Falling into rain

I haven’t talked about the weather for what seems like, well, a good solid week, at least.

Two days ago it was the last day of summer. It was mostly clear and the sun felt pleasantly warm on my back as I went for a walk.

Yesterday was the first day of fall and it was also pleasantly sunny and warm. I like pleasantly warm fall days, because it creates the illusion that a cold, wet and going-on-forever winter is not really coming.

Today, however, the weather app had this:

And this:

This promise is being fulfilled outside, right now, as I type this. In a way the heavy rain is nice, because it makes it easier to make decisions, like, “Should I go outside?” because the answer is invariably, “Hell no.”

It does complicate my walk/runs, though. I don’t mind (but don’t prefer–I’m not crazy, after all) running in the rain, but walking in it is different. When you run you generate enough heat to stave off the cold and wet, for awhile. When you walk, even briskly, this doesn’t really happen. So I must ponder if I want to do a walk/run, a run or maybe “Hell no” it and stick to the treadmill.

In the meantime, I am putting together a playlist of nothing but rain-related songs. And then not listening to them.

Snack-free, Day 22 of 30: Three squares

Three square meals, that is, with no snacking in-between.

Two of the meals were take-out, though, and the only walking I did was to get to and from work–though I did get off at 41st Avenue instead of 49th, so I got some extra walking in (this was mostly so I could take the mask off ASAP and breathe/not have my glasses fog up).

My weight was up slightly to 170.7 pounds. I make no prediction for tomorrow!

Snack-free, Day 21 of 30: One last cookie

I ate one more cookie today. I had to, in order to be rid of them. It was like a mercy killing. A delicious, chocolate chip-filled mercy killing.

But that was it for snacking today. I was otherwise good. I didn’t go for my normal walk/run but Monday is usually a day I take off because Mondays–cliches be damned–usually drag on interminably and are generally awful. Which today was.

I did go for two 15-minute walks, which is better than a kick in the pants, as they old saying goes.

Much to my cookie-laden surprise, I was down in weight this morning, coming in at 170.5 pounds. I am no longer going to guess what the next day will bring for my weight, because my body obviously moves to its own mystic rhythms.

But if I’m down again tomorrow, I’ll be rooting for more mystic rhythms in the future.

More art from my days as a pre-adult: PLUTO

One of the most important things you learn in art class is using reference. To put it simply, copy stuff. In doing so, you learn how things connect and when your oranges come out as squares, maybe you need to look into that.

Here’s an example of copying from source material I did when I was probably about 10 or 11–the drawing is untitled, so I can’t say for sure, but I’m reasonably confident I was around that age, as it jibes with when I was reading Disney comics.

It’s actually a pretty good representation of Pluto, the odd dog pet of Goofy–odd, because Goofy was also a dog, of course. I’m intrigued by the fact that I did this using felt pens, as I have very few examples of felt pen art and the majority of my stuff was done in pencil or, to a lesser degree, pencil crayon.

PLUTO:

And for the sake of comparison, here’s the same with the wrinkly, yellowed sketchpad background removed:

Snack-free, Day 20 of 30: The cookies crumble…

The problem with buying cookies is you end up eating some, but there are still more. The last time I did this I ended up “solving” the problem by gorging all of them over a couple of days. I felt gross, but it seemed better to get them gone than to have them hang around and get used to their sweet, delicious company.

So I’m kind of doing the same thing again. and I feel gross again. This is good, because it will reinforce why this is a capital letter Bad Idea.

My weight was up, but only by half a pound this morning. It will probably be up again tomorrow. Then I can spend the rest of the month working on what originally seemed like an easy goal–staying under 170 pounds–but which has only happened one time this month in total. Yikes.

Snack-free, Day 19 of 30: Cheater’s Paradise

It was my birthday and also kind of a bad day. I went to the grocery store and I bought everything on the shopping list. I also bought:

  • A box of 12 chocolate chip cookies (180 calories each)

The above-mentioned box now contains:

  • 8 of 12 cookies (720 calories consumed)

I also did not exercise, though I did go out for a bit of a walk. Technically I am probably only a bit over my daily calorie goal as my meals (you know, actually healthy food) were fairly calorie-light. I might go on the treadmill to assuage my guilt. Yes, it’s my birthday and yes, I knew I might do this, but I still feel bad. And fat. Fatbad.

On a positive note, my weight was back down, to 170.7 pounds. It is apparently in yo-yo mode right now. Here’s hoping it will return to “it’s all downhill from here” mode soon.

Snack-free, Day 18 of 30: My cheatin’ ways

Yes, today I cheated.

  • I had a Clif Bar
  • I had some tortilla chips and salsa
  • I had four chocolate-covered almonds
  • I did not go for my walk/run

I was also up in weight today, back to 171.2 pounds. Even though it was Friday, the day felt drawn-out and vaguely horrible, so I sought comfort in food.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m allowing myself to indulge for the day before taking this whole thing seriously again.

On the plus side, I did go out in the evening for a walk and managed to close my activity rings, so it wasn’t a completely fatful day. And latent guilt may stave off the worst of the indulgences tomorrow. Or so goes my theory of the moment.

Walk 12: Sweaty with construction workers

The smoke haze was about the same today as yesterday, which means it was better than the grossbuckets smoke a few days ago. It was also a few degrees cooler. BUT. The humidity was 70% and I sweated more (a lot more) than I have doing the same run when it was 30 degrees. Weather be crazy.

I pushed a little harder today and toward the end, on the running part, I could feel the burn in my chest. I’m undecided on whether it was from the exertion or the smoke coating my lungs in soot. I think it was the exertion. I turned in a fairly zippy 5:43/km pace on the second km, which was nice.

Overall, it went well. But regarding this:

Also, after posting signs back in August and then doing nothing for more than a month, they have finally started moving in equipment for the remedial work on the river. They were shut down when I went by, so hopefully the work won’t disrupt my workouts

Wrong! Well, somewhat wrong. The excavator was joined this afternoon by a car, pickup and two dump trucks, one which was being loaded with rock or other river stuff. Hopefully not turtles. I was able to get by without having to wait and while the first truck trundled off ahead of me as I headed back out, it was far enough ahead that the giant dust cloud it ,made had cleared by the time I caught up.

Also, semi-randomly, a lot of people are wearing masks outside now. I wonder if it’s more because of the smoke than the pandemic. I guess we’ll see when the smoke finally clears in a few months or whatever.

Anyway, it was a good, sweaty time, but I won’t object to a little lower humidity for the next outing.

Stats:

Walk 12
Average pace: 7:48/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.83 km
Time: 1:01:10
Weather: Light smoke haze
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 70% (!)
Wind: light
BPM: 127
Weight: 170.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 91.98 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8

Snack-free, Day 17 of 30: Forgetful

I am actually writing this post the following day because it was getting late and I forgot to post.

But I did exercise and pretty much behaved. I went for a run that felt like moving through water. My weight remained unchanged.

Snack-free, Day 16 of 30: A Triscuit, a tasket

I had six Triscuit crackers today and that was all for my snacking, so pretty good, considering I also did a walk/run and burned 500 calories there.

Also I admit I have no idea what a tasket is.

My weight was back down today, woo. I went from 171.2 pounds to 170.8 pounds. I’m hoping to dip below 170 again by the weekend. I promise to leave any donuts I may encounter unmolested.

Walk 11: Less smoke, more speed

Today the sun could not penetrate the smoke haze but paradoxically, the smoke was lighter and less obnoxious, enough so that I opted to run on my return up the river trail.

My stats were still a bit slower than a typical walk/run because I kept to a more deliberate pace. While the air quality was better, it was still not exactly mountain spring fresh.

It was a bit cooler–and the breeze, when it rose, has a decided fall flavor to it–but the biggest difference other than less smoke was the humidity, which was significantly higher. That meant sweating was copious.

Also, after posting signs back in August and then doing nothing for more than a month, they have finally started moving in equipment for the remedial work on the river. They were shut down when I went by, so hopefully the work won’t disrupt my workouts, though I can’t imagine it will be near as active a worksite as it was back in the summer of 2012.

The stats are in line with a typical walk/run split, with a higher but fine BPM and a much better pace than yesterday.

Walk 11
Average pace: 8:00/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.6 km
Time: 1:00:46
Weather: Light smoke haze
Temp: 23ºC
Humidity: 66%
Wind: light
BPM: 123
Weight: 170.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 84.15 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8

Snack-free, Day 15 of 30: A toast to (and for) me

I did snack a little today, but only a small piece of toast with jam and a few crackers. I felt bad afterward. But no Clif bars!

I was up this morning, to 171.2 pounds, a modest 0.3 pound increase. I am hoping that I will resume the downward trend tomorrow, as I exericed today and all that. If I am up again, I promise to only seek comfort in carrot sticks.