Category: Adventure

NO WATCH

As I descend deeper into the undoing, I’ve landed on my watch. Earlier this year I bought a nice Coros watch to monitor my elevation gained in real time on my runs. These last two months, though, I’ve been deep into “just walking,” even though I’m covering 10 miles per day (I believe today is day 56 of 10 miles per day).

So for each walk, I hit a button on my watch, which has to calibrate the GPS and my heart rate. At the end of each walk, I have to hit stop on the watch, let it sync with the Coros app on my phone, which then syncs with Strava, which is where all my running and (lately) walking data is stored (since 2016).

Today, though, I left the watch at home. For each walk today (a total of four) I tracked the activity on my iPhone via the Strava app. Hit start, lock my iPhone, and throw it in my bag.

Now instead of two apps to track my walk, and two devices, it’s just one. This also means keeping track of charging one device, rather than two.

This season of undoing has me rethinking everything. It sounds small, but I’m out there nearly 24 hours a week, and every bit of mental clutter adds up. Simplifying what I have to manage for these walks feels like reclaiming a little peace at the end of the day.

JUST GONNA KEEP WALKING

I’ve been intentionally walking 10 miles per day for about 42 days now. By “intentional” I mean not just walking around the grocery store, or picking a parking space very far from the store entrance, but by clicking start on my watch and walking 3-5 miles at a time, a few times per day.

When I worked my first job in the city, and walking a mile from the apartment to the 7 train (and back) every day, I didn’t track that. Heck, the iPhone didn’t even exist yet!

But these days I am getting up early or getting up away from my computer and going for a long walk as often as I can.

I try to get in three miles before 8am. Five miles by noon. That makes it easier to get in a smaller walk in the early afternoon, and wrap up the days walking by evening. Somedays I have to get in 4.5 miles after 5pm, which I don’t much care for. Other times, though, I get out for two extra miles after 6pm, hitting 11 or 12 miles for the day.

Today is the 19th, and I’ve walked 209.8 miles, an average of 11.05 miles per day.

WALKING

Since getting hurt over the summer from running, I’ve turned to walking. Lots of walking. Basically 10 miles per day of inentional “start my watch and go” sort of walking. This week I walked 82 miles.

Thanks, Norah for this one.
From Bradley
Another from Bradley.
Even updated my Strava.

THE MINIMAL LIFE

Finding this post from Jeremy Maluf is gonna be bad.

If you didn’t know, there was a point in my life where I was “The Bike Nerd.” I had a Tumblr for it, where I would post photos similar to the above.

One morning in 2010, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I woke up, took my bed apart, left it on the curb, and rode away. I rode to Rutherford, NJ that day, about 31 miles, on my single speed bike.

I’m not saying I have the itch to get rid of everything and bike across the country again, but I’m not not saying it, either.

DO HARD THINGS

There’s a “mountain” here. I call it Leaser Lake Mountain, since the lake is at the base of the dirt road that goes up and over. The Appalaciahan Trail runs along the top, too. It’s magical.

Last April I got back to running, but decided I’m gonna go for elevation instead of mileage. How many feet can I climb in a year? By the end of 2024 I had climbed 83,000′ of elevation. This year I’m already at 78,000′, getting comfortable with 5000′ per week lately.

Since it’s been so hot here in Northeast PA, I didn’t get much running in. Finally on Saturday there was a break, so I went up and down my Leaser Lake Mountain three times, something I’ve never done before. That’s 11.3 miles, and 2,605′ of climbing,

The fantasy was to do that again today, Sunday, so I could hit my 5,000′ goal, but that absolutely didn’t happen. I still hit 3,229′ which is still solid, and finally got back to another 30 mile week. Happy with both of those numbers.

TURNING 49

It was my 49th birthday, and I treated myself to some place fancy. That is, the 110 State Game Lands access road, on a chilly rainy evening here in PA.

There’s a gate at the entrance, then a gate near the “top,” which is about 1.5 miles, and about 500′ of climbing. This is one of the only hilly routes where I can run the whole thing, and by run I mean shuffle and slightly jog, but hey, I couldn’t do that a few months ago, so I’m stoked.

Also, I used to do just one lap. Up and down, and call it night. Last night I did it twice, so just over 1000′ of climbing, six miles total, and felt great.

This is the last year in my 40s I guess, might as well keep things moving.

KEEP CLIMBING, I GUESS

Just passed over 100 hours running in 2025, and almost 52,000′ of climbing.

Running about 30 miles a week the last five weeks, and over 5,000′ of elevation. Flirting with 6,000′ of climbing the last few weeks now, too.

I’m starting to double up some hills. Before I’d just go up and run back down, now I’m doing them twice in one session. Two ups. Two downs. Thighs of steel, baby.

Shuffling and jogging up some sections that I used to have to walk. Getting strong, fitting back into shirts and jackets I couldn’t wear earlier this year.

Damn, feels good to be hitting 49 tomorrow.

SURFACE AREA

There’s the saying to increase the surface area for luck, but I’m telling you… meeting new folks increases the surface area for COOL STUFF.

I just got off a Zoom call with some great folks and met Andrew White and I want him to take photos of me running up the hills I try to run up (just kidding, I’d look awful), and also discovered Andrew(?) Byrd who is running an analog recording competition – making and recording music with no computers!

I know, I know… the surface area thing… for networking, for finding jobs, yes, sure. Of course. But wow, there are just so many amazing people out there doing great work.

DOUBLE UPS

Doing more of the thing you want to do usually leads to more of what you want to do.

That doesn’t mean I should eat pizza and ice cream everday, of course, but the math adds up soon enough.

Months ago I got back to my running practice. Some days I just couldn’t grind through a three or four mile run.

Sure enough, I wasn’t eating enough to have the energy for those runs, so they always sucked.

Once you start eating to run, running gets easier.

And so now I’ve run 30 miles a week for the past few weeks, and usually hitting 5000′ of elevation along the way.

I’m not the fastest, but I’m probably the only ding dong who runs up and down this dirt road with no guard rail at least once a week.

And this past Sunday I did it twice, because hey, at 48 years old if you’re not challenging yourself, most likely no one else will, either.