The weekly Medium Edition newsletter highlighted a story on creativity that actually resonated with me. This is weird, because the bulk of stories they link are fine, but never strike a particular chord in me. I like to think I am a creative person, so perhaps I was more open to this piece.
The thesis is pretty simple: Draw a line every day. Don’t try to do more, don’t try to be perfect, just do a line, every day (or write a sentence every day or throw some clay, or whatever your creative pursuit happens to be). Emphasize quantity over quality and develop your skills without pressure to produce great art every time you sit down (or stand at your fancy sit/stand desk).
And I like that. I’m totally drawing a line today. I have been line-deficient for a few weeks now and it’s time to make amends. Or draw amends. Draw an amending line.
Just before turning in for the night, I decided to check out the CBC News website (https://www.cbc.ca/news if you’re curious) to answer the question:
What have I missed since I stopped regularly checking the news?
The answer:
Pretty much nothing that would make any kind of difference in my daily (or weekly, monthly or yearly) life.
I’d say that a lot of the stories fall into a giant bucket of, “So what?” It’s just stuff to fill the page. And while not all of it is negative, much of it is. And I just don’t need this in my life anymore. I’ve Marie Kondo’d my way out of my daily news fix and the joy be sparkin’. Well, maybe not joy, but there’s certainly no feeling that I’m missing out on something by skipping out on the news of the day.
I’m rather enjoying this purging and simplification process. What will I toss aside next? Come back at some undetermined date in the future to find out.
Bonus random thought: Medium has a lot of articles on note-taking apps.
To be accurate, the emoji are not actually 3D, they’re just shaded to give a 3D appearance. Microsoft recently made them open source via Github for anyone to use. And I want to use them (okay, maybe not all of them) because they’re just so adorable, odd or both.
Today’s run had me filled with trepidation: Would my left hip be hip (fine) or most unhip (sore)? Would I be able to run 10K or go conservative and only do 5K?
As it turned out, I turned in my best run at the lake so far this year, breaking both the six-minute mark and coming in under an hour for the first time in actual years. Woo.
It started out weird, with the Apple Watch claiming a BPM after 1 km of 97, which would be possible if I was actually a godlike supernatural being and not a guy with a sore hip. I paused the run for a few moments, which sometimes lets the watch “catch up” and the BPM leaped to 158, which seemed too high, then fell back to 149, which is my Goldilocks BPM zone. I continued on.
Three big factors in today’s performance:
The temperature was a relatively cool 22C and stayed there the entire time
The sky was mostly overcast, with only a bit of sun poking out near the start
An actual breeze was blowing, providing additional cooling (and occasionally resistance)
This meant I sweated a lot less than usual (in fact, on the back half of the run I was sweating very little), and I was seeing much better results while putting in the same usual effort. I let my BPM go up slightly to 152 because it didn’t feel like I was working harder. Of the 10 km, only two were above the six-minute mark and one was right on it, the rest were all under, with the first km being a rather zippy 5:36/km. I felt good. It was nice.
So, the hip. Was it sore? Yes, I could definitely feel it. But at the same time, it was clearly not affecting my pace. Was the soreness being covered up by a rush of endorphins? The proverbial runner’s high making me oblivious to the pain? Maybe a tiny bit, but mostly I don’t think so. It was clearly not as bad as Monday, so may be on the mend. We’ll see on Friday.
Other things:
I went Watch-only. After the three workouts (two 4K walks, the 10K run) and listening to music for about 100 minutes, the battery was down to 16%. I could probably squeeze more juice out of it by turning off always-on mode, but it is about three years old now, so I am not overly surprised it drained so much. Well, maybe a little surprised that it dipped below 20%. I basically didn’t do anything with the watch in the few hours before the run, other than wear it.
I skipped the sunblock, hoping it would neither be sunny, nor cloudy-but-still-sunburn-y, and it looks like I was right! Sunblock has helped a lot this summer, but it is horrible and sticky when running, and I always think I’ll rub some of it into my eyes when wiping sweat away.
I also forgot to protect my nipple. Ack! But it turned out that I didn’t sweat enough to cause any issues. The last km or so on the walk back I could feel the start of something (not something good), but it went away after I washed up, and my chest is happy for now.
Without the phone, I did not wear my SPI-belt, which I believe caused some minor abrasions on my belly after Monday’s run. My evidence is that the abrasions perfectly match where the buckle of the belt lines up when I’m wearing it. I did feel weirdly naked without the phone, even though the watch has cellular, so I can still make/take calls and messages. But it was nice to carry less junk, too.
And now, I will bask in a good result and the good feeling from it.
Stats:
Run 703Average pace: 5:55/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 11:53 a.m.
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 59:22
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 64%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 152
Weight: 164.4
Total distance to date: 5155 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (263 km)
Just making sure the site is working after today’s MySQL maintenance and such. If it is, you get a picture of a tugboat on the Fraser River. If it isn’t, then I get to use some colorful metaphors directed at the hosting service.
I did not want to run today, but I did That One Weird Trick To Make You Run–I put on my jogging clothes. Once I’m dressed to run, it’s extremely rare for me to not go out.
And so I did, around 12:30 p.m., once again rolling the dice on the higher heat of the afternoon being better than the higher humidity of the morning. But it turned out I got both, anyway. It was 29C and humidity stayed at 45% through the run, which made the stretches without shade feel very hot and awful. The timing of my first two km was slow, even though my BPM was trending above 150 and even though I turned in a nice 6:03/km on the Cottonwood Trail for the fourth km, I decided to just do 5K today. Adding to the hot ‘n humid conditions, the sore upper left thigh (let’s call it the hip for short, shall we?) at first felt like it was just reminding me it had been sore, but then it became clear it was sore.
Perhaps not as sore as last week, but sore enough to tamp down any thoughts of sprinting. I mean, given conditions, it was academic, anyway, but still. I am concerned what Wednesday is going to be like. They’re currently calling for a high of 25C (not bad!) and T-storms, which makes me think of letters raining down from the sky. So, assuming no lightning strikes, it may be a much more reasonable day weather-wise. We’ll see how it goes, with caution as my middle name.
Also, I encountered four Parks putt-putt cars on the trail, which I think is a record. And there was a guy (without helmet) riding a bike. I secretly wished him flat tires, as I do all cyclists who go to Burnaby Lake.
Stats:
Run 702Average pace: 6:18/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 1:25 p.m.
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 31:42
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 29ºC
Humidity: 45%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 152
Weight: 164.2
Total distance to date: 5145 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (253 km)
I strolled along Sapperton Landing this afternoon and took photos of birds, boats and bodies of water, among other things. It was peaceful and relaxing.
Here are a pair of ducks on a very brightly-lit log.
It was 22-24C today, which was fine, but humidity was still 50%, which is kind of gross, but admittedly not as gross as 76%. I decided to start my run at 1 p.m. and an additional benefit was the Cottonwood Trail is nicely shaded at that time.
I deliberately ran slower due to the leg issue on Wednesday and also a mysterious left knee issue that popped up yesterday when I walked to uptown New Westminster (there are two long, steep hills on the way). The good news is the knee was fine, but the upper left thigh was still a little sore, though not as bad as Wednesday. Basically, a bionic replacement for my left leg would be handy, though it would probably misfire and cause me to run in circles or something.
Another change today was an actual breeze! This summer it’s not only been weirdly humid, there’s been very little wind when running at the lake. Today, possibly related to the weather breaking and becoming sunny again, there was an actual wind blowing in from the west. It felt nice!
I did put on the jets just a little for the last stretch, and my final km came in at 5:57/km. My first was a decidedly more casual 6:31/km. In fact, the first half of the run my pace got faster every km, then slowed and plateaued until that final burst.
Overall, it went about as well as I could have expected. Here’s hoping some time off over the weekend will leave my left leg feeling sparkly and fresh.
Stats:
Run 701Average pace: 6:15/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 1:09 p.m.
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 62:38
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 22-24ºC
Humidity: 50%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 148
Weight: 163.9
Total distance to date: 5140 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (248 km)
Yes, it’s come to this. I mistype the word “humidity” so often, and I’m now talking about it so much, that I’m now using the Mac’s built-in text replacement tool to fix my persistent misspelling of the word:
I will always regret not taking that typing class in high school. With real typewriters and everything. I wonder if schools expect kids to start Grade 1 as advanced typists now. “Todd, you can’t take recess break until you hit at least 75 wpm!”
Current humidity is 55%
UPDATE: It’s not working! Apparently the text expander doesn’t work in Firefox or browsers or something. I am sad. And full of typos.
This is what they would post all day, every day. And the world would be a better place for it.
The above was made using Tweetgen, which has one purpose: to create screenshots of fake tweets. I have no real use for this, but love that it exists all the same.
