View of the Brunette River, partway through the walk.
My first official™ walk since January. There was no snow this time.
Today marks the 18th day that I haven’t run, due to the latest knee incident. I think I’m about ready to start running again, but thought it might be prudent to do a few walks first, to get the limbs limbered.
I started with a gentle set of stretches, then headed off to the lake and back. It was sunny, but also breezy. I did not exactly have sweat pouring off me, which is actually a nice thing.
I kept up a good pace, most dogs were leashed (it was mid-afternoon, apparently near peak dog-walking time) and even a gang of four roving nerds on scooters were mindful of me on the river trail. The pair of geese that have been shacking up near the dam have babbies! But only two (that I could see). Still, adorable.
My training status on my watch has now gone from Detraining to Recovery. Woo. Go me.
Stats:
Walk 103 Average pace: 9:13/km Location: Brunette River trail/Burnaby Lake Distance: 8.02 km Time: 1:13:58 Weather: Sunny Temp: 14°C Humidity: 52% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 126 Weight: 168.9 pounds Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Total distance to date: 770.48 km
Yes, I know. After multiple months of my weight going down and everything being lovely and on-track, how did I go up in April?
I’m not entirely sure! I had one anomalous weight gain. On April 7th my weight jumped 1.9 pounds for no obvious reason and for the rest of the month, I struggled to shake off this sudden bulk. By the end of the month, I managed to do so, but not enough to keep the weight loss trend down. So it is up, temporarily.
The good news is, I think the last week of the month I was able to get back into a steadier cadence of weight loss, so I shouldn’t go back up again in May. We’ll see.
I am still down 3.4 pounds for the year, so that’s a good thing.
I remain donut-free.
Weight: January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds Current: 168.9 pounds Year to date: Down 3.4 pounds
April 1: 168.4 pounds April 30: 168.9 pounds (up 1.5 pounds)
Body fat: April 1: 25.6% April 30: 25.9% (up 0.3%)
Skeletal muscle mass: April 1: 29.8% April 30: 30.0% (up 0.2%)
Body water: April 1: 54.3% April 30: 54.1% (down 0.2%)
One of the nice things about having a blog is it remembers things that I don’t, freeing my brain up to store vast amounts of random trivia, which makes me a hit at parties.
I did remember that I hurt my knee about one year ago and was able to go back to April/May 2023 and find fun stats I’d forgotten:
It was the same knee, the right knee, which is now the wrong knee. For some reason, I thought I’d hurt the left knee last year. This is sort of good news, because it means the left knee has remained healthy.
The right knee is not hurt as much compared to last year. I know this because I did a coffee table test with my legs last year when I could not raise the right leg from the knee at all and right (ho ho) now, I can raise both equally, even though the bumpity-bump of the right knee is still there.
I started stretching exercises before I resumed running. I should probably start that again.
I didn’t run for 25 days. When I did, I ran a 5K at the lake, then walked the rest of the way.
As of today, it’s been 17 days since I ran. I think I’m ready to run again? I don’t think I’ll run today, but maybe I’ll go for a run and jog a little? So many questions. I’ll start by doing some stretching exercises and report back.
Some public art at the new and just-about-to-open t?m?sew?tx?1Yes, they have a pronunciation guide for the name, you can check it out here. Also, I realize my blog is mangling the non-English letters. My blog is old and dumb, sorry! Aquatic and Community Centre here in New Westminster.
The piece translates to “Water’s edge”
I am excited about trying the lazy river, because it speaks to me.
Two hydrants1Photographing hydrants has become a thing in the gaming group Discord channel, don’t ask me why or how, but I somehow started it I saw yesterday, one with a handsome yellow/red/black colour scheme, the other out of order for unknown reasons. Plus bonus scenery.
Handsome!Sad and neglected.
And the Brunette River, looking ever more lush as we head toward the midway point of spring:
I shot this rather pretty green hill as I was walking along North Road today (through a fence, I should add). If I had been able to reach the edge of the hill, I could have taken a photo of the detritus of the Trans Canadian oil pipeline expansion site: a huge and empty wooden spool, a few tarps covering mounds of soil, some small metal structures. The workers are gone now, and I don’t know if the site is going to be reclaimed or just left as is. I suspect the latter.
And while the grass looks pretty, here’s a Google Maps street view from 2017, the last year when the area was completely untouched by the pipeline construction:
It’s rather ironic that a buried pipeline required thousands of trees to be chopped down. And only grass is put back in their place. I suppose the view is nicer now without all the pesky trees blocking it.
The pipeline–a colossally expensive, stupid and unnecessary project that was about to be cancelled before the federal government swooped in to save it–is just about complete now, as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. If I think about the pipeline, it makes me angry. So I try not to think about it much.
That grass sure looks nice, though. You’d never know.
Back in Inktober 2019 I drew this sketch for the prompt TREASURE:
Recently, and randomly, I decided to colour it (maybe I just like colouring books) and, as I’ve done before with other GGP sketches, ended up refining it at the same time. The lines of the chest are straight now, but if you look closely1Maybe not even that closely, really you can see the chest is not quite straight. But I kind of like it that way. Also, I admit to largely giving up on the coins. Maybe in the next revision.
Shots of the Brunette River, taken on a pleasant April afternoon.
All photos taken on my iPhone 12. I actually had my camera with me in case I saw a bird of paradise, but I was too lazy to actually take it out of the bag. I am a bad photographer.
Celebrating a milestone with an important-looking title
On February 2, 2005 I wrote my first post here on creolened.com:
I was the last one to get bell bottom jeans in grade 5 and now I’m the last person on the Internet to have a blog.
Me, back when I had hair
Today, April 22, 2024, I am writing this, my 5,000th post, just in time for blogging to become a bit of a fad again.
5,000 posts seems like a lot. It is a lot, I suppose. It’s less impressive when you spread it out over the 19 years this blog has been around (263 per year). But it’s still a decent-sized number. If someone gave me $5,000 it would make my socks roll up and down a bit. If someone put 5,000 marbles in my bed, it would be very annoying to deal with. If the sea level rose 5,000 feet, I would be typing this on a boat and probably living in some real-life version of Waterworld.
You get the idea. 5,000 is a good number.
A single Fun Fact
Fun fact: In 2005 I wrote seven posts, in 2006 I wrote eight. My average has improved since then (this is post #159 for 2024).
I’m not going to offer words of wisdom or reflect on what the blog has meant to me, or anything like that. It’s an outlet for me. I like writing. I often have inane thoughts. A blog is a perfect place to put these thoughts down, because if you aren’t sharing your inane thoughts with the world, what are you going to do with them? Tell your cat? I don’t even have a cat any more (I did in 2005).
I will apologize for keeping the blog mired in design hell for so long. I really ought to spiff it up, slim it down, or something.
The inevitable list
What I will do, instead, is offer a list, because I like lists:
I recommend taking a look at the page Tags (all of them). I abuse the WordPress tags function horribly, which is why my blog has hundreds of them, but some of the weirder ones can yield entertaining and/or amusing, but also sometimes horrifying results.
I apologize for all the running posts. They’re not very interesting, except to me. But I did start adding pretty photos to them, at least.
The Creative category is where you’ll find my drawings and such. Some of them are not bad.
Writing Prompts is where I either write based on a prompt, or create my own lists of prompts (as established, I like lists). My prompts are almost exclusively absurd.
Check out my horrible attempt to take swimming lessons from 2009:
