over a year to complete. This means that other challenges will not be possible for that extended amount of time.
Privacy
Due to these challenges being step based, or floor climbing based, you can preserve your privacy. There is no need to track with a GPS because steps are enough. Whether you have a 96 CHF Forerunner 45S (because it’s white and less popular) or a 1200 CHF Fenix or other you’re equal.
My first Wehike Hike
Wehike is a website dedicated to find people with whom to hike. People can contribute hikes to wehike and then they or other people can organise events based on the hike information. This includes a GPX file and images. At the moment this site is in beta so they are looking for user feedback. At the moment they are based in Switzerland but they will be able to expand globally as people contribute hikes and other people participate in these hikes.
I liked yesterday’s hike because for once I was struggling to keep up with the group rather than the opposite. Usually I’m leading the group and stopping every so often to take pictures and because I’m not certain of which fork to take next. In this case they were waiting for me. This is in part due to the Via Ferrata de Saillon trip the day before. I’ll get back to being in front of the group and taking pictures soon.
This hike was interesting because winter is not over. Apparently twenty five centimetres of snow fell the day before. As a result one local recommended that we choose another route than the one we had planned on. We decided instead to see how the conditions were. As is the case when you go for hikes in Spring the damage from winter has not being cleared away. We found trees and branches on the paths and paths that would normally be clear to find required more instinct and orientation than average.
When you start heading up properly you walk straight up through a pasture and you get to a stone ruin. We stopped at the ruin for a snack/lunch. From this point you walk up steep paths near the field’s age with a river to your right until you get to a clearing. From the clearing you walk up some more and you get towards the vista below.
This is a view looking North at a steep climb up. If you continue to the Cap au Moine then you still have some climbing to do. Due to the deep snow and conditions this is the point at which we started heading back down. We walked along in 20-30 centimetre snow falling someone’s snowshoe traces and then headed down.
When the snow is deep and powdery like it was yesterday it’s really fun. You can run and jump down the hill. I would share the photos if I had the participants’ permission. Here’s a taste.
If you look at my GPS trace you will see how fast we were descending the slope. Eventually you get back to the grass and the tree line. When you get back down to the river you cross a stone bridge and to the right you see a waterfall pictured below.
I enjoyed this Wehike because we had the opportunity to navigate and find the route, we got to climb over trees and walk under branches. We also got to walk a steep hill in the snow and run and bound down a snowy slope without worrying. Snow is so much softer for the knees. I would like to redo the hike later in the season when the snow has gone.
Nextcloud and the Open Web
Two evenings ago I played with setting a No-ip host, setup the Swisscom router to make a Pi available in the DMZ so that I could access the apache server and Nextcloud from the open web and it worked. I had it all done within 15-20 minutes. Now for those with the “But why nextcloud?” the answer is simple. It offers two factor authentication and it is trusted by various EU institutions and governments. It is also trusted by Geneva but I don’t remember by whom, at this point.
Multiple Hacks Due to Vulnerable Apps
I have had a website and web presence on the web since 97 or so but in recent years some of my older projects, but also WordPress, were repetitively hacked to the point that I deleted all the old projects that I had on the site because they made my website vulnerable to attack. Several times my website was locked and I had to spend several hours, or even days to restore access. After a few experiences I streamlined recovery, but I also increased security. Now all my accounts have two factor authentication and each site has a different password.
PhotoPrism Unvetted
In theory PhotoPrism would be fun to have on the open web, because I could upload images, and share them more easily. The drawback is that I haven’t RTFMed (Read the fabulous manual) on two factor authentication for PhotoPrism.
WP and NC Two Factor Authentication
WordPress and NextCloud are both designed with the option for two factor authentication so those are the two sites that I have running. For a while I thought “but if I run it through the tailscale VPN that’s good enough for me” and it is. I’m happy to block off full access to these services, so that only I, and those I share these devices with have access but at the same time it’s good to learn and to experiment.
Easier than Expected
I expected that punching a hole through the server would be complicated but it was easy. I intuitively knew what to do without RTFM. I should add that I have spent the last three years studying related topics so “intuitive” means “put in the hours”.
Firewalled
I also set up UFW the morning before attempting this experiment and I tested whether I had SSH access from the World Wide Web. It’s when I saw that I didn’t that I setup two factor authentication. If that wasn’t the case I would have deleted the no-ip address.
The Advantage of the Open Web
The advantage of having the servers on the open web is that I can share links to files more easily when required to do so. It also means that I can backup photos whilst I’m out, without having to log in through the VPN.
The disadvantage is that I need to verify that my setup is secure and I need to spend time checking that SQLi attacks, among others are not possible. I added wordfence for the WordPress install and brute force protection and two factor authentication to NextCloud. Having done these things I still want to do some more research to ensure that the sites are secure on that one server.
The VPN Advantage
The VPN advantage is that I control access and it’s behind security protocols put in place by Tailscale. It should be harder for people to gain malicious access.
And Finally
Now that I have seen how simple it is to make a home server available to the World Wide Web, rather than hidden behind a VPN I might setup a smaller instance with less storage that is setup to back up photos and videos while I’m hiking and walking, but that would be emptied and moved to a more secure instance within my personal network.
Time for more experimentation.