Also did not realize eating something super cold can be hard to digest during a hike, sorry honey.
Category: exercise
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not a bad day
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strava
Sort of rambling here, but you know, this app has been out for quite awhile, and I’m assuming anyone who has done any sort of endurance activity has heard about it or has an account. Which contrasts with the fact that as I get older, everyone including myself has seemed to all but ceased(understandably) using any social app(including Facebook and Instagram), except two. Linkedin and well, Strava.
It makes sense, the former is tied with your career, the latter your health. And given the good feelings you get finishing a workout, getting kudos on the app, and seeing your progression, its an all around positive experience. And uploading nice pictures and videos of the deer you see on the way doesn’t hurt.
Even Kacie is starting to wear her new Venu which I gifted against her protests, everywhere. Which is surprising since I tease her that the most activity I ever saw women my age like her do growing up in Korea during phys ed class was sit around and talk. Which she happily and proudly admits. But then again there’s a running boom these days over there where it seems like half the population is running. Something something socializing, half bragging results, a bit of positive peer pressure making it take off I think.
But anyway, now that I’m on the app, it’s suddenly clear the vast majority of people around me aren’t into endurance activities. I’m a recent convert who uses it to deal with the stress and frustrations in my life, but for those who HAVE taken up running, cycling etc at a younger age, I wonder what drove them. Perhaps its all the same.
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sleep
As I get older, getting a good amount of sleep has never been more important. Sometimes you’re in a situation where you don’t get quite enough, but when you do and have enough energy to go for trail runs in the Santa Cruz mountains, life isn’t too bad.
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achilles
Not the guy who’s legends I’ve read riveted since I was a kid, but my own left one. I can’t remember the last time I had even a mild injury doing sports. Mostly because I hadn’t been doing sports. Some moderate pain where the achilles attaches to the heal caused myself to almost not be able to walk the next day, but got much better stunningly fast over the week. Now that it seemed well on its way to be healed, some nerve pinching issues quite close to the area arose.
So bottom line, don’t find out the hard way why most everyone stretches!
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8 miles
And 1800 feet elevation. That felt good… and painful.
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Trail running
want to be there right now Do people ever stumble upon something so good for you in every way, you wonder not only why you hadn’t done it much earlier, but all the possibilities if you HAD done it earlier. Grumble.
I’m not exactly sure I’m a trail runner, though it’s said if you’re moving slightly faster than walking, and not on something hard, you’re a trail runner. And I have to say those two words put together sounds so cool. That being said, dor the life of me I cannot understand why my torturous, feeble, and slow attempts to jog up a hill feels so painful and so good afterwards. For most of my 40+ years, I’ve been trying avoid exactly that.
Running was never fun for me, though for a semester I ran regularly through the Arb in the freezing winters of Michigan. I think 70% of that was the music blasting through my ears, a lot of Linkin Park and the like. Same briefly in 07 when I was living in Redwood City. Never got the runners high.
But I’ve been going consistently for a few months now, and my stamina is such that I’m actually alarmed at my breath NOT being ragged. As in, are you ok, my heart, shouldn’t you be beating faster? And now I’m looking for tougher and tougher challenges, the more painful the better. It’s clear its become an escape of its own, somewhere as many runners say, where you can focus on the present.
Either way I really hope this lasts. And thanks for those runners who got me into this by shouting he’s not a hiker, he’s a runner, when I ran past them uphill as they waited for me on a narrow trail.
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boxing
If you’d told me at the start of 2024 that I’d take up boxing, it wouldn’t have even made the bingo card. I would have laughed at you as I never once in my life every contemplated that. I’d had enough of combat hobbies getting whacked by grown adults when my dad forced me to learn kendo as a kid.
And yet here I am. To be precise, it’s VR boxing: headset on, gloves tracked, and opponents matched online. It actually feels stunningly close to the real thing, or what I assume is the real thing if I’d actually stepped in a ring before. The ducking, weaving, striking, all compressed into the tiny 4×3 meter space in my living room, delivers the kind of high-intensity cardio I’d never imagined I’d look forward to. I know, it still sounds a little ridiculous and more than a little weird.
But here’s the reality. Sometimes I find myself wide awake after the rest of the family is asleep. The weight of future responsibilities, current deliverables, and the clouds of the past come all at once sometimes. So I put on the headset, spar a few rounds, and end up collapsed on the sofa, drenched in sweat and somewhat at peace.
Does it help? Without a doubt. The headset isn’t cheap, but I convinced myself a single doctors visit costs more. And for someone who never quite gets a runners high, doesn’t have time for regular visits to outrageously expensive Bay Area gyms, and lives in a small condo with limited space, this is the closest thing to a godsend. It saves me monthly gym fees and I even find myself browsing the game’s subreddit more than I’d like to admit.
Not surprisingly, the whole experience brings back memories of my middle school kendo classes. Did you know you actually can smell the sharp scent of burning bamboo when strikes land on your helm during sparring? Grown adults at the dojang showed zero mercy. At the time, I didn’t understand it, but now? Maybe they were just trying to shake off the stressors of their own lives, just like I’m doing now.
Anyway, I’ll probably get a few more rounds in before winding down for the night and preparing for morning meetings. And to the developers who built this game: thank you. You created something incredible, and are improving the physical and mental health of many, many, people.
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