Treadmill walk: Pandemic edition (9 in an ongoing series)

Nothing too exciting to report on tonight’s workout. I started reasonably early compared to some recent exercises–it was only 9:30 p.m. when I hit the treadmill.

I wasn’t really feeling it, but sometime around the midway mark my mind started to drift and I muddled through, distracted from the sweating and exertion by various thoughts about various things.

Note the stats below are comparing today’s 30 minute workout to the previous, which was all of 7:28 minutes. The only interesting thing of note is that my pace after 30 minutes was the same as after 7:28 minutes, so I apparently had more gas tonight than I did the previous night. 

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:31/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (7.28)
Distance: 3.15 km (0.78 km)
Calories burned: 284 (59)
BPM: 137 (123)

Treadmill walk: (Very very late obsessive ring completion) Pandemic edition (8 of an ongoing series)

I went for a walk down to the park in the afternoon and unlike my previous stroll, I made sure to not have a few lingering minutes left on my exercise ring to haunt me through the rest of the day.

The rest of the day proved to be a rather lazy one, though, so I ended up with a shortfall on my move ring instead. I was at 90% by 11:30 p.m. and my mind was starting to click over into “too bad so sad” on missing closing all three rings. But at 11:45 p.m. I found myself donning my shorts and hopping on the treadmill, determined to close the move ring in one final burst of obsessive completionist effort. It happened at 11:55 p.m.

My exercise lasted 7:26 minutes and covered 0.78 km. The minimal stats are below. Hitting my move goal with minutes to spare gave me a perfect week on all three goals, and made me feel a tiny bit better about having a pretty lazy day overall.

Stats (note I am comparing to a shorter-than-normal 20 minute walk):

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:31/km (9:38 km/h)
Time: 7:28 (20.03)
Distance: 0.78 km (2.08 km)
Calories burned: 59 (163)
BPM: 123 (129)

Treadmill walk: (Very late) Pandemic edition (7 of an ongoing series)

Technically I didn’t wait until the last minute, but with a mere two minutes remaining on my exercise ring, I finally decided to do a treadmill walk…at 11:10 p.m.

I cut it a bit shorter than normal–down to 20 minutes–but I figured that might also provide some interesting info on how a shorter workout would differ, stat-wise.

First, I was slow, which one would not expect in a shorter workout. I think this was due to the late start and my body basically already switching to going-to-bed mode and being suddenly shocked into what-the-heck-is-going-on mode.

But more expectedly, my BPM was down to the lowest yet at 129.

Other than being slow, the stats are pretty much in line with doing two-thirds of the usual workout. And now I don’t have to go to bed cursing myself for leaving that tiny sliver of the exercise ring open.

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:38/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 20:03 (30.04)
Distance: 2.08 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 163 (266)
BPM: 129 (136)

Treadmill walk: Pandemic edition (6 of an ongoing series)

I went for a walk in the park today, just like in the old saying, and managed to get 23 minutes on my exercise goal. I later managed another two minutes at home, somehow. Maybe I loaded the dishwasher with extra vim. This still left me with a five minute exercise deficit and it would bug me getting that close and not hitting that particular ring. This is a good example of how the activity rings on my watch work to motivate me. I push a bit, then guilt does the rest!

I had two choices: go outside for a five minute walk around the block. It’s evening, cool and the chance of encountering others is small, or I could do a treadmill workout, which would be longer, harder and sweatier.

As you may have guessed, I did the latter. I felt a smidgen guilty (see?) having not been on the treadmill for a few days, so it seemed like it was time.

I felt fine to start, but was slow, improved in the middle, then began to fade a bit the last few minutes. I am out of shape. But getting better, bit by bit.

I’m not even going to talk about what happened when I tried getting into my size 30 shorts this afternoon (hint: it wasn’t pretty). I went out wearing my sweatpants. My oh-so-forgiving sweatpants.

Anyway, I’m glad I did the workout. As for the stats, BPM was good, calorie burn was lighter, reflecting the slower pace, but overall not bad.

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:29/km (9:19 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.22 km)
Calories burned: 266 (275)
BPM: 136 (137)

Stay awhile and listen… to how I finally got Diablo 2 working

On my old PC I was able to install and play Diablo 2. The game is 20 years old now and has lots of janky bits to it. The characters walk awfully slowly around the landscapes, and they move like they have to go to the bathroom very badly. You have to hold town portal and identify scrolls in your limited inventory. And so on.

But still, the music is great and there is satisfaction in slaying a multitude of demons and picking new skills to slay a multitude more.

Last April I assembled a new PC. Still running, Windows 10, but now with a newer video card (still Nvidia) and a modern CPU (this time AMD instead of Intel). Among the games I installed was Diablo 2, grabbing the installer from Blizzard’s site, and using my license key from the same place.

When I ran the game I got an unhandled exception error. Visions of the early days of Tribes 2 came vividly back–these are not good visions. I began searching for, then attempting every fix or workaround I could find.

All of them failed. Diablo 2 would not run on my new PC.

Fast-forward to today, a year later. Diablo 2 will still not work. I am sad, but have moved on.

But wait, that’s a lie, because I am actually still quietly obsessed with getting the game to work. Periodically I try something new, or repeat something I’ve tried before, hoping it will magically work this time.

Yesterday I went looking for my original game CDs…and found them. I brought out my portable USB DVD drive, connected it to my PC and tried installing the game the same way I did back in the year 2000. Then it asked for a CD key. No problem, I went to my Blizzard account and…noticed that it has a license key, which is different than the CD key. The CD key is on the front of the CD case, but I found the discs in a binder of game discs.

I searched again…and found my original CD jewel cases! The one for Diablo 2 has a note on the back to assure you that it is “Year 2000 compliant.” Good to know.

The installation of the game and Lord of Destruction expansion is appropriately tedious, requiring me to juggle an Install Disc, a Play Disc, a Cinematics Disc and Expansion Disc.

I previously had installed a Glide (3dfx) wrapper, which was one of the recommendations in getting Diablo 2 to work on modern systems. I completed the installation and the game moved to the video test, which is sort of farther than it had gotten previously. I say sort of because the latest patched version of the game removes the video test entirely.

The test completes and it defaults to 3dfx. I leave this and without doing anything else, I click the Play button.

And it works.

It works with both the base game and expansion. Yes, for now I need to leave the DVD drive connected and have the Expansion Disc in it. Yes, it is only running version 1.07 (the version that the LoD expansion updates it to). But it works and everything is there, in glorious 800×600 resolution!

Behold my druid, DrewEd (no, I will not apologize for the name):

You may have to squint a little.

As for the actual game, after the opening cinematic (which makes no reference to your character at all), you are dumped into the Rogue Encampment where Warwiv vaguely warns of evil spreading across the land and the monastery is closed. Then you’re left to just bumble around and kill things. It’s been 20 years, I don’t remember how the plot actually gets started. Or how much of a plot there even is. All I know is I want my volcano and molten boulders, and they shall be mine.

Have some flowers

I haven’t been posting my photos much lately, but here’s a few flowers I’ve shot recently while practicing my physical distancing skills outdoors.

Pretty and pink
Purple and prickly

Treadmill walk: Pandemic edition (5 of an ongoing series)

It’s my third day of being on the treadmill. The idea of running outside is acting as actual enticement to stay indoors, so it’s good in the sense that I am still doing workouts.

Tonight I started out feeling pretty good and fast (9:09/km pace) but by the last four minutes or so I was actually starting to feel blah and tired. I also am experiencing heartburn/mild acid reflux, possibly caused by stress, so while swigging water from my water bottle during the walk helped, it was still an unpleasant thing to endure on and off for 30 minutes.

The stats (BPM was down, so yay for that):

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:19/km (9:18 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.04)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.23 km)
Calories burned: 275 (306)
BPM: 137 (141)

Treadmill walk: Pandemic edition (4 of an ongoing series)

I really don’t want to think how high this particular series will go.

Unlike the phantom workout reported here, this one was quite real–and extra late. I didn’t start until 10:40 p.m. after flipping back and forth on whether I wanted to do a workout (I knew I should).

And I was peppier, as the stats show below. I was also wetter, as I forgot to screw the cap of my water bottle on tight enough. Oops. Other than that, things went fine and I am pleased with the result. BPM was about the same, but pace was improved, so yay.

Stats:

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:18/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.04)
Distance: 3.23 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 306 (313)
BPM: 141 (142)