walking – Page 4 – Richard's blog

Walking With A Fear of Dogs

Byrichard 12 March 202312 March 2023

I walk every single day, whether it’s raining, windy, snowing, a heat wave and more. I like heatwaves because dog walkers usually stay in. We live in an age and society where fear of dogs is not respected. Yesterday I was on a walk and i saw two big dogs. One was on a leash and the second was free to roam. That freedom to roam encouraged me to divert my route to go through a muddy forest.

I ran by the side of a muddy field today to avoid more dogs. The thing about dogs is that they come up to you if they are not held on a leash and you have to fight with all of your will power not to lift your arms as that will trigger them to think you’re playing, when in reality you’re terrified.

Dog walkers think that we are strange for fearing dogs, but dog walkers don’t understand how to read that people are afraid of their dogs. They just allow their dogs to look at us, approach and more. I was once in the middle of a field, with a dog running towards me and I froze. I didn’t move until the owner called it back. On another route a dog threatened me two or three times. In the end I barked insults at me, for barking at me. That dog chased me into at least one field before I stopped walking that route.

If I finished a PhD In Finland I could walk around with a sword, since every PhD graduate gets a sword. Imagine if people saw me walking towards them with a sword. “Oh but you should not walk with a sword, it scares people”. “Fantastic, I’m glad you brought it up, I feel the same way about your dogs.”

Why should people who are afraid of dogs be forced to overcome their fear of being attacked by a dog on every walk. I stopped walking all of the routes where people do not control their dogs. I often take a third, and sometimes even a fourth alternative on a walk, to avoid walking by dogs. I fear dogs. I’d rather walk an extra kilometre than confront my fear every single day.

It isn’t fair to force people who are afraid of dogs to overcome their fear on every walk they do.

When you go for a walk you always see “Attention au chien”, or other such warnings. People on the one hand warn you about dangerous dogs when you’re near their home, but then if you’re walking they bark, snarl and threaten you and you’re meant to be happy and relaxed. Dogs are sadistic creatures. I much prefer cats, foxes, and other animals. Either a cat wants to be petted, or it sprints away. Foxes see you, and run away. Chamois and other animals see you and run, if you get too close.

Dogs threaten us, but we’re meant to know how to be around them. It’s the only animal I encounter on walks that threatens me. Dogs are the only animals that approach when they are afraid.

And Finally

There is a rule on plenty of paths that says “Dogs must be kept on their leads” and owners do not obey this rule. The result is that dogs run towards me and I have to overcome my fear. In some cases I yell, Dogs respond to yelling. So do the owners. If you yell at a dog it stops approaching. The owner then calls the dog back. I wish dog owners would be considerate of people with a fear of dogs.

Swiss walks

Garmin’s Auto Goal

Byrichard 11 March 202311 March 2023

Garmin allows you to select the number of steps you want to take in a single day, or let it be set automatically. For a year or two I allowed the goal to set. The result is a step goal that fluctuated from 12,000 steps per day to 15,000 steps or more. This was fine, because I ignored it.

A few days ago I decided to set it to a fixed ten thousand steps a day. Many will say that the 10,000 steps per day doesn’t matter, and I agree. I took 21,000 steps today so I overshot the mark by a little.

I run every two days or so, and I walk for an hour and a half or more each day. Although I do this sometimes I undershoot the goal by a few hundred steps and the streak is lost. The streak, too, doesn’t matter, because it is meaningless. What I find interesting is the number of steps taken in a year. Once it was five and a half million. Now it is currently about 4.3 million.

These numbers too, don’t matter. If you run, or if you cycle you’re either making more effort, or your steps are not counted. In both cases the step count tells one story but other metrics tell another.

Last night I read about how you can increase your Vo2 max up to a certain point, and after that it doesn’t increase. What does change is your resistance to fatigue. You go from being able to run for 2 kilometres to being able to run for 2.3 kilometres, and more.

Today I walked for two hours in drizzle. I passed by two Camino stamp opportunities and collected them in a booklet that is not designed for this use. I collected them as a curiousity, and to give this walk a different purpose.

Swiss walks

One Hundred Day of 10,000 Steps

Byrichard 11 February 202311 February 2023

Today marks 100 days in a row of walking 10,000 steps a day. It helps that we’re in winter than in summer because my step streaks are broken when I go for bike rides. Step counters don’t count pedalling as steps, so it’s easy to lose a streak.

I could pretend that I have learned ten things by walking ten thousand steps a day but the truth is that I haven’t. I simply have a habit of walking that is not affected by snow, rain, wind or other. I walk every day, and sometimes the streak is consistent enough to reach 100 days according to an app by Pedometer.

I make no effort to reach this streak. I reach it by accident because my routine is good for such habits to thrive. When summer comes back I will probably get back to cycling once again, and the streak will be lost. Last year my step count was low, due to cycling. It went from 5.5 million down to about four and a half million due to cycling.

I doubt that I will reach another 100 days. Summer will be back and I will do more than walk or run around. If I get to a point where I find running comfortable rather than strenuous then I might run more than cycle but this will be decided within the next few months, in time for summer.

And Finally

It’s funny that I completely fell out of love with Zwift. Years ago I loved it, and every two or three days I would do a strenuous workout. Now I don’t care. It did change because of two key reasons. The first is that they got millions invested in them so it felt stupid to pay for them when investors were their cash cow. The second reason is that despite getting millions in funds from investors when I had a technical issue they made no effort to help. When you’re paying 20 per month, and they have millions invested, and they make no effort to keep you, there is no reason to stay. My logic was “If I buy a new indoor trainer I will spend hundreds, to spend hundreds more on a service, with a bike that cost hundreds more.

Zwift was a good option when it worked with the devices I had, and when the barrier to entry was low. As soon as the barrier rose, so the interest collapsed.

environmental

A Run And A Walk

Byrichard 2 February 20232 February 2023

I am going for a run and a walk three times a week at the moment. The run is set by the Garmin Coach and the walk is set by the route I have chosen to use on that specific day. By running the first part of my daily walk I increase my fitness, according to Strava, Sports Tracker and one or two other apps.

At the same time by running, rather than walking these routes I am saving time. A walk that would usually take ten minutes per kilometre is cut down to seven, or less. The runs have gone from 1.6 km, to 2.4 to 3.2 and more. As the runs get longer so the distance I cover increases, and so the daily walk distance takes less time, as it is run instead. The aim is still to run 5km comfortably, not to increase the distance beyond 5k, for now.

Yesterday I found the run harder than on previous days. It might be due to running too soon after lunch, but also because I never take “rest” days. I will always walk from seven to ten kilometres a day, whatever the weather, whatever the mood. My body doesn’t get the opportunity to rest, that it might want. It could also be psychological.

Tomorrow the run jumps from being 2.4km to 3.22 kilometres long. After finding the last run harder I expect the same for the next one. If I wanted to make my life easier I could run by one of the lakes, either Divonne or Lac Léman. Both are relatively flat and both have the required distance to cover. One of the best features of that run would be that it is either downhill for the first two kilometres, to flat for the last part. One drawback is that I don’t like the last two kilometres for that loop. Too many couples and dog walkers… although I did find a track by the woods that I could use, rather than walk close to others.

And Finally

I struggled to find inspiration to write today, and I expect that I will struggle for the next week, to three weeks, as my routine is altered.

environmental

Mud and Walking

Byrichard 1 February 20231 February 2023

I go for walks, runs or bike rides every single day, whether it’s rainy, windy, snowy or a heatwave. As a result of this I often walk along routes where mud forms. Sometimes I come home from walks and my shoes are spotless, thanks either to a drought, or paradoxically due to the rain.

Recently we had snow and it was cold so my shoes were relatively clean. I could come home, stomp a few times and my shoes would be clean. Other times, like the last two days I have found that the mud is sticky and hard to remove. It’s dry enough to behave like clay, rather than mud. It gets stuck between the studs that stop you from slipping. I tried skewers, running water, snow banks and most recently a brush that I keep in the post box, in the locked section. I don’t want to come home and find that the brush has been stolen.

I could simply get some slippers, and keep those in the post box, for when I go for walks, and for when I come back, but the problem of muddy shoes persists. If I don’t remove the mud then I need to change shoes twice when I head out for a walk, and twice when I get home. Four shoe changes per walk.

I am annoyed. We are in a pandemic and I feel uncomfortable for walking indoors with muddy shoes because, as an adult, if someone comments on mud, I have to avoid making a mess, from that moment forward. Not to care would make me a sociopath.

I’d like to add some contemporary context. We are in a pandemic. Millions of people are living with long COVID. One of the simplest ways to avoid catching COVID is to wear masks indoors. Everyone in the building looks at me strangely for wearing a mask, and yet they see me run up and down the stairs. That’s right, I don’t walk, I don’t struggle. I run. I use the lift twice a week, because of shopping. The rest of the time I run up and down the stairs. Everyone else takes the lift, whether for a single floor or not. I wear the mask as I run. It doesn’t bother me in the least.

My muddy shoes bothered at least two people. Mud is an ordinary part of rural life, and if it bothers people then a proper grate, and shoe cleaning setup is required.

No one has muddy shoes, but me, because everyone else uses their car to do things, whereas I do most of my activities by walking from home. This means that the car journey will not see mud fall from my shoes into the space beneath the pedals, or in the boot. I go straight from walking in mud to the building.

My old school had shoe scraping pieces of metal. In a previous age having muddy shoes was normal so society had solutions. Today driving is normal, so muddy shoes are an aberration.

There is a cruel irony in all of this. Cleaning mud off of shoes takes much longer than cleaning a stairwell. I know because I have to hoover my apartment almost every day when it’s muddy, and hoovering muddy floors takes seconds, whereas cleaning shoes takes minutes.

I wish that we lived in a society where people wore masks indoors during an airborne pandemic, rather than caring about a little mud. I’m especially frustrated because no one but me runs up and down the stairs, so no one but the cleaner sees the mud. It’s a problem because a cleaner complained once, in five years.

I miss the freedom of living in a house, where I didn’t have to worry about muddy shoes in a hallway. I miss pre-pandemic life, where I would take the car to do things with people, rather than alone. I miss pre-pandemic times, when there were advantages to living in society, rather than just disadvantages. I miss group activities, and the friendships that formed from life pre-pandemic, pre-fatalism.

And Finally

My walks are about exploration and getting away from cars. Cars never slow down when you’re walking by the side of the road, so walking on the muddy side is safer. I also walk where it is muddy because I’m lonely, due to the pandemic, and my struggle to find work, and the effect it has had on my confidence. I walk where I walk because it keeps me from feeling depressed.

If I crossed single people, or if I crossed people that walked single file, during the pandemic, then I wouldn’t have developed this habit of avoiding people. Living in solitude is easy, until you think about what life could be like, out of solitude.

I like my walks and my activities. I like exploring and taking photos. I like seeing the changes from day to day, week to week and season to season. I like looking at what new books are available.

If social media was about social networks, rather than stigmatised as addiction, then I would be making new friends via Twitter, Mastodon, FaceBook and other networks, during this pandemic. As they are not I have learned to be in solitude.

It’s the lack of reward, from using social media, that has led me to blog again. When we blog we invest our time. We invest in learning to write, to think, to focus and more. We could even go so far as to say that writing is time spent being mindful. I enjoy blogging. There is a chance that no one will read what I write, but as I have said, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation with myself, through the written word.

spain | Spanish Walks | travel

A Walk To Los Molinos from Javea

Byrichard 29 December 202229 December 2022

This walk takes you from the Port of Javea up to the lighthouse near San Antonio before continuing along the top towards Los Molinos. These are old grain mills. They used wind power to grind grain for several centuries before being taken out of action as modernisation arrived.

The walk takes you along the port before you start to climb. As you walk along the port you will see a number of cats, either being lazy, or playing. You will then start to climb. The first few metres require some bigger steps but after that you will find that it gets easier. There is a good view over the port at several moments. You also get a good view of the sea.

On this walk I could hear the bees and other insects buzzing. You can also see that many young trees are coming up. Many of them were destroyed by a fire a few years ago. In a few more years this will be a walk in the shade, once more.

A year or two ago, we did this walk. We came across the old kiln. Due to rain and nature recovering though, the kiln is hidden once again. I don’t remember if I have the GPS coordinates for the kiln. Nature will help keep it hidden and safe.

I tracked this walk with the CASIO GBD-200 and the Apple watch with the Steps app. The casio gave a good track although it did not track altitude and heart rate. The Steps app, with an outdoor walk, was crap. It didn’t track heart rate for some reason which makes it crap. The Apple Fitness app says that I didn’t burn my daily calorie goal today, as a result.

And Finally

This walk is quite easy, for those used to walking over rough terrain but it does come with seasonal difficulty variability. As soon as the weather gets warmer walking with enough water is important. You are exposed for at least an hour or three, dependent on how fast you walk. In 35°c heat you will cook. In 19°c you will feel comfortable. Consider this, before trying the walk.

French walks | London walks | reviews | Swiss walks

StepsApp

Byrichard 23 December 202222 December 2022

Walking and taking steps could be seen as boring. It’s something we do every day, without thinking about it. At conferences we can easily take 20,000 steps a day, when we’re standing for the entire day, with barely any opportunities, or need to sit, except when eating or getting from A to B. The Steps App is a way of seeing step counts in a variety of ways.

With the insights tab you have information about your best week, month and year. It shows you theoretical distance, time spent stepping, theoretical energy burn, and floors climbed, with compatible devices. On my best week I climbed 253 floors, walked 118 km over 24hrs 39 mins and burned 6243 kcals. My best step day was on the 23rd of August 2018. I took 40,142 steps. That was a theoretical 31.3km over 6hrs 45 and 188 floors.

During my best month I walked half a million steps. 453.7km over 90hrs20, climbing 655 floors. This was my walking habit during the pandemic and the reason for such a lot of time walking wasn’t because I was doing anything interesting. It’s because we were in self-isolation and I was using the Apple Watch calories burned per day to indicate how much exercise I should do. The result is a month where I walked for three hours a day for an entire month. One could argue that this isn’t such a good memory.

Badges for Steps per day and total steps.

It’s more fun to look at the pages above. I have walked a million steps 16 times, five million, three times. I have walked at least 5000 steps 1292 times and 10,000 steps 743 times so far. This is fun because it shows how consistent my walking habit is, and how regularly I reach each goal/landmark.

The peak walking year. Five and a half million steps

And Finally

They allow you to see your longest steps, calories, distance, duration, floors and superstreak. These are both excellent and crap. Step streaks are good when you’re walking but doing no other sports. If you cycle, climb or do other sports there is a good chance that you will your streak., That’s why the steps streak is just 34 days but the distance streak is 252 days and the duration streak is 918 days, and floors is 390. If you limit yourself to steps then you can only take steps, and nothing else.

Swiss walks | tech related

Walking Into Heavy Rain

Byrichard 15 December 202215 December 2022

Sometimes you end up walking into heavy rain. That’s what I did today. I looked at the weather and because it was meant to get better over the coming days I assumed that this evening it would get better. Instead, as I walked it started to rain a little more, and then a little harder, and eventually quite a bit harder. Did I get wet beyond the top layer? Nope, but my beanie got a little wet, as did my fleece. My shoes on the other hand were clean, thanks to the flow of water.

I was lucky today, because if I had set off a little later then I would have been soaked by the time I got home. I skirted the rain by an amusing amount. I could have been drenched if I had set off later. I timed my walk to avoid the sunset, so that would have helped me avoid the rain anyway. I don’t want to walk at night.

Today I walked over 18,000 steps, according to the Casio, 8800 in the morning, and another ten thousand in the evening. In the evening, as the rain started, I decided to run for one kilometre. I tracked it with the Garmin instinct and the Casio. There was no reason to track with both, except that I was curious to see the result. If you want running time step count and distance then the Casio GBD-200 is fine. If you want cadence, heart rate zones, and other data then keep with the Garmin Instinct. To boot, with the Garmin instinct you get to check the weather first, and you might not be caught out, as I was.

And Finally

I was surprised that the Casio GBD-200 doesn’t allow you to select which sport you’re doing. If you track cycling then you will screw up the data, and if you track walking you will use the watch for many more hours per week than it is planned for. I am not often confused about how I feel about a device. I wish the casio would do more, but at the same time I bought it because it does less. I’m all the more confused because according to the Apple Fitness app I stood, moved and exercised enough and now I don’t know what the source for the data was. I need to keep experimenting.

Swiss walks

Brushing Shoes and Mindfulness

Byrichard 13 December 202213 December 2022

Have you considered brushing shoes and mindfulness? I ask because as I have played with the brush, to clear dirty mud off my shoes I have noticed that this is a time consuming task that always takes several minutes, if not half an hour to complete. People stigmatise leaving a muddy trail behind you indoors, but as the last few shoe cleanings have shown, cleaning shoes is more time consuming than cleaning up after muddy shoes, especially when the mud is dry.

People show scorn and derision when they see mud, and yet mud is not bad for health. It makes thing look messy, but we grow food in it. Animals eat straight from the ground, and we use it for huts, and more. Mud is even used in spas to improve skin health and more.

A snow and leaf covered bridge in Autumn

Cleaning mud off of shoes made me think of mindfulness and meditation because clearing mud is a time consuming process. You brush, and bits of mud fly off the shoe, and if its dry then you wear a mask, because a cloud of dust flies off the shoes, onto your clothes, into your eyes, and if you don’t have a mask, into your lungs. It’s important to take precautions.

Brushing works very well with wet mud, as long as you use enough force. When the mud is dry, that’s when the wooden skewer comes into play. That’s when you chisel at the dirt and mud, and loosen it, to fall on the ground, wheter outdoors or in the apartment. When that mud is loose, then you brush, and then with what’s left, you chisel again. You repeat the process until the shoes are clean.

That’s why I think that it should be used as a form of meditation. That’s why I think that, rather than cleaning shoes, to avoid the less intellectual members of society from complaining, you see it as an intellectual relaxation and mindfulness exercise.

I think cleaning muddy shoes is absurd. I think it’s absurd because within seconds of going for another walk they will be filled with mud again. It takes half an hour or more to clean shoes, but the mess that results from cleaning shoes, takes seconds. The notion that cleaners shouldn’t have to clean mud is absurd, because the entire raison d’êtres of cleaners, is to make things look clean.

In the past I used to clean the house before the cleaner came, so that her job would be easier. I have a base level of mess, and every week I had to reset it to zero for the cleaner, so it has nothing to do with not respecting cleaners and their work. It has to do with wasting, or investing time. Cleaning shoes is pointless because shoes are dirty for months at a time during the wetter months.

Old buildings used to have shoe cleaners. they used to have matts so that you could wipe your feet, metal bars so that you could scrape the mud off your shoes, cubbies so that outdoor shoes could be swapped for flip flops and more. If the building has a problem with mud, then a proper mud clearing mattress would make sense.

In the 21st century everyone drives so no one gets dirty shoes. People prefer noise pollution and air pollution to walking. If road paths were clean of mud, if car drivers didn’t drive homicidally close to pedestrians and cyclists, then there would be no exposure to mud.

Ever since childhood I have had muddy shoes because of my walking and adventures, so it was normal for me to drop mud where I sat, whether at school or sometimes at work. Mud is a sign that people are fit and do exercise. Mud is a sign that people were outdoors, rather than eating Al Desko. Mud is a sign that the weather is slightly wet, and that people do not always walk on the cleanest of paths. Mud is part of life, when you walk in all weather, in all seasons, except for summer droughts. Finding mud then is a challenge.

This problem of mud says something positive about me. The rest of the building live sedentary lives. They use the cars to go to do sports, that are clean, and they come home by car. This means that they never have mud on them because that mud has fallen off either in their cars, or it was never on them.

My mud is fresh, from walking rurally and locally two minutes ago. If everyone was like me they would either see the need for better shoe cleaning options or they wouldn’t mind mud in the corridors. It’s because I am alone in my habits that I can’t play ignorant.

My current solution to this problem is a brush and a skewer in the post box. When I get home I unlock the post box, brush my shoes, skewer the more stubborn mud, and step into the building. I have to be like football players, before they return to their changing rooms. That’s where I got my idea for that type of brush.

And Finally

How Big Is The Difference?

Does It Matter?

Working On Fitness

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