Sometimes when I think

Sometimes I get a jolt of self-awareness, except it’s not really a jolt, it’s more something that gently pops to the fore of my thinking and I ponder it for a moment.

For example, yesterday after finishing my shortened run, I was walking along the top of the Cariboo Dam, which has railings on both sides and is fairly narrow, except for an expanded middle section where one can stand and look for herons. As I began walking across, I noticed a jogger coming down the path from the entrance to the park. The jogger might go straight and head counter-clockwise down the lake trail, or they might hook left, cross the dam and go clockwise instead. I wasn’t sure, but I figured I’d play it safe and paused in the enlarged area midway across the dam, so the runner could easily pass.

The runner did indeed ascend the stairs and ran across the top of the dam. Once she passed, I resumed my walk out of the park.

A simple thing, but it required me to observe what was happening and then change what I was doing for a few moments, to make things a little easier for someone else, in this case a person I did not know and would likely never see again. Am I patting myself metaphorically on the back for being a nice person?

Yes.

Am I doing it to puff up my own ego? No.

I point it out because this thought process occurs automatically to me. Did I inherit it from my parents? To a degree, I’d say yes. They were both kind and thoughtful people who helped others, so I am, in a way, carrying that forward.

But I also think this is how I’m wired. While there are people out there who might clear the way for the jogger, I wonder how many would see the jogger and calculate the possible results and, in a way, pre-accommodate her by moving out of the way before it was known if it would even be needed? Kind of like being pre-nice. Not many is my hunch, but it is just a hunch.

I wish more people could look at situations like this and react the same way I did. I’m an imperfect mess, but I try to pay attention and I always try to be kind to others. And as the last few days have underscored to me, there are people out there that calculatedly do the opposite, who seem to enjoy architecting misery in others in order to preserve what they’ve got. It makes me sad. It makes me a little angry, too, but mostly just sad.

Try to be thoughtful, try to be kind.

Run 870: The micro run

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run.

Today I got carried away with stuff in the morning and pondered putting off my usual Friday run. Instead, I opted to head out later than usual–at 1:30. This meant that it was already 27°C when I got to the lake.

Undaunted, and reasonably well-hydrated, I set off clockwise along the largely exposed Avalon Trail, knowing it would eventually lead me to the much more shady Southshore Trail with its pine trees and squirrels and such. My first km pace was 5:54/km–pretty slow, but fine, because:

  • I’m still out of shape from lack of running
  • I am not 100% recovered from my summer cold (lung capacity is reduced)
  • It was much warmer than what I am used to

Then, partway through the second km, I got a text message. It was strata stuff. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. I paused to note I was on a run and to hold off on further notices. But the damage was done. I could no longer focus on the run, and the heat wasn’t helping, either. I stopped at 1.31 km total, with an average pace of 5:53/km. :sadtrombone:

However, I still got a Training Status of Productive after the short run. Yay! But then after the 4K walk back, it switched to Overreaching again. Whoops.

Anyway, I’m including the usual stats below, but I’ve opted not to count the run part in the total distance, because it would drive my OCD batty to have the total distance end in 1.31.

Post-run shot taken west of Cariboo Dam.
Run 870
Average pace: 5:53/km
Training status: Productive (after run), Overreaching (after 4 km walk home)
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 2:21 p.m.
Distance: 1.31 km
Time: 7:41
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 27°C
Humidity: 47%
Wind: light
BPM: 148
Weight: 168.1
Total distance to date: 6,215 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (355/685/1,044 km)

June 28, 2024 gallery is up!

Here it is, the first gallery I’ve posted in 37 years. More maybe soon. Who knows.

Run 869: Two runs, one week

Brunette River, post-run.

Yes, in an amazing turn of events, I have run not once, but twice in the same week. Woo!

Today I opted to run the easier river trail, as a way of easing back into a semi-regular run routine. I was hoping for two things: lower BPM and a faster pace. And I got both. Also woo!

My BPM was 153 overall and my pace was 6:01/km, down seven seconds from Monday. I am slightly disappointed I didn’t break six minutes, but the first km pace was oddly the same as Monday–5:50–when I would have expected it to be faster. I can only assume I was subconsciously running slower to help conserve energy. Still, I’m pleased with the results.

Conditions were very similar to Monday, but the slightly cooler temperature and stronger breeze made it feel a bit more comfy, which was nice in the way a Jamaican patty is nice. And they are nice.

Also nice was the relative lack of other people, as it was just a regular weekday.

Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. We’ll see how Friday goes, as it is looking to be Africa hot.

It is getting increasingly tricky to shoot the river over the incredibly lush vegetation.

Stats:

Run 869
Average pace: 6:01/km
Training status: Overreaching (whoops)
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 10:56 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:13
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 18-19°C
Humidity: 68-67%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 153
Weight: 167.9
Total distance to date: 6,215 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (355/685/1,040 km)

Brunette River, July 2, 2024

I forgot to make a post about Canada Day yesterday, but it would have been a dumb joke, anyway.

Instead, today you may enjoy another shot of the Brunette River, looking resplendent on an early summer day.

Shot on iPhone 12. I’m not upgrading, Tim Cook. Haha!

Run 868: Fixing a hole

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run.

It has been 18 days since my first 5K in two months. This was not my intention.

But after running on June 13th, I came down with a summer cold, curiously around the same time one struck last year. And so it was I had to wait until I was mostly recovered before officially tackling a 5K again. I knew that the combo of not running much plus not being 100% would affect my pace, and it did. I turned in my first 6+ minute pace in quite some time, coming in at 6:08/km.

Which wasn’t so bad vs. how I felt, because by the end that 5 km was feeling more like 500.

On the plus side, I am suffering no ill effects post-run, and didn’t have any issues while running, other than feeling very slow and tired. I completed the first km with a pace of 5:50, but could feel myself slowing in the second, where I dropped to 6:08. I dropped to 6:18 on the third and decided to cheat just a little.

At the 3K marker (the actual marker, I had already passed 3 km total), I paused the run, then walked to Phillips Point, which, according to Google Maps, is about a 168 m round-trip. There were a couple of people fishing there, which was a bit weird, so I only paused for a moment before heading back to the 3K marker and resuming the run. This allowed my heart rate to drop from 158 to 141, which definitely helped on the last two km, which had paces of 6:13 and 6:10.

After finishing the run, I made a beeline across the field to the drinking fountain at the playground and supped on it like a very thirsty runner.

Another plus: My training status went from Recovery to Productive. Woo!

Although humidity was high, my lips felt a bit dry, though I didn’t experience any notable dry mouth. I hate dry mouth.

And as it was Canada Day, the trail was more crowded than usual, but all dogs were leashed and people were attentive, even considerate! Hooray for polite Canadians.

Oh, and the title refers to the numerous potholes along the trail that have recently been patched. Some sections could still use a full resurfacing, but no signs of it yet. And speaking of resurfacing, of a sort, the first boardwalk as you go clockwise is canting at even more diverse angles than before. It is over two years since the signs there went up noting that “repairs are planned.” Hopefully they will happen before the boardwalk sinks into the marsh.

Overall, it was good to get back out, good to prove I could still do 5K, and hopefully the next run will be a bit easier and happen in a few days and not a few weeks.

A lake of lily pads, post-run.

Stats:

Run 868
Average pace: 6:08/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:29 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:51
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 20°C
Humidity: 68-66%
Wind: light
BPM: 155
Weight: 169.0
Total distance to date: 6,210 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (350/681/1031 km)

The real reason why music is getting worse…

…is the title of a Rick Beato video on YouTube. You can watch it below.

Rick attributes the current state of pop music (bad) to two things:

  1. Music is really easy to make now, thanks to various software and hardware tools
  2. Music is really easy to listen to now, thanks to streaming services

I think he’s right. In the video he lays out how much work went into recording a typical rock band, with drums alone requiring multiple mics (and a good drummer), where today it’s…a drum machine. Vocalists needed to sing on pitch, and the opportunity to fix mistakes originally meant having to re-record. Then came autotune, pitch correction software and the equivalent for instruments. Now anyone could sing, and the voice could be processed any way you like. When something hit, it was easy to reproduce…and was, by everyone looking to score a hit. The sheer volume of music increased as it became easier to make. And this is before you even consider the horror of AI-generated music.

As he notes, over 100,000 songs were added to streaming services over the last year, a rate of about one per second. This isn’t a stream, it’s a torrent1See what I did there?.

Then he explains how music in the olden times (my time) was something to be sought, acquired and savoured. Sure, it feels a bit “I had to walk both ways uphill in the snow” but again, he’s right. I remember saving for an album, having to go to the record store to buy it, take it home, then listen to it. If I liked it, I might loan it to a friend. Buying an album was a thing. Today, for $10.99 a month (about what one of those albums used to cost), you get a virtually endless supply of music on demand. You don’t have to seek it out, it’s just there, in an app. Combined with the sheer volume (heh heh) of the music output, it cultivates a feeling, especially in those who are growing up with streaming services, that music is nothing special–it’s just background noise. Don’t like a song? Just skip to the next random track. Let the software build a playlist for you. You don’t need to do anything, just listen. There is no investment, no value. It’s product.

And everything kind of sounds the same.

As I’m typing this, I’m listening to Boney M’s Nightflight to Venus, a 1978 album that gleefully celebrates its disco roots. It’s silly, bonkers, but also super catchy, with terrific harmonized vocals. It even covers a nice variety of styles, not just disco. I mean, it has a cover of “King of the Road.”

Today, an equivalent album would likely be composed on a computer, probably feature hyper-processed autotuned vocals, a drum machine and probably no actual guitars. It would be musical sludge, a pile of muck in a larger pile of indistinguishable muck. But hey, there’s a million other songs on tap, so just skip to something else if you don’t like it. The pool is big.

Anyway, the video is worth a watch, and helps explain why I spend more time listening to my ripped CD collection in Windows Media Player than I do listening to the nigh-endless selection of songs on Apple Music2Consider that I started buying my own music around 1977, which is 38 years before Apple Music existed.

June weight loss report: Down 0.9 pounds

Actual weight loss! But wait, there’s more.

I had early success in June, dropping to 168.4 pounds after starting the month at 169, but then started to seesaw through most of the rest of the month. On June 23 I somehow managed to gain 1.7 pounds overnight, ballooning to 171.5 pounds.

However, the next seven days I lost weight every day, save for one, where I maintained. I ended up dropping 3.4 pounds during this week, which is kind of crazy. I didn’t skip meals or anything, I just didn’t snack much and walked about a billion steps.

I also spent several weeks enduring a summer cold (or what I assume was a summer cold), however this did not affect my appetite, though I did refrain from running.

I will maintain the low-impact snacks and walking (and soon, running) and hopefully the downward trend will continue in July as I approach my proper slim ‘n sexy weight. 

Weight:
January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds  
Current: 168.1 pounds
Year to date: Down 4.2 pounds

June 1: 169.0 pounds
June 30: 168.1 pounds (down 0.9 pounds)

Body fat: 
June 1: 26.0%
June 30: 25.8% (down 0.2%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
June 1: 30.0% 
June 30: 29.9% (down 0.1%)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds