Sports

Having a watch with an Heart rate (HR) monitor is fantastic until you realise it’s counting 20 BPM too high, and then it’s far less interesting because it’s reporting a moderate workout as heart.

Plenty of heart rate monitors come as chest straps and that’s great if your workout starts and ends somewhere where it’s okay to strap on a heart rate monitor. In winter it’s also about convenience. It is complicated to remove five layers, to put the HR monitor on, and then start an activity.

INTVL is a new game that you play by running, cycling, or both. The concept is simple. Every time you go for a run you capture “territory” from others and every time others go for a run they do the same thing. For this game you don’t need to stare at your phone. You simply walk, run, or cycle.

I write walk but it’s counted as running by the game. I also speak about walking because with Ingress the concept of fielding is similar, except that you need to capture portals, and then walk between portals and link them, before creating fields. Some fields are huge, because people use bikes, trains, cars, planes or trains, and others are small because local portals make it easier.

In the news they tell people over and over, “Don’t run in the heat” and don’t go out during the hottest part of the time" and yet they organise fan zones in Nyon, or other events in Asse and more. They tell us that we shouldn’t run, that we shouldn’t cycle but they don’t tell those that make sleeping even harder during a heat wave not to make noise.

Last night I went to sleep absurdly early by recent standards. I went to sleep before 2300, slept for about an hour and a half and then was woken, either by the dish washer that I programmed, or by geniuses (ironic) in cars beeping every few minutes after one of the football teams won the ugly game. Ugly because of the antisocial beeping of horns. Ugly because of the Royal Belge Football Club concerns about corruption within FIFA.

Today one group I know were cycling around the Léman with a détour through the Alps, the second group were cycling from L’Horloge Fleurie around the lake at a speed of 27km/h. A third group were cycling from Divonne to Vélomania around Vaud. A fourth were cycling a loop towards the Jura and back. The final group, that I joined, went for a 6.7km run around Nyon and then had a group brunch and green juice.

The more I use Whatsapp, in the Post pandemic age, the more toxic I find it. Last night I wrote something innocent. I wrote about rotisserie chicken and the temptation to have some before drinks. So far, so normal.

Someone I never met, and never talked with, in person, put a crying emoji and I don’t remember whether there was a comment or not. I wrote about how plants and trees have distress signals too, and that we should worry about their emotions too. There was a response but I never saw it because my response and another were deleted.

Recently I was thinking about how some people want to offload their work to AI and it got me to think about how people already offloaded getting around to cars. When is the last time that you saw a group of people walk from Nyon to St Cergue via La Dôle, rather than take the train most of the way, and walk a short loop at the top?

If we think about it, years ago we offloaded walking between villages and towns to horses, and carriages, and cars, and trains, and boats and more. We delegated the activity that kept us fit and healthy to animals and horses. The consequence of that shift. as we became more and more dependant on cars, and buses, and trains, is that the energy we burned doing sports, went towards enhancing our girth and mass.

Last night a bike ride was cancelled for this morning due to the risk of rain. As a result I got to sleep in rather than get up to ride at dawn. In the process I got to rest. It also confirms that the seasons are changing.

It’s because seasons change in Switzerland that I am still torn about whether to do the Via Ferrata (VF) Illuminée on Saturday or not. If I do it then I will finish at 2 or 3 in the morning and I will lose my sunday. At the same time I have used Sunday as rest days recently so it doesn’t matter.

This weekend I cycled 160 kilometres with the Bike Club Switzerland Group via Meetup.com. In the process I find that I appreciate the community more and more. I appreciate that the groups are small, but also that people are like-minded. By like-minded I mean that people are sporty.

Today we went for a Moderate recovery ride and it took some effort to keep up. I was at the limit of my comfort zone, but not out of it. I enjoy cycling with people because talking with someone, while riding alongside them is enjoyable. On the right stretches of cycling paths, and roads, it’s as good, if not better than hiking.

This year, as I walk and hike with others, and as their activities are shown along my own, in the list of participants, so I begin to follow people I know on Strava, Komoot and other social networks focused on sports. Notice how I didn’t call them social media. The reason for this is simple. We’re sharing GPS tracks that are categorised by sports.

This weekend I saw that one or two people I know seemed to do group activities and I felt left out, because I had not seen them advertised on GoSocial or Meetup.com. Either that or I wasn’t attentive when they showed up.

I saw that there is a hike taking place nearby. I would have really liked to join it but I would have been participant eleven with a limit of ten people. I wanted to participate because it would have required walking to Nyon, and taking the train de St Cergue to St Cergue and then walking for a few hours, before taking the train back down and walking home. Both my carbon footprint and my travel time would have been small and the environment would have benefited.