I’ve decided to skip writing up a post about 2025. It was not a complete disaster, but it was not a good year–for me, or for the world. My bookends on the year both involved getting IVs and CT scans. You don’t do these things for fun. Or if you do, your conception of fun is very different from mine.
But I also kept running throughout the year (that is, jogging, not running away from things). And other good things happened.
I’ll skip the bad, skip the summary, and focus on the year ahead instead.
Today is the first day I’m back to a regular run schedule. Because my watch claims my HRV is off, I opted to run the river trail, which saves me a bunch of extra walking. My training status is currently Strained, but that should hopefully change soon.
As for the run, it was generally fine. A tendon near my right knee is a bit stiff, but not sore. At one point, I felt like some cramping was imminent, but it never materialized. I plodded a bit in the middle, but thanks to my right shoelace coming untied around the 4.5 km mark, I got a brief breather, which allowed me to post the zippiest km in a while to wrap up–5:26. My overall pace was 5:43/km, BPM was 149. Overall, very average, and acceptable.
There weren’t many people out, and I feel that two layers may have sufficed, but three was not overly warm or anything.
For the first run of 2026, it was Not Bad™.
The river, post-run.
Stats:
Run 997 Average pace: 5:43/km Training status: Strained Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 11:19 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:48 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 6-7°C Humidity: 88% Wind: light BPM: 147 Weight: 169.4 pounds Total distance to date: 6,815 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (75/121/196)
I have tried adding various dark mode toggles to the site and all have not looked quite right, which keeps me from sticking with them. If you read this site and find it too bright, it actually looks pretty good in the reader mode of most browsers. Reader mode will work on individual posts, but not from the main page.
I’ll continue to look into better light/dark solutions. And I may tweak the colours (again) for 2026. Maybe I’ll go dark mode.
I’m also playing around with how to display categories and such. The dropdown menus are space efficient but look a bit utilitarian. On the other hand, they almost have a retro charm now. Another thing to ponder.
Here is a cat celebrating the new year.
I like the personal touch of it being signed by Cat.
Shoot more photos, get weird with it. But not too weird.
Get back into game design.
Try losing weight again (lol).
Give up soda. I drink sugar-free now, but I want to go back to just water, like I used to years ago. Who knew that one cup of Coke Zero in 2010 would be a kind of gateway drug?
Be more at peace with myself and the world, no matter how screwed up things are. Be calm, be smart, be ready. And keep caring about making things better.
I think that’s enough for now.
Here’s to 2026 being better than 2025, not just for me, but the whole flipping planet.
I’ll have my 2025 review soon, I don’t want to spoil the mood of fragile, tentative hope right now. 😛
I ended the year by going out on a rare sunny afternoon and grabbing some shots in and around Sapperton Landing. Birds, hydrants, berries, a little of everything.
I also didn’t fuss around with the shots. I used the JPEG versions and edited them in the default Windows 11 Photos program. The advantage? The gallery is done, rather than being in-progress for some unspecified length of time.
Male mallard.
Female mallard.
Black and white silo thing near Sapperton Station.
Crow bathing near the river shore.
Black and white, extremely tightly cropped close-up of the bathing crow.
Fish mosaic at Sapperton Landing, with some post-processing.
Female gadwall.
Male gadwall.
Fire hydrant in the sun, Sapperton Landing.
Fire hydrant next to Sapperton station, with instruction behind it.
A rose hip. I don't know where the rest of it is. Thank you, I'll be here all night.
I started the year at 166.8 pounds. It should have been trivially easy to lose weight by year’s end, even just a little. Instead, I gained 2.1 pounds over the past 12 months and 1.8 of them in the past seven days.
BMI is up, body fat is up. These are not good things.
It all came crashing down in the final week of this month, when I began experiencing abdominal aches that made me think my kidney infection had returned (all clear there, fortunately). I sought comfort in food of all sorts, and suddenly my weight began taking great leaps upward and onward.
It’s disappointing. I resolve to do better, but temper my expectations with what I have failed to achieve.
On the plus side, gaining 2.1 pounds over the course of a year is not exactly a ton and if I behave I could shed it and get going on real, actual weight loss soon™. I gotta believe!
Stats:
January 1, 2025: 166.8 pounds
Current: 168.7 pounds Year to date: Up 2.1 pounds
December 1: 166.9 pounds December 31: 168.7 pounds (up 1.8 pounds)
Body fat: December 1: 24.5% December 31: 25.7 (up 1.2%)
Skeletal muscle mass: December 1: 29.7 kg December 31: 29.9 kg (up 0.2 kg)
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. It wasn’t as dark and moody as it appears here.
I had been hoping to hit 1,000 official™ runs this year, but then your body makes you go to the ER and things happen, so instead I end with 996 runs and I should hit 1,000 sometimes in the first week or so of the new year. And that’s fine.
Today, a week after my last run–which was also on a Tuesday–I waddled off to the lake (I am a whopping 3.2 pounds heavier than the last run) and…it went decently!
It was a later start because I wasn’t sure I would even run today, but it seemed prudent to go today with the weather being dry, if cool. I saw a decent number of people, including a lot of joggers, though none of the regulars. One guy had the temerity to run past me. But he was wearing gloves, so I was still more manly.
I got to see the aftermath of the windstorm from the other side and it looks like at least one giant tree uprooted itself on the Southshore Trail, along with several smaller ones. The trail was clear today, though the beating it’s taken has left the normally unseen underlay/mesh exposed in multiple places, almost to where it’s a tripping hazard.
Although it was 6C and the weather app said it felt like 6C, it felt colder. The air was damp enough that my minimal facial hair was dripping throughout. I felt clammy and cold walking home, despite three layers. But maybe I added a few more hairs to my chest.
The run yo-yo’d a bit in terms of pace, but I felt fine and finished with an overall pace of 5:47/km and a BPM of 147. My Detraining status has now reverted to Maintaining. Overall, I am pleased and should now resume a more regular run routine.
The view immediately west of the dam, post-run.
Stats:
Run 996 Average pace: 5:47/km Training status: Maintaining Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop) Start: 1:10 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 29:07 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 6°C Humidity: 84% Wind: light BPM: 147 Weight: 169.8 pounds Total distance to date: 6,810 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (70/117/187)
