The 298 Km Walking and Running Challenge

The 298 Km Walking and Running Challenge

Byrichard

The 298 Km walking and Running Challenge is now ten days old and I’ve managed to run or walk the required distance every day. Yesterday rather than walk I decided to run despite the rain. As a result, a pair of my hiking trousers are now nicely covered in mud. I walked through two puddles near home hoping that most of the mud would wash off the shoes and it seems to have worked.


While writing this blog post I see that I need to run at least once a week for six months to get a running pace. It’s a shame it can’t take the data from activities like Strava does. It says “as you get faster your speed goes up and your pace goes down”. My problem is not with speed or pace. It’s with technique. I’m still trying to get my knees not to suffer when I run.


I can walk and cycle without pain, but running is uncomfortable, I need to work on the quality of my stride but that’s a topic for another time.


The weather is finally better. When I checked the temperature my watch said that it’s 16°C outside, which means that my conventional walks can start taking place again. I often walk ten-kilometre loops on the roads around here.


During my walks I listen to podcasts. Today I listened to Episode two of the FIFDH series by Histoire Vivante. They have a week of interviews with those who work on this event. Today it was about the film discussions they organise, and their role, as well as the films and their impact on the world. I also listened to How Corona Closed down Italy by The Guardian.


Oscillating Between 9 to 10 Kilometres per day.


During most of this challenge, I have not been on my summer walks but rather on smaller Ingress walks. I get the appropriate amount of steps, but the workout is different. Yesterday when I ran I hardly played Ingress, in part because of the rain but also because I was focused on simply reaching my 5km goal. Today the weather would have been good for cycling but I preferred to take a rest for my legs to recover.


Pelotons


A group of cyclists
A group of cyclists


During my walk I also saw three pelotons of cyclists along a stretch of road. There is a gentle gradient on this road so it is a good taster of what other gradients have to offer later on. I’d like to cycle in a group. So far my experience of cycling has been a solitary one. It would be an interesting experience. It would be different from a critical mass or other less energetic events.


I am now 100 kilometers into my 298 Kilometre challenge with about three weeks to go. At this rate, I will achieve the goal.

The March Walking Challenge

The March Walking Challenge

Byrichard

I’m on the Apple Activities March Walking Challenge this month. The app has decided that I must walk or run 298 kilometres. It’s an average of 9.6 kilometres a day. This is both easy and challenging at the same time. Walking 10 kilometres takes about two hours.


When I had a broken arm I walked more than two hours a day, because I had nothing else I could do. I also walked that much because I couldn’t bike, take the car or drive the scooter. As a result, I needed to walk for everything.


My arm isn’t broken anymore. I’m happy to do two hours of exercise a day. I like to devote some of that time to cycling. Cycling 300 kilometres for me would be around 10 bike rides. I would complete the challenge in 12 hours or less.


App Weaknesses


Last month the challenge was to reach 500 Calories per day for 28 days out of 29 and I would have reached that goal if it hadn’t been for making the mistake of uploading a workout from Strava to Garmin. By doing this the app decided that instead of burning 1200 calories according to the Apple Watch activity app I had done just 220. Instead of being angry or frustrated I simply decided to take it easy for the rest of the month (a whole two days left).


The problem with the Apple watch is that you have no way of saying “use this data, not that data. If you make a mistake you have no way of undoing it.


The weather


We just had two days of rain and today is sunny. When it’s raining the appeal of going for a walk is lower. Going for a walk involves dressing for the rain, not being able to see or hear as well as usual. It also involves feeling the cold wind. Luckily when I was facing into the wind for one leg of yesterday’s walk I was on the last stretch, and I was warm from walking.


I wore my hiking boots. The beauty of hiking boots is that they’re waterproof and you can walk through puddles and streams without getting wet. I did walk through streams and puddles. I enjoy it. I had walked through mud. My excuse for walking in the stream of water by the side of the road was that it would clear the mud off of them before I walked back into the apartment.


One of the paradoxes of apartment cleaning is that it’s always done on the day when you’re most likely to walk in the mud and bring some back in. When mud is wet it stays on the shoes. The next day, when you’re running down the stairs, as usual, you dump a nice trail of mud behind.


Routing (pronounced rooting, not grouting).


I considered changing my routes. I would walk through muddy bits at the beginning of my walks and the clean ones, on the way home. This minimises the quantity of mud on my shoes when I get home. The second option is to wear the hiking shoes I keep in the car, on muddy days. Bringing mud into the garage doesn’t matter.


Methods


  • Ten kilometres a day – two hours of walking
  • Ingress – either by completing missions or by participating in an event
  • Peak days – walk 20 kilometers on some days
  • Running – running the same distance takes less time, but impacts the knees


Walking ten kilometres a day can be achieved either by simply spending as little time sitting as possible. We easily walk ten kilometres a day during a conference. We’re even likely to walk the equivalent of twenty kilometers


Ingress Missions and days are a good way to stand, and walk for hours at a time. In both cases, you’re covering reasonable distances.


Peak days are those where you walk twenty to thirty kilometers on one day, and bank the distance, so that on other days you can devote time to other tasks, such as writing blog posts.


Running is a good way of covering bigger distances in the same amount of time. It requires the right surface and shoes.


The futile Challenge


At the end of the day, the challenge is futile. If I cycle thirty plus kilometers I’m challenging myself to climb up hills, I’m challenging myself to sprint as fast as cars through villages, and sometimes I keep up on 50 kilometer per hour sections. If the weather is good cycling makes more sense.


I should achieve the challenge quickly, and get back to cycling.

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Ingress Walks – A 12km path to Level 13

Byrichard

I stopped playing Ingress a few years ago because of how much time it requires. I have started going on Ingress walks again – a 12km path to level 13 in yesterday’s case, because I’m combining the daily walk that I would do anyway, with listening to podcasts and audiobooks, anyway.


By walking and listening to audiobooks and podcasts I am constantly learning about new things. Recently I’ve been listening to current affairs podcasts, I listened to 13 minutes to the moon, I listened to podcasts about the Swiss Watch Industry and more. Every walk is a journey in learning. I also learn about the fifty objects that made the world and more.



I also listen to books when I walk. These aren’t the most inspiring of books but four of them were free, as part of the books I get by being an audible member via Audible originals. Every walk I go on is an opportunity to learn, without feeling that I am not as productive as I could be.


According to my blog stats, I should have lead with writing about the game Ingress, which I took a break from for years, because of how much time it takes to level up, especially when you live in the countryside.


Luckily as time has progressed so has the ability to suggest and have new portals approved. A 12-kilometre walk had three or four portals. Now it has twenty or thirty. This means that during a walk in the countryside it is worth playing Ingress. Going to a polluted city is no longer required. Even country bumpkins like me can play and progress.


By having portals in the countryside it also opens up the prospect of Ingress bike rides. Last week I cycled from Nyon to Rolle, and from Rolle I went up into the vineyards and I destroyed and captured portals. My health benefited because it was a 40km bike ride with four hundred meters of climbing in between vineyards and some of these climbs are steep.


That’s where you see that cycling in Spain has its advantages. I cycled up steep inclines without suffering or worrying I wouldn’t make it. I also cycled up those steep inclines clipped in. I don’t feel comfortable with cycling up steep hills when clipped in because I’m afraid that if I lose power in my legs I will lose forward momentum, not be able to unclip and fall.


Having said this the swiss hills are nothing compared to the Cumbre Del Sol climb. As you cycle up from Mercadona there is one bit of road that is so steep that you can’t start up again. I know because I made the mistake of stopping there and had to walk a hundred meters or so before I found a portion flat enough to start up again.


In Switzerland, you almost never find such gradients on roads, for the simple reason that it snows and water freezes. Snowploughs and other machines need to go up and down Swiss roads.


The graph shows my Ingress progression from 2015 to today.


To get to level 13 I participated in an Ingress Saturday for the first time in years and I participated in two fielding events, to get one of the medals I was lacking the first time, and for the Didact Field Challenge medal currently taking place.


This month I visited 735 unique portals, discovered one portal, collected 4.7 million XM, walked 117 kilometres (low because most of my walking is without playing ingress) and more. I could bore you with the stats but I’d bore myself too. I also spent three weeks in Geneva as part of a favour for a friend so during my daily walks I got back in the habit of playing Ingress.


I don’t make time to play Ingress. I take advantage that my walks and bike rides take me by Ingress portals and play. By combining Ingress with cycling I go down many more roads than I would otherwise go down. I explore villages that I have no reason to stop in. I treat cycling as a journey, rather than a challenge to get segment personal records. I slow down., to experience the locations. It results in me having a more relaxed bike ride.


Ingress walks are also interesting because local people, who know about features that could be portals suggest them, and as a result, we see a portal off to the side of where we’re going, and we investigate. We capture the portal but we also increase our mental map of the area where we are walking.


Ingress, for a while, was a game for people who lived in town and cities. If you lived in the countryside you had to make time to play. Today Ingress can be played in short bursts and yield better results. It has been from a “chronophage” (waste of time/time consuming)activity, as french speakers would call it, to being, for lack of a better word, integral to our daily activities.


The Return on Investment of time, and distance traveled, to play Ingress, even in the countryside has decreased to the point where it is feasible to level up, without devoting half a day. One hour yields the same result.

Banning Traffic from Cornavin

Byrichard

Although this article is two years old La Tribune de Genève wrote again about it and it appeared in my Google Newsfeed. I am not opposed to making cities pedestrian because I love to walk more than I like buses, trains, or other forms of transport.


I actually do like trains. When I lived in London I liked to take the tube everywhere. I wish someone had encouraged me to try cycling in London because I would have used a bike to get everywhere. I already walked instead of using buses.


If the square in front of Cornavin becomes pedestrian then this will be great for when we walk in Geneva because it means that it will no longer be one of the rare places where we really have to stop and wait for the light for pedestrians to turn green. On frequent Geneva walks it’s one of the most frustrating places. I often skipped the lights by going underground through the galleries. I’m sneaky when it comes to such things.


One of my reservations about blocking traffic through Cornavin is that it is one of the rare routes from Vaud towards Place Plainpalais without getting stuck on the Autoroute de Contournement. It will reduce traffic through the centre of Geneva but force a traffic increase on other roads.


I rarely go to the other side of the lake by car because of how terrible traffic is and I’d be even less likely to go to the area around Plainpalais after that route is blocked.


In my opinion, if you want to dissuade people from using cars, and if you want to reduce traffic the best method is to make public transport more appealing. I use the scooter and walk rather than taking the bus because buses are once an hour and the walk is 20 minutes whatever the departure time from my village to Nyon.


If we take the car to Geneva one of the best routes, depending on the time of day, is via Cornavin, and if that route is removed then the time it takes to get into Geneva will be even longer, and so will the time to get out. When I walked around. Geneva’s centre I saw that even more cinemas have been closed down. Only small cinemas remain, and even some of those are closed down.


After spending around three and a half weeks in Geneva I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have the scooter, not because I was too lazy to walk from Paquis to Meyrin or from Paquis to Carouge but because if you’re shopping for food and you want to get things to the fridge within 15 minutes walking speed is sub-optimal. I also believe that shops in the centre of Geneva have a mediocre selection of products and that because of this people are forced to range further, with a car or other form of transport, to avoid exceeding the 15 minute time between shop fridge to home fridge.


If you want to reduce car use you need to make everything available within a 15-minute walk. Beyond fifteen minutes the duration is too long. I don’t trust buses and trams so I used the scooter.


The last time I cycled with shopping I fell and broke my arm so I’m less inclined to do that again. I was using an old bike and I think the brake jammed, but it demonstrated why it might be safer for me to keep using the scooter. I think a cheap bag with side bags would be just as effective.


I went off topic but I think that making squares pedestrian is not enough. Geneva needs to ensure that people no longer need cars to get from A to B. Cycling needs to be made safer and finally public transport, and especially trains, should be increased so that you never have to wait 20 minutes or more for a train to get in or out of Geneva. I think that placing a pedestrian square there is illogical unless you pedestrianise the streets from the lakeside to Cornavin. Imagine walking from Cornavin to Perle Du Lac without stopping at a traffic light, or from Cornavin to Place Des Nations or Place Plainpalais. That would make taking the train into Geneva appealing if it was possible every ten minutes.

The Foggiest Idea
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The Foggiest Idea

Byrichard

The Foggiest idea, or a pun, after a walk this morning through Geneva on a foggy day. “The Jet D’eau will be off”, I thought. It was pumping out water at its usual rate but you’d find it hard to see. The grey/white fog, along with the white water, converged and became one.





On a day like today, the Jet D’eau is not the only thing that is hard to see. So are the mountains. If you try to see the other side of the lake you see nothing, just a blank canvas on which you could add anything. It’s also a time when you might be happy to go back indoors where it is nice and warm.


Two Swans on a foggy day in Geneva


On such a day it would be interesting to set up a timelapse camera from the top of the RTS tower or some other building. You could capture as the fog burns off and reveals the view. From the top of the RTS tower you have a good view of Geneva and it’s surroundings.


The RTS Tower
The RTS Tower


The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt
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The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt

Byrichard

The walk from Paquis to Decathlon can be almost straight if you take the most direct route. You walk from anywhere in Paquis to the train station and from there you head up towards Balexert and from there you head along the cycle and walking paths that veer slightly to the right, take you over the motorway and then to the airport, by the private aviation terminal. From there the rest of the walk takes a few minutes.





This is similar to the walk I used to do from the old town to Meyrin. The walk is not that interesting. It takes you along the same route as the tram takes you, for almost the entire journey. For a brief moment, you see some smaller, more personal buildings along one road.


If I had known that the more interesting bit of the walk would be on the way back I would have tracked that and taken pictures. There are apartment blocks like in other parts of Geneva but they’re separate, with green space. I also saw a row of older houses along the Avenue de Riant Parc.


When you go by car you go along two or three routes. When you’re on foot or on a bike you explore more. You’re going at a speed where you can look around. You’re also going at a rate where traffic lights are less of a concern.


I notice that there are a lot of electric bikes and electric scooters. People are using these two forms of transport. The sun is shining and the temperatures are good. This makes alternative forms of transport more attractive.

City Cat Sitting.
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City Cat Sitting.

Byrichard

For the first time in my life I am cat sitting. I’m used to village cats and this is a city cat so I don’t know how much time I need to spend with the cat, how much I need to play and more.


When I look after toddlers I know that I have to be attentive to them from the moment they wake up to the moment they nap or sleep. It’s a challenge to have that level of endurance.


I’ve started the first 24hr day of looking after a cat and so far it seems that I’m more attentive than I need to be. I feel like I should keep the window open and keep the cat entertained but this is a cat we’re talking about. They entertain themselves.


If we were in the middle of summer I would go for three to five-hour rides taking advantage of the new starting and endpoint. As we’re in the middle of winter I’m waiting for a film festival to start. As soon as it starts I will have something to do in Geneva. For now, I’ve been walking around and playing Ingress.


It’s nice to be so close to the centre of Geneva. I can walk everywhere within half an hour to an hour. Geneva is a small city when you know it. There is no need for buses, trams, taxis etc. Usually, something like going to the Apple store would be an expedition because it takes a 20-minute walk, a train, and then another 20-minute walk. Today I could do the walk within 20 minutes.


We will see how my impressions change over the coming days.

On the Pleasure of Walking Without Stopping at a Road Crossing.

On the Pleasure of Walking Without Stopping at a Road Crossing.

Byrichard

After watching the video below this paragraph I want to speak on the pleasure of walking without stopping at a road crossing. In modern cities you can’t walk for more than a minute or two without having to stop at a road crossing, a traffic light or other feature. The result is that a stroll or walk is filled with stops and starts.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJ_rgEUSJE


As people move towards urbanised centres, and as more and more people live vertically, on top of each other so the need for gyms, swimming pools, indoor climbing centres and other features become essential. This is because we are designed by evolution for sports. Moving towards urban centres detracts from our ability to do sports in a natural environment.


When I lived in London (North West, Zone four, so not really London ;-)) I would walk 45 minutes each way to university and back because I hated the idea of waiting for the bus. When I went into central London I walk often walk for an hour and a half or more. With time I got to know the city very well.


The same is true of Rome. When you don’t know a city you use public transport to get you close to places and walk the rest of the way. After several days in a city you get to connect every monument or landmark from every other. Getting everywhere by foot becomes simplified and the bus and underground trains become obsolete.


If you go cycling or walking in the countryside you get to know the landscape just as well but there are fewer cars, people and obligations to stop. In the countryside you stop not because a traffic light is red or because you don’t want to run over but because you want to capture an image of the landscape. It may be a field, or flowers, or horses galloping across a field. That last one is less common.


The other drawback to urbanisation is that flying drones, planes, helicopters and other fun devices is no longer possible. To fly a drone or other flying object you need to be far from people, far from power lines, from animals that could be scared and away from flight plans. With all of those restrictions, the freedom to fly a drone is negated.


A walk Above the Woods
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A walk Above the Woods

Byrichard

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.

Half a Million Steps in July
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Half a Million Steps in July

Byrichard

In July this year I took half a million steps as I was banned from driving. I’m using that phrase for comedic effect. As I had one arm in a sling driving was out of the question for a few weeks and then it was out of the question because my tendons and muscles were in need of physio therapy.


Carbon Footprint


By not using the car for around one and a half months alone I avoided using at least one tank of diesel for every month of injury and one scooter tank of petrol per week of petrol.


By not using buses I saved on my carbon footprint too. Buses are large and heavy and they are not always full. This means that walking is still more environmentally friendly.


In a normal month I walk from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand steps. The application estimates that I walked 47 hours. That’s almost a weekend of walking. This excludes all the time spent walking when cooking or doing other tasks.


Waking everywhere is time consuming. Instead of taking half an hour to do a task you have to count at least an hour for the closest shop and an hour and a half to two hours for another shop I like to use.


Walking everywhere requires you to think of time differently. Simple tasks become events and the world shrinks. For over a month my world was anything within two or three hours walking distance.


Optimised for vehicles


We often hear about how towns are not optimised for walking but neither is the countryside. If you walk along secondary roads you have to deal with tractors, pesticides, combine harvesters and other machines. On some rural paths you have to deal with dogs that are not kept on a leash and when you’re afraid of dogs this can be anxiety inducing.


Too many roads connecting villages to shopping centres and too many roads connecting villages have no provision for walkers. This summer I had to choose between walking through thick grass and plants to stay on the side of the road or walk on the road with drivers not moderating their speed. This is paradoxical as, when you’re driving you always get stuck 20km/hr below the speed limit. When you’re walking, just as when you’re cycling, people feel the need to make the gap between oncoming traffic rather than slow down and wait a few seconds.


I came to the conclusion that they should put bike lane markings on every single road if they are unwilling to prepare and maintain walking paths by the side of the road. As a pedestrian I used bike lanes as if they were pavements mainly because of bushes and long vegetation. I believe that as a general rule cars should only be allowed to drive into a cycle lane when overtaking is not possible otherwise. People need to be trained to see bike lanes like bus lanes and avoid them unless there is no alternative.


The Wearing Down of Shoes


One of the things I love to do is look at the soles of my shoes and see how much wear they have as well as whether it’s symmetrical. This time around the wear on my shoes was symmetrical. There is a downside to this wear. Those bits of shoe are left on the roads and in the grass waiting to be washed into the rivers and rivers before making their way to the lakes and seas.


Final Thoughts


Taking half a million footsteps in a month was a pleasant and enjoyable experience. It allowed me to slow down in a way that I have done before. It allowed me to explore even more than I did last year. It got me used to walking to some locations rather than take the car. I walk to physio therapy, to the shop nearby and to the swimming pool. It means that I am not subjected to modern traffic and that for some tasks at least, my carbon footprint is reduced. For the price of a single tank of fuel you can buy two pairs of shoes that will last half a million steps apiece.