Month: July 2023

Run 790: Witnessing the two-phone run

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run

Today I did the full deal–run around the lake (5K) and walk back.

My right knee again survived!

I kept my pace in check, but still managed to come in under the six-minute mark, even running the “hard” way (CCW) around the lake. Conditions were decent–only some sun, but no threat of rain and humidity was high enough to mostly avoid dry mouth, though it did get drier as the run progressed (but not much).

The most notable thing with my body were my various leg muscles again feeling the burn–this is normal, given I am still well off my peak after the 18-day layoff (and an even longer one in May). Here’s hoping everything keeps holding together, and I don’t need to break out the duct tape.

I also managed to keep my BPM down to 152, which was nice, given the lake trail is more strenuous than the river. Overall, I am content with the results.

Now, the two-phone thing: I have never used one of those straps that keeps your phone on your arm while running. Doctors and sporty health experts recommend against them, because they pout you slightly off balance. They also probably make you sweat like crazy. I’ve always used a SPI-belt™ to tuck my phone in a pouch around my waist. Currently, I swing the phone around, so it sits snug in the small of my back and it essentially disappears for the run.

Today, a guy wearing a bright red t-shirt jogged past me around the 3K mark. I didn’t mind, as I am still a long way off from being in shape enough to feel that competitive urge strike. Also, he wasn’t running a lot faster, so I was able to track him up to the 5K mark, where he stopped running. I also stopped and got a drink, which allowed him to resume running and I didn’t see him again.

But what I did see while he was running ahead of me for those 2 km was a phone strapped to his left arm. And another phone strapped to his right arm. Dual phones! I’ve never seen this before. It looked heavy and awkward and sweaty. Why would someone do this? These are the possibilities I came up with:

  • One phone was a dummy phone, there to provide counterbalance to the other
  • Personal phone on one arm, work phone on the other (a friend suggested this one)
  • Couldn’t decide between Android and iOS
  • Other phone was actually an old school iPod
  • Each phone was playing in mono, when combined they play in stereo!
  • Extremely paranoid about main phone failing during a run
  • Trying to start a kooky new fashion trend
View of the lake around the 5K mark, post-run

Stats:

Run 790
Average pace: 5:56/km
Training status: Overreaching
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:40 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:49
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 19-20ºC
Humidity: 65%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 166.4
Total distance to date: 5830 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (500 km)

X-tremely dumb internet moves

I never used Twitter much and was kind of annoyed years ago when I had to use it for Nike tech support. For the most part, it was always just there, popular among journalists and some celebrities, and used as a quick ‘n easy way for people to make announcements, because on a microblog, you don’t have room for much else. People defeated this by posting tweets with images that would contain 2,000 words, but still, it stayed pretty much a place to link and post blurbs/memes.

In 2022 Elon “Galaxy Brain” Musk decided he wanted to be on Twitter’s board, then no, he wanted the whole thing! He waived due diligence, offered an outrageously good offer to buy the company ($$4 billion, vastly more than it was worth) and, following their fiduciary responsibility, the company’s executives presented it to the board, which promptly voted to accept and cash out.

Someone or something got through to Musk, and he realized he’d overpaid on a colossal scale, then tried to back out of the deal. Twitter sued and just before the case went to court–which Musk was all but guaranteed to lose–he agreed to have the deal go through and became owner/CEO of Twitter in October.

To say it has been all downhill since then is to insult hills that go down.

I’m not sure what exactly is going on in his mind, but whatever it is has seemingly steered him to make about the worst possible decision at every turn, chipping away at every positive aspect of Twitter. As a result, users are leaving, advertisers are fleeing, hate speech is on the rise, actual Nazis post their actual Nazi thoughts, the site is glitchy and breaks down occasionally, thanks in part to its gutted workforce unable to keep things running smoothly as most institutional knowledge has left (quit or been fired). Attempts to gain subscription revenue have generated peanuts. Basically, nothing has improved and a lot of things have gotten much worse.

The Twitter brand has been permanently tarnished in the eyes of many.

But wait! That brings us to the title of this post. A few days ago, Musk decided it was time to rebrand Twitter itself as X, his most favourite letter. Tweets would become X’s. And so on. To a 15-year-old boy this would be very cool, perhaps even rad, and since that’s where Musk’s apparent mental age seems to have stopped, it has come to pass.

There are too many articles, opinions and hot takes to link even a tiny percent of them here. Let me just say that I think it’s a dumb idea to spend $44 billion on a company whose value is in its user community and brand identity, then actively drive away the former and completely abandon the latter. It actually goes beyond dumb, but there is no word in English I can think of to adequately describe it.

However, changing Twitter to X frees Musk (at least in his own mind) from having the site/company “be” Twitter anymore. He can literally do whatever he wants with it–it’s X now!

This isn’t the first time a social media site has stumbled and (probably) died. Let’s not forget Friendster! But it is probably the biggest and, culturally, the most significant. This is all a good illustration of why allowing individuals to have access to absurd amounts of power and money is a bad thing. Musk is an idiot, and he has destroyed Twitter because our system gives him the power to do it.

(As a side note, the rebranding has been as chaotic, dumb and ill-planned as literally everything else Musk has done at Twitter.)

Here’s one link on the rebranding and the whole thing that I found worth reading, where author John Scalzi explains why he is (mostly) leaving Twitter after its turn to X: Preparing my X-it

Everybody have fun tonight

In September of 1986 I turned 25 years old. A song by Wang Chung was also released that month called “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” At the time, I thought it was pretty dumb. It even had this eye-rolling lyric where the band invokes itself as the personification of fun:

Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody Wang Chung tonight

I was a very serious person at age 25.

Today I realize that while this is a confection–a song you dance (and have fun) to, it’s also a brilliantly executed pop gem. The whole thing just moves (or slaps in the hipster parlance of 2023).

The official video is probably not a great choice for people prone to epileptic seizures, but this live version from 1987 not only captures the energy of the recorded song, it demonstrates that Wang Chung was a fantastic live band. And now that I am, ahem, not 25, I can better appreciate what they did.

I suggest we all Wang Chung a little tonight1You don’t need to DRESS like Wang Chung tonight, but if you can pull off 1980s fashion in the 2020s, rock your socks off.

Run 789: Oh the humidity (but in a good way)

Brunette River, pre-run

For the first time in awhile, the forecast called for showers. In fact, the weather app even said heavy rain. Gasp! As it turns out, they also predicted a lull in late morning/early afternoon, which is when I ran, and it remained dry. The titular humidity was high, but without the sun beating down on me, it didn’t feel overbearing, it just meant no DMS1Dry Mouth Syndrome.

I still go out every run concerned about the right knee, but again, it was fine. In fact, my first km was a zippy 5:46/km. This alarmed me and I went wildly in the other direction for the next one before generally averaging a pace under 6:00/km, the first time I’ve done that in some time. The lower temperature and cloud cover helped.

Also helping was keeping this a minimal run–head to the river trail (1.5 km walk) and then immediately run 5K, then turn around and come back. Oddly, even the walk there, which takes about 15 minutes, yielded an Overachieving for my training status, even though the watch had suggested a 36-minute workout. Technology!

I’m just glad my body appears to be no longer actively falling apart for the moment.

Next run should be on Wednesday, when we’re back to a mix of sun and clouds, though still cooler than normal.

Brunette River, looking east, post-run

Stats:

Run 789
Average pace: 5:52/km
Training status: Overreaching
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 1:25 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:31
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 79%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 165.8
Total distance to date: 5825 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (495 km)

Precipitation! And a minor reflection on Summer 2023

Yes, it is raining today and that is noteworthy, as it has been very dry. It still doesn’t feel as weird or bad as last summer, though wildfires across BC are worse. I remember last summer having a surprising number of 30C+ days, and it was super humid from start to end. This year humidity has been low or normal (possibly due to El Niño) and while it’s been warm, we’re seeing high temperatures that are only may be a degree or higher than the norm. We may have had more 30C+ days in May than in July so far (and the forecast suggests it will stay that way).

Weather is weird. And getting weirder.

Thank you for attending my mini climate change TED Talk.

A perfectly cromulent forecast for the rest of July 2023

Birding, July 22, 2023: Duck drama, heron drama and wasps

Where: Iona Beach Regional Park and Terra Nova (Richmond)
Weather: Sunny, 23-27C

The Outing

Deferring our pilgrimage to the heron refuge in Chilliwack one more time, we stayed local and still saw herons, plus heron drama. It seems no body of water is big enough for some herons to share with others.

We started at Iona Beach and I had a plan–a second pair of sneakers to wear, so I could get them muddy and wet and still have a nice dry pair waiting in the car after. I also had bug spray to prevent a repeat of the Episode of Many Bites from the previous summer. Between the bug spray and sunblock, I was assured that every piece of sand would glue itself to my exposed skin. Which it did.

But no bites and no burn!

As is nearly always the case, the tide was extremely low and after going through the wooded area near the river, where we saw flycatchers, sand wasps, goldfinches, a bazillion dragonflies and more, we moved onto the tidal flats, where the sand was unusually firm1Obligatory “That’s what she said” joke here, affording us a sense of security that would later partly betray us as we did a big loop out into the area north of the jetty, only to encounter much muckier and slipperier sand as we approached the beach. We both stayed upright and my feet never got wet, though. I love it when a plan works.

At Terra Nova, the birds were fewer, including a few seagulls, distant herons and some more furtive goldfinches (Nic got nice shots, I got shots). I did get a decent pic of a seaplane, though! And the views are always nice.

I did some experimentation with adjusting ISO on the fly this time, and it looks like it somehow got stuck at a setting a few times that was way too high, blowing out several images (easily fixed in post, however). I may have to read the documentation.

Despite the heat (both areas offer little shelter from the sun), it was a perfectly pleasant outing. Who knows what setting on my camera I will next figure out how to sort of use?

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Blackbird
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Goldfinch
  • Flycatcher
  • Northern flicker
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Swallow (could not ID which type)
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl:

  • Mallard
  • Great blue heron

Common:

  • Crow
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • Sand wasps (roughly one million)
  • Dragonfly (several types)
  • Grasshopper

Run 788: My body only weighs 40 tons!

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run

First, the knee: It’s fine! No issues while running and none after. The legs were a bit sore after the run, in all the muscles that are part of my stretching routine. At one point coming back on the river trail, the knees felt like they were getting stiff, but it passed.

Now, for the run. I checked the weather beforehand, and it showed humidity at 46%. Ruh roh! I took the water bottle, but when I got to the lake and checked again, the humidity was 65%, so I didn’t need it. Who knew New West and Burnaby could be so dramatically different? The earlier start also meant the temperature stayed at a comfy 21C throughout.

Although I’m still averaging over six minutes per km, I did lop off a full eight seconds from Wednesday’s pace, which was nice. I ran the “easier” way by going clockwise (it trends more downhill this way). Other than almost breaking 6:00/km on the first km, I was pretty consistent throughout, which was also nice. I didn’t flag at the end or in the middle.

This was the first run where I had audio on for the Garmin Forerunner and it lowers the volume on music, then announces in a somewhat robotic-sounding female voice, “Lap x, 0:00” where the numbers are your pace for the lap. This means I don’t need to look at the watch at all, except to check my heart rate. Speaking of heart rate, the better conditions today allowed me to be faster while maintaining the same BPM as Wednesday, at 156.

I may come to regret doing the “full deal” by going all the way around the lake, but I have at least two full days to recover before my next run, so here’s hoping the legs and all parts therein behave and recover nicely. For now, I am pleased with today’s result.

Still Creek, post-run

Stats:

Run 788
Average pace: 6:07/km
>NEW< Training status: Overreaching
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:26 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:44
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 21ºC
Humidity: 65-61%
Wind: light
BPM: 156
Weight: 166.5
Total distance to date: 5820 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (490 km)

My watch watches me

Watching over me

Last fall, I got a Garmin Forerunner 255 to better track my running and sleeping vs. the Apple Watch (Series 5) I had previously. Generally, I quite like it. It’s not as “smart” as an Apple Watch, but it’s smart enough for me, and the battery life is insanely better. I charge it when I jump in the shower and never have to think about it otherwise.

This faboo battery life means I use it to track my sleep and while I’ve heard that smartwatches in general are only about 80-85% effective in terms of accuracy when it comes to sleep-tracking, I feel my watch knows me, almost too well.

This morning it told me my sleep suffered due to stress, and I was indeed stressed out last night. If I start stressing out about something in the moment, the watch will jump in and suggest a breathing exercise. If I get super-stressed out (this has only happened once) and my heart rate gets above a certain threshold, my watch blares an alarm at me in warning (which is somewhat ironic), so I can maybe try to calm down a bit.

Anyway, thanks, Garmin watch, for staying vigilant and reminding me to chill the heck out. I promise to do better!