growth – The Walking Catfish

Riding Through Bowmont, Baker and Bowness Parks – August 30, 2016 (31.17 km/19.36 miles)

Well, the biking thing hasn’t killed me yet…
Decided to head out late this morning with the bike to ride my usual walking route of Baker, Bowmont and Bowness parks. The weather was just amazing, and I was originally thinking that I would ride a loop or two, and then end by walking the route, but instead I just ended up having so much fun riding that I just rode the loop five times. That ended up being a good thirty-one kilometer workout… Sweet!

The parks were pretty busy for a Tuesday morning/afternoon, but the weather was most likely the main reason for that. Quite a few people were taking advantage of the rays and renting canoes and paddle boats, or riding the train in Bowness Park. Me? I just rode and rode.
I’m pretty sure my ass will be sore tomorrow, as I’m not used to the bike seat, but I know it could be way worse, as I have a pretty comfy seat. That said, maybe tomorrow I will walk!

Bike, Walk and Bike Again! (30.52km/18.96 miles)

Well, I own a bike. Yes, I own a bike.

I told myself 24 years ago that I would never ride or own a bike ever again, yet I now own a bike. Maybe someday I will tell you fine folks the reason why I told myself I would never own a bike again, but not today. It’s enough that I now own a bike.

Since I own the damn thing now, I’ve decided that I should use it. I’m special that way. I guess I’m lucky it’s a bike and not dental equipment… But I digress: my good buddy set me up with this bike, as I am determined to lose this belly, and I know biking is a good exercise. It’s also reasonably easy to do, and I am reasonably lazy, so it’s kind of perfect for me. I took the bike for a short two kilometer ride around the neighbourhood the other day, just to get the feel of it – I mean, it’s been just short of a quarter century since I last rode- and that went well so this morning I decided to ride my bike instead of walking my normal route through Bowmont, Baker and Bowness parks. Well, the plan was to ride one loop through the parks (six kilometers), and then walk the second loop. This way I get a good ride in (well a good ride for a first ride), and a good walk in, burning a good amount of calories and having a good time at the same time.

I had an absolute freakin’ blast on my lazy ride through the park. The six kilometers zipped by in no time, and it felt great. Getting back to the car, I loaded up the bike into it, refilled my water and headed out to repeat the circuit, but walking this time. It was a great walk, and I got to enjoy some good tunes, but when I finished my loop I had one thought in my head: I should do one more loop on the bike. So I unloaded the bike, hopped on and took off for another loop.

Or Three.

In the end I did thee more circuits of the park on my bike, for a total of four, or twenty four kilometers, as well as a six kilometer walk for a total of more than thirty kilometers. That’s freakin’ awesome. I am so happy I broke my bike “fast” – Thanks to Manfred for making that happen.

Check out the pics from today below – clicking on them will take you to the album on my Flickr page.

I Got 99 Problems and a Blog Host Is One

So, I’m having problems with my blog due to the amount of photos I post. Yep, I’ve run out of storage on WordPress.com. Now, I have a crap load of photo storage in the cloud, with Google Photos, Flickr and other online photo services, but it seems to be a real pain in the ass to embed photos from these services when using a WordPress.com hosted blog. There are plugins for WordPress that lets you easily add photos and galleries from these services, but these don’t work on the aforementioned WordPress.com hosted sites. I’ve kind of found a kludgy work a round, but it’s freakin’ time consuming and awkward. I could use Blogger.com which has good integration with Google Photos (as they are a Google – or ABC- property), and I have used Tumblr, but neither are really what I’m looking for. They’re both okay… Well, I think blogger is just really ugly, and something about Tumblr screams Hipster to me (tell me and prove to me I’m wrong, please). But, yeah, both seem kind of lacking. One of the major issues is that I can’t currently think about paying for a good, proper host, like Squarespace or something, as funds are kind of tight at the moment. Eventually, though, something like that will be the ultimate answer.

Hmmm… Any suggestions, My Internet savvy friends? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Have an awesome day.

12 Kilometers Before Noon – Sunday August 21, 2016

I know this post is out of chronological order, but that’s how things go sometimes…

I managed to get out Sunday, August 21, 2016 for a nice walk on an amazingly beautiful morning. Walking my usual Baker, Bowmont and Bowness parks loop, I was able to keep up a pretty quick pace, despite still suffering shin pains from my running a few days earlier.

Joggity-Jog-Jog… Baker, Bowmont and Bowness – August 15, 2016 (11.59 km/7.2 miles)

Same old places, but I mixed it up a bit by jogging short sections on the second loop through the three parks. Now don’t get me wrong: I still walked most of it, but jogged more bits than I have in the past. I would jog until my calf started to complaining, walk for a while, jog again and repeat. Managed to get the heart rate up and aside from the expected aches and complaints, I feel pretty damn good. Hehehehe… Now, lets see if I can say the same thing tomorrow morning!

Bonus: I saw a woodpecker!

Baker Bowmont Bowness August 15, 2016 stats

Holy Crap, That’s What 20 Kilometers Feels Like

I know that I should vary the places I walk, but I really do like my “go to” walk of the Baker, Bowmont and Bowness parks. It’s about a six kilometer loop of a walk that’s really easy on the eyes and very easy to change up due to the various side trails. I usually do two loops, coming in around twelve kilometers, and once in a while doing it three times for about eighteen kilometers. Today I decided I wanted to do the full three laps. The weather was pretty good, and I was feeling pretty good also, so when I was coming near to then of the third loop through the parks an idea came to me: let’s do twenty kilometers. An extra two kilometers isn’t much at all after already walking eighteen, so it was more of a psychological achievement than a physical one, but none the less, I’m pretty happy I did it. I was rained on a little for the last kilometer and a half, but it was actually a lot more refreshing than annoying. My legs are a little rubbery as I write this, but damn, it feels good to say I walked twenty kilometers.