Social

Yesterday I woke up and went from a social run from 08:30, for 7km before returning home, and dressing for cycling. I then cycled 77.48km according to Strava via Garmin. What surprised me is that I wasn’t knackered at the end of the ride.

The run wasn’t slow. The pace was sustained for 7km with some gradients and trail running through a forest. It’s when we stopped at Colovray, and stood in the sun that I felt like I was overheating and in need of shade. That’s why I left the group early to change into cycling clothes. I had already checked tire pressure and more.

It’s worth noting that after my historical post was deleted from a group chat I aborted my run with that group. The reasons were rational, rather than emotional. Something else came up and by the time that something was over the run had started. I also expected it to rain very heavily and storm.

Yesterday the forecast was similar but I chose not to just sit at home and miss out. I could see that a storm was coming for 18:50 and again a few minutes later. I thought “If I wait too long it will be cancelled and I will have had a second day in a row without sports. That’s why I got dressed and cycled to the shop. I said “I expect the ride is cancelled”, and it was.

On Saturday morning, for the first time in weeks I had no running plans so I decided to cycle to Geneva for the 8am relaxed ride to Crans. Since I live near Nyon I set off at 06:50 and cycled towards Geneva, arriving with plenty of time to spare. I then cycled with the group towards Crans. It’s at this point that I saw that I had half an hour before a second group ride.

France and Belgium have recently banned children and teenagers younger than 15 from joining social media. To me this illustrates that my desire for social media to be social networks that were feature rich is dead and buried. In effect it has been dead and buried since Lockdown got normal people to join social media, including Whatscrapp. (Intentional spelling)

The issue, which I highlighted back in 2008 or so is that social media has always been seen as a tool for marketers, advertisers, PR teams and utilitarian people. For me social networks, and social media, when they came of age, should have been about providing an online third space for communities to come together, meet chat, and then with familiarity and friendship meet in the physical world, rather than just intellectual plain.

If I look at Binstagram and Threads, and other Facebook owned sites I notice that conversations are completely dead. I was also looking at Twitter (now X) and I was also struck by how few conversations are taking place. I barely see any conversations. I see people posting, but I see little sign of interaction.

As I look at Facebook, and Twitter, and the lack of conversation I come to the conclusion that we can now delete our accounts on both and lose nothing. Years ago, we would have been isolated, but not today.

For several weeks I have run with the Ochsner Sport Runday Monday Signy group. Last night the run began at the Abériaux parking before heading towards Gland and skimming the Domaine Impérial before then heading back through some woods towards the parking, before then stopping by a plage for a swim and apéro, before heading home and sleeping.

The course was around 8.8 kilometres long going along the woods and a water fountain where we could get fresh water, before running along the road, turning left, and then right, and then into the woods, before making our way towards the edge of the woods and crossing towards the Aérodrome de Prangins, before running along, and then turning back towards the same woods, and making our way back to the water fountain. We then picked up swimming stuff and went to the plage.

Today I woke early. I set the alarm for 05:30 and again at 05:40 and yet again at 06:00. The reason for so many alarms is that it’s easy to set the first, wake up to turn it off, and then wake too late. It’s also as a backup. Usually the first alarm is enough to wake me.

I can be a morning person, if other people are not noisy at night when I want to go to sleep at a reasonable time. Being a morning person requires living somewhere that is either quiet, or filled with white noise that covers other noises.

I was in Spain for three weeks. I had planned to blog while I was there. I didn’t because my mac book pro was misbehaving when I tried to connect to three or for Wifi networks. Last night I tested it with another wifi network and I had similar issues. I think that there is an issue with the wifi device n the machine.

When I tested it using my mobile phone as an access point it behaved as expected, but that’s when there is less than a meter separating the laptop from the wifi hotspot.

Yesterday I went for a bike ride. When I looked at the route I thought “this looks like a nice calm, relaxed ride. It wasn’t. I rode with group 2, which is a fast group, going uphill at 20-40 km/h on certain segments.

You might look at a cycling route and think “this looks flat, it doesn’t go to the top of the Jura” but don’t let that mislead you. When you’re riding at the foot of the Jura it’s easy to climb, and then descend, and then climb again, and then descend, and then climb yet again. In the end we did 1100m of climbing over 80 kilometres cycled.

The sun is shining. For a day or two the grey Autumn weather is gone. This would be a good time for a spontaneous bike ride. The issue with this is that Strava is great for sharing activities that are planned in advance, and those that have passed. It’s easy to get kudoes. It isn’t easy to converse.

They have instant messaging but it is only available via the mobile phone app, rather than from the web interface. It is seldom used so to use it might appear spammy to use it like we use Signal or Whatsapp.