Yesterday morning I set two alarms for 0600 because I wanted to wake, have some free time, and then run at 07:50/08:00 but I don’t remember it waking me. I remember looking at the phone or watch and seeing 07:53. With the heat wave making sleep difficult, followed my a music festival making sleep difficult I reached such a point of exhaustion that the alarm failed to wake me. It even failed to register in my conscience that I turned off the alarms.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at expensive Garmin watches and thinking that maps are a premium feature, when, in fact they are not. Suunto and Coros offer them on affordable devices, should you require that feature for trail running, hiking, and more.
If you want to use the Coros Nomad for navigation while cycling then it’s bad. I tested it when cycling from Morges to Cossonay a few weeks ago. The problem is that it tells you “straight ahead” or turn left, but not in a cycling/driving context, so it’s unreliable for that.
Over the last week or two I tested the Garmin ForeRunner 570 when navigating from Crans-Montana to Leukerbad. I also tried a group run navigating with the 570 during a Décathlon run, before spotting that the Coros Nomad and Coros Apex 4 offered full map navigation without paying the Garmin premium price.
Hiking with the 570 is a red line on a black line. You look at the squiggle and intuit where you’re meant to go. With hiking it worked most of the time, although in one or two situations context would have been nice to have. In the second I was running with a group as unofficial navigator. I had the red line helping me intuit where the track was and I got it right.
Tomorrow there is an event in Cossonay that could easily involve cycling fourty kilometres to get there, and cycling whilst there, and then cycling back. The low estimate would be an eighty kilometre day and the high estimate would be at least a century.
I was looking at the train, from Nyon to Cossonay, but the connection in Renens is four minutes. Plenty of time, in theory to swap from one track to the other, but with sluggish people that seems less likely.
We are familiar with the situation. We look at Saturday and we think: I want to do this, but then a week or two before you see that something else is available so you think “Oh now I want to do that”. The result is that the thing you were certain about now becomes a Buridan moment.
I have such a choice this week. A group I like to cycle with once per month, or twice per month if long rides become regular, has a ride scheduled at 09:30.
Naturally we think of doing group activities in the evenings, after work, or over the weekend, when we’re free for the entire day. Some people take the opposite approach. They wake up early to go for a morning sunrise run or a croissant loop bike ride.
The concept is simple. Instead of waking up for work, you wake up early, and you do an hour of sport between 0700-0800. In so doing you get your bike ride or run, before your day of work. It then includes a café, a croissant, possibly breakfast, and then to work we go.
I set the alarm for 05:30 this morning and when it went off I was tempted to ignore it and sleep more. I had the self-discipline to get up anyway, shower, and then dress for a bike ride. When I was ready to go the watch told me “sunrise in 10 minutes” and I set off then.
On the way to Nyon I was beeped by a car for not using the cycle lane. There was no traffic, and if I had used the cycle lane then either I would have been forced to stop as the car passed me, due to losing my priority. That’s why I stuck to road. I was at over 30 kilometres per hour in a town, and since there was no traffic the car had no reason to beep me.
Two days in a row I participated in activities that pushed me physically. On sunday it was a 60km ride with 900m of climbing and a 25km/h wind and the next day it was a 9.4km walk which is pushing my endurance further than usual. I found myself thinking that I should participate in hikes because hikes are easy. I’m used to walking. Walking and hiking were my specialities.
By cycling on Sunday, despite the wind, and running on Monday despite the fatigue I pushed myself, and I remained true to my word. I saw on Whatsapp that the group that organises sedentary activities were complaining about no-shows in activities that involve sitting, drinking and talking.
Yesterday before the ride I could hear the wind playing with the shutter slats. I could also hear it against the combes, or roof, if you prefer that word. I looked outside and I could see that the wind was moving branches around. I also looked at the temperature and thought “Do I really want to go for a bike ride in these conditions?” Of course, as this was a group ride I did.
In the last two days I ran 8.7 and 7.6km. I also walked 7km and 6 or more kilometres. I’m also recovering from a cold. That’s why yesterday I broke a fundamental rule, by catching a bus.
For clarity, I am opposed to buses because their frequency is low, and at 3 CHF per trip per direction the bus is an expense I don’t need, as I am happy to walk.