We’re having dry weather which means that I have clean shoes, once again. They cut the grass recently but rather than see greenery we see yellow. We’re in March and it already looks as if we’re un June/July, with how dry the landscape is. The sides of the road, where it was once muddy, is now dry and hard. We are in summer dry weather despite being the first of march.
A stormy Leman
According to Euronews Next up to half of people in some European countries do not exercise enough. This is based on “A joint report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)”.
There are only three reasons I would not walk ten thousand steps in a single day. A road trip, where I am in the car for most of the day, a bike ride, where my workout is not counted in steps or because of some reason I have forgotten about. Last month I walked 450,000 steps. This month I am regularly walking over 17,000 steps per day. I can’t imagine not being physically active every single day. It’s part of my routine.
I am approaching the five kilometre mark now. I am getting close to being able to run five kilometres in a row once again. It is paradoxical that I find running hard, compared to walking and cycling. I was able to run up to 13 kilometres before. Now I’m aiming for half, to a third less.
If I ran somewhere flat I would find running easier. One of the challenges of running in this landscape is that it undulates. In theory I could also run around in circles like others do. I could run laps, rather than a long circuit but I don’t want to run around in circles. I am considering running around in a circle for the 4.8km run. I want to run around in that circle to focus on achieving the distance, rather than struggling to cope with the contours.
Due to the pandemic I almost never go to Nyon. If I do I often wear a mask and avoid walking around too much. Most people think the pandemic is over. I see, from the data, that it is not, and I want to stay true to previous ethics and morality.
Flowers in spring on the slope behind the Musée du Léman
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.
Today I played with an Apple Watch Ultra in a shopping centre and two thoughts came to mind. The first is that this is finally a calculator watch that is big enough for an adult to use. This is meant more as a joke than as a serious comment.
The second thought is that if they are not careful watch screens will become too big. The only iOS phone I can consider is the SE because the others are too large, and if they are not careful then watches too, will become too big. I don’t want such a large screen.
Normally I walk from village to village. My walks can take me through four to six villages per walk. I walk from village to village in part because I live in the middle of a landscape where walking from village to village is easy.
I had doubts about today’s run because I can feel various parts of my legs. I can feel that they are under a different strain than usual, due to the running. I felt fine when I was running, but after sitting I could feel ligaments and tendons. I find myself considering taking proper rest days where I don’t walk at least ten thousand steps as I think that running and walking puts a lot of strain on my body. It could simply be that I need to perfect my running technique.
Yesterday I went for one of my usual one and three quarter hour walks and when I came into one village I noticed a green cupboard so I opened it and looked inside.
A green cupboard - “When I think of all the books I have yet to read, I feel happiness.”
During yesterday’s walk I found that I could read The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen as an audiobook so I listened to a few minutes. It took me back in time to 2006 when people worried about the detrimental effect that bloggers that were not accountable would have on information, disinformation, reliability and accountability. At the time people worried that bloggers and certain social networks would spread inaccurate information and manipulate people.