Tag: landscape

  • Incline Walking for People in a Flat Country

    Incline Walking for People in a Flat Country

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    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.

    If I walk my pandemic loops I have several steep climbs, to get into my village, but also to get into or out of other villages. It’s normal for all walks to involve an incline and a decline. That’s why running around here can be quite physical.

    If I run from home to Nyon I can run downhill almost the entire way but if I want to run a loop then I have to run or walk uphill at some point, especially if I go down to the loop. In this landscape you don’t need an inclined treadmill to climb. The landscape is already inclined.

    Whilst they write that inclines are kinder on joints declines are not. If you’re hiking downhill you’re braking with every step, and knees take a lot of strain.

    I’d also add that sometimes indoor training can do damage. I suspect that it’s when I increased resistance on one or two types of machines that my knee joints worked too hard and became weakened. I suspect that it’s because of indoor workout machines that I damaged my knees. I would be wary of allowing the resistance to be too high.

    And Finally. in some countries, and some regions, you can’t avoid climbing and descending, so the notion of runs and walks being flat is moot. In London people can go 20km with twenty metres of climbing. In Switzerland you would climb at least 200m, if not more on some daily walks.

  • Views from 2022 – day One

    Views from 2022 – day One

    Reading Time: < 1 minute
    A cat keeping watch on the port

    A cat keeping watch on the port, to see whether a new load of fresh fish has arrived.

    A snorkeller exploring to see if there are any fish left.
  • Yet Another Sunny Day

    Yet Another Sunny Day

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    As I looked straight down from a bridge today I noticed that the river is so low that the river bed has become bone dry in places. In other places you see that the gress is turning yellow. When tractors tend to the fields you see that they are stirring up clouds of dust. It is so dry, so often, that it is only a matter of time before forest fires burn down local forests.

    A boat from La Belle époque on the Lac Léman
    A boat from La Belle époque on the Lac Léman

    Plenty of people are miserable for the rain, but when these consistent droughts lead to forest fires that remove the landscape and vegetation that we are used to they will not be so happy. They do not understand that these droughts are not normal. The fact that I didn’t use weather apps for years tells you how stable the weather system we’re in is.

    I often walk by a door in a wall that frames this view. It’s a nice view. A nice garden with nice trees, the lake, a boat from the Belle époque and behind it the French side of the Lake, Haute Savoie and the Alps. A churchyard has a similar view, but with the train line as a bonus. If I was patient I could get the boat, a train and the rest of the landscape.

    I am currently studying node.js, to see what I may eventually understand. So far most of the ideas and concepts are self-explanatory. The challenge will be in finding a project idea and getting it to work. Slowly I am getting to understand this topic. Node.JS looks intuitive to use.

    Part of my motivation came from listening to the Javascript Jabber podcasts while I walk. It’s easy to hear about React, Angular, Laravel and other frameworks but it’s more interesting to hear about all the other smaller projets, like history.js, apline.js and many others. I like the idea of having specialist frameworks for specific tasks.

    I felt overwhelmed by Angular, and then by Javascript. By changing context I am trying to get a different perspective, in an attempt to get a broader understanding of what various parts do. I am already better equipped for when I return to Laravel or Angular. I am also better equipped to understand typescript and Coffeescript etc.

  • The Landscape

    The Landscape

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    The view is not as good as sometimes. A few clouds but with the haze hiding the Alps today.

  • The Dynamism Of Light – Walking on a Cloudy Day

    The Dynamism Of Light – Walking on a Cloudy Day

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    If we did not have seasons, and weather, then walking the same route several times a week would get boring. Thanks to the weather we see plants get sown, we see them grow, we see them harvested, and then we see new plants planted. Over time, we recognise plants at an earlier and earlier stage of development. Today I saw that cherries are close to being ready to be picked, so it may be time to prepare Foret Noir.

    Looking from Crans towards Lausanne etc.
    Looking from Crans towards Lausanne etc.

    I installed WordPress 5.8 alpha on my local computer to play around with. I won’t play around with it today because I have to be focused on something else until tomorrow evening. Tomorrow evening, I will regain the freedom to study what I feel like studying.

  • A walk Above the Woods

    A walk Above the Woods

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Sometimes a walk above the woods is easy. I don’t mean walking while flying hanging from a parapente. I mean walking at an altitude where there are fewer trees.

    The walk from the transmission mast of La Bariellette to La Dôle is an easy walk that I have done many times. Sometimes I have done it at dusk. Sometimes I have done it with snow and sometimes I have done it when I was walking through clouds. Usually people do it when the weather is nice

    There are two routes. One Route is safe for children, dogs and people who are not used to exposed paths. It is on the Jura side. The other option is more dangerous because the path is not maintained. If you slip you could fall to your death. There are no ropes, cables or chains to hold onto. When the dangerous option is wet it is slippery.

    Today the weather was nice but the visibility was crap compared to what I have experienced on other walks. We couldn’t see the Alps, for example.

    It’s amusing because on this walk I heard a lot of English spoken. Usually you hear a lot of French as French speakers enjoy the walk. The only wildlife I saw on this walk were groups of birds going after insects. They were feasting. With good weather the wildlife like to hide from human attention.

    This was day five of week three of the Escape plan. I have easily managed to reach the goal as I do fifteen minutes or more of exercise every single day.

    The walk to La Dôle is a good way of getting exercise because of how much walking you have to do uphill one way and how much walking you have to do going the other way. If you feel ambitious you can walk from Nyon to La Dôle and from La Dôle down to St Cergue. In St Cergue you can catch the train back down. I have only done the long variant once.

    Walking from La Barillette to La Dôle is a seasonal walk. It can only be done when the road to the top is open. As soon as the snow comes the road closes to ordinary traffic and it is cut off from the world. In Winter you would need to do it with snowshoes and the walk would be considerably longer.

    This is a nice walk to do during a day off or during the weekend. Some people even use the routes to practice trail running. It’s a 8km circuit and will definitely give you a workout. For walkers it is a nice walk to a nice viewpoint to see the bassin Lemanic.