Yesterday I went for a bike ride and I was head towards Gland via Genolier but changed the route due to a dog walker when I wanted to turn East. I turned West instead and noticed some people and flags by Crassier. I thought “Was there an accident” as I also saw a police car. Eventually, as I saw more and more people standing by the side of the road I understood that it was for the Tour De Romandie.
Today I came across the concept of Soft Hiking. Unlike Hot girl Hiking soft hiking is about just going out for a walk. It’s about getting moving, no matter your level of ability, or fitness. it’s about getting into the habit of not sitting around. They write about looking at nature, stopping for a snack or to sit on a bench, to enjoy being outdoors rather than indoors. https://metro.co.uk/2023/04/17/forget-hot-girl-walks-soft-hiking-is-now-trending-on-tiktok-18624769/
I am part of the problem.
Today I went for a run earlier than usual and had to deal with mischievous shoelaces. They decided to come undone at least three times during the first three kilometres before I finally got them to behave.
I went for a run earlier than usual because rain is forecast for this afternoon and if I go after lunch then I get rained on. I prefer not to run in the rain, if I can avoid it.
Yesterday I tried running and walking in high winds. I have cycled and walked in high winds but I had not yet had the sensation of running in high wind and it is quite interesting. In cycling you feel that the wind pushes your bike to the side, and you counteract the wind.
With running in high wind I found that if I ran with the wind then my body behaved as a sail and I could feel the wind pushing me faster than usual.
Normally I walk from village to village. My walks can take me through four to six villages per walk. I walk from village to village in part because I live in the middle of a landscape where walking from village to village is easy.
I had doubts about today’s run because I can feel various parts of my legs. I can feel that they are under a different strain than usual, due to the running.
At the start of this year I started running again. This wasn’t a new year’s resolution. I just decided that I wanted to start running, so I did. For five years I have been walking around in circles. Some take me above the A1 motorway and others take me below it. The walks are all familiar and I do them so regularly that I see the changes from week to week.
I am getting back into running at the moment. I have run several times recently, irregularly enough not to feel pain in my knees or other articulations so this is a good sign. The advantage of running, over other sports, is that it’s easy to catch a bus, car, train, parapente or other form of transport and start running. The second advantage is that it is twice as fast as walking.
A few days ago I saw someone rollerblading along one of the local paths so it got me to think about this sport that we have forgotten about other the years. 20 years ago we used to rollerskate and rollerblade before discovering easier to do sports that didn’t require carrying a large bag and spare shoes.
Back in the day rollerblades had much smaller wheels and the main sport was to stay upright.
Yesterday I looked at the wind, and when I saw that it was coming from the east I decided to cycle into it, for the outward journey, and back, with it, on the journey back. Originally my plan was to cycle to Rolle and to turn around but the plan changed. I was cycling and I overtook a woman. I like to challenge myself to overtake everyone. I especially like to overtake everyone, as a personal challenge, until I am too tired.
The weather is relatively cold but the sun is out so the time for spring cycling has come. Spring cycling is like other forms of cycling, but you want to dress warm enough to be comfortable, but not so warm as to overheat. You also want to find routes that are short enough so that if it is cold you can get home without being cold for too long.
The conditions were mild today.