The Water
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Timelapse with a still camera and long exposure to give a different feel than we are used to.
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Walking Into Heavy Rain
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.
Catkins in January
Until today I didn’t know what catkins were because I never looked them up. “A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals…” according to Wikipedia. They are out at the moment and I know this is unusual because a few days ago I saw an article about how it was unusual to have pollen warnings at this time of year.
The Swiss weather app shows that there is a lot of pollen. It’s quite funny because if you look at the map of snow and the map of pollen you see that where there is snow there is no pollen, or at least that was the case. With wind movements this situation could have changed. Winter is mild. Pollen is early. Plants are adapting to the changing climate by pollinating out of season.
A Skateboarding Journey
When I was younger I switched from skiing to snowboarding and I loved the sensations. I loved how quickly I adapted my skiing knowledge to snowboarding. Within hours I felt okay. I often feel that I could have progressed faster if I had been in a group with people who were just experiencing winter sports for the first time.
When I was a child I sometimes played with a skateboard but I just went up and down a street. We played as children do.
For a while I thought that I would take off rollerblading instead of walking or cycling. Within a short amount of time I came up against the fact that I live in a hilly place with cars that do not respect pedestrians, cyclists or other slow moving people. As a result of this I lost interest in skating, but was attracted by the notion of skateboarding.
Two Shoes
The beauty of the skateboard is that you have four wheels, that allow you to go faster, when the surface is right, but when it isn’t you just step, or stumble, off of the board, and you walk until it is friendly for the skateboard again. It allows you to go faster than a walker, when the conditions are right, and walk when they’re not. It gives you the best of both worlds.
Finding Balance
For the first two or three hundred meters I really struggled with giving the board direction, but also with balancing. It would veer to the right when I wanted to go to the left. Eventually I found a slight decline and that’s when I practiced riding the board, and reacquainting myself with the feel of skateboarding. Eventually balancing switched back from the front of my focus, to instinct, and that’s when I could begin to control the board, and get it to do what I wanted again. I was a little surprised by how quickly I remembered the right habits.
Switching from Snoarboading to Skating
Taking snowboarding knowledge and applying it to skating is easy. I was surprised that within an eleven kilometre loop I felt more comfortable. I carried the board more than I rode it but that’s because the slopes are steep and I’m not used to the sensations yet, but also because the steep slopes are roads, with cars. By pushing my ability too fast I could endanger myself, especially near roads. I practiced on agricultural roads where traffic is at a minimum. If bikes or pedestrians were walking I reverted to walking. It’s about being safe, and in control.
Purpose
I was going to say that I want to learn to skateboard again because it’s faster than walking. It is faster than walking but that’s not the only benefit. Skateboarding is exertional. It requires the use of different leg muscles and it’s a proper workout, rather than just walking. For up hill bits, downhills, and rough terrain I will continue to walk, but where the terrain is flat enough, and traffic is low enough, I can skate. By mixing the two I will be practicing interval training, without it being called interval training. With experience going to the train station and back, and going to the shops and back, will be faster.
And Finally
Skateboards are easy to transport, whether by car, by train, or even by foot. Theoretically you can always have it with you, for when opportunities present themselves. I’m happy that I felt comfortable within an hour or two of riding, even if most of that time was walking to a comfortable location.
They say that things are like riding a bike. I think that skateboarding is like snowboarding. It doesn’t take long to remember how to do it.
Smart Watches – Dumb Habits
When I wore Casio digital watches, Suunto Dive computers, Suunto GPS watches and other wrist wathces I was happy. You wore it and it tracked what you wanted it to track, from walks, to dives, to altitude changes, weather and more. With the Apple watch a new age emerged. The age of the Digital Watch as object of addiction. I don’t like the term addiction, but I use it for simplicity.
The Suunto Spartan Wrist HR I have tracks all day activity and I didn’t mind. It tracked it in the background but didn’t nag you to do more, or to get up every hour. You just got along with your life until you ended your workout and wanted to see a GPS track.
With Fitbit and with Apple watches you have the same invasive habit. Walk 250 steps an hour, stand for one minute every hour. They nag you. As if that wasn’t enough they also nag you to wash your hands for 20 seconds, and more. The Apple watch is too invasive to be pleasant.
One of my biggest frustrations is that although we have one phone each device now has an app, and the apps don’t speak to each other so you have to choose whether to wear watch A for App A, Watch B for app B or Watch C for app c. All of that data is centralised on Apple or Android devices but it doesn’t jump between them so you are forced to make a choice.
If you skip wearing one instead of the other you have a gap in daily data and this bugs me. I went from wearing a GPS watch to track workouts on weekends and evenings to wearing watches 24 hours a day, that all want you to be loyal 24 hours a day to have complete data.
For me to be happy every watch should be able to send the data from the watch to the app, and from the app to the phone, and from that phone to every other app. By putting the data in silos they force loyalty, but by forcing loyalty they tempt me to stop tracking steps, heart rate sleep and other things. They tempt me to wear a simple watch except for my daily walks.