Sunday 26JAN2025

Not much to report.  Been walking a lot - over 40 miles a week for the last three weeks.  It is about 14 hours a week to get that accomplished.  I do overlap it with work calls, listening to playbacks of recorded stuff, podcasts, and in some cases straight up work meetings.  

I decided to jog for 2 miles on Saturday.  Thinking here was that maybe I can "get away" with running for 10-15 miles a week and that would be tolerable.  I will assess that a bit over the coming weeks.  Working on a follow on appt with the knee doc.  

Was in San Fran again last week.  That was a nice break from the cold snap here.

Taken to some yoga with TZ in the basement.  It is laughable as to how horrible I am at it.  Which is why I should do it.  

I see a lot of these fellas these days.

Wednesday 15JAN2025

Some shots from the evening stroll with the dog.

Amazing what cell phone cameras can do.   

The coyote a bit later was a bit of an eye opener.  

Tuesday 14JAN2025

 

2 miles with the dog, and then 4 and half on my own.  

Monday 13JAN2025

 Started prior to dawn.

6 plus miles of walking, catching up with family on calls.

Weekend 11-12JAN2025

In recent conversations with TZ and KZ, we have been kicking around a "basic guidelines of personal happiness."

1.  Get good sleep
2.  Hydrate
3.  Avoid poisoning yourself
4.  Eat healthy
5.  Move-exercise
6.  Get outdoors
7.  Have social-community interaction
8.  Have hobbies that are rewarding

The lack of a prescriptive nature to these here is purposeful.  What is a healthy diet is different from person to person, one person's exercise would be too much of a workout for another.  These could overlap too.  Maybe if your hobby is rock climbing that also serves as community-social interaction and gets you outside.  None of these are absolutes, nor are they an absolute assurance for happiness.  You could have all these and be miserable.  But I'd think I'd say that without these as part of the regular fabric in your life, you will likely dealing with some sort of health issues.  

I have said for a while that running was more for my head than a physical pursuit.  Not having running has put that premise in question.  Was I running for a mental therapy?  Was the physicality of it necessary for such therapy?  I have turned to walking.  I certainly don't get the physical workout of it that I do with running and I am feeling that.  The time currency is significant - obviously walking the same distance as running takes 2-3x as long.  

But walking is good for my head, even in a way that might be better than running.  Maybe it is that the pulse is slower and because of that I can focus attention to a topic a bit more effectively.  I have been using my walks for some obvious activities:  making calls, listening to podcasts for example.  But, I have been able to also work attention successfully (to or more successfully) than I could when running:  considering music lyrics, focusing through the attention to a problem.  

I got six miles on Saturday, a couple with walking the dog and then the rest on my own.  I did another mile and change with the dog in the evening (dog walks are slower because they are a "sniff-ari").  Sunday morning I got out and ended up with 8.  I started with the dog and did three and thought I might only do five, but I ended up wandering around a bit.  That was 2 hours and 50 minutes though.  

Work week ending 10JAN2025

It was a travel week to Sunnyvale.  

I didn't work out.  Honestly - I don't have that as a habit yet.  I got sucked into work and I just didn't make it happen.  

I got some walking in.  
M - 3.3 miles around the campus later in the afternoon, while doing calls and before heading to dinner
T - 2 miles in the AM on the way into campus from the hotel.  Enjoyed the AM crows.

W - 6 miles on the way into the campus from the hotel.  I was both relaxed post this and ready to pull my eyes out.  

2 more one mile walks later in the afternoon.  

Th - back to Colorado and froze a bit on a sunset walk while doing a call.  3.3 miles.

Fr - walked the dog in the AM (1.2) and then 5 in the afternoon.  

I mean, what the actual ####.  I am not posting about walks like it is worth a damn thing.  I am thinking about walk volumes like a runner.  I am going a little nuts because I feel a need to get a weekly miles goal for walking - like it matters.  I completely skipped on any push ups or anything.  And it was not a problem at all.  

I guess that is worth working on.  

Weekend 04-05JAN2025

Saturday - 2.5 miles in the AM, 2.6 to the grocery and back in the PM.  It was a freezing fog sort of day.

30 minutes of "basement" work.  

Sunday - 5.1 miles in the AM.  Cold but beautiful out.  

Oh, did I mention this was all walking.  Too damn cold to bike, at least for me - I don't have the equipment for that.  And frankly, I don't see anyone else biking outdoors either.  I am not a big fan of the stat bike at home, but that might have to become the expectation.  At least outside I see stuff.  

I enjoy the walking I guess.  I get to think and listen to stuff too.  

After the walk on Sunday, I did music with friends for the next 7 hours.  No, really - it was great.  Some stuff with SP for TPBS band stuff, but also went to a song writers workshop.  Got some good feedback on the a few tunes I am working on.  

But no weight work on Sunday.  I guess I could have but I failed too.  Got six out of the last seven days, but still a miss.  

The knee hurts a bit.  I am not sure if that is because I am walking so much.  I got 34 miles last week.  I don't know if that is what is aggravating it or if I did some weight work on it that is pissed about.  

Off to SFO tomorrow.  

Friday 03JAN2025

 Comparison is the thief of joy.

AM - got out for a foggy six mile walk around Broomfield, listening to some of the Rich Roll "Best of 2024" podcast, and it set up a future playlist for me.

30 minutes in the basement doing that work in the afternoon.  Shopping marketplace for weights.

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For competitive distance running lovers, the sub 2:10 marathon by and the13:52 5k by Beatrice Chebet have created a circumstance where there is a questioning of what the actual limits of performance, in this case, of women, are.  It would seem a sub four mile by a woman is likely in the future, something that would have once seemed unfathomable.  I wonder if it will be touted at the same level of "break through" as Bannister's accomplishment was.  I suspect not given our shorter news cycles and "scroll" culture compared to the 50s, and the technology to get to such a thing.  

Thursday 02JAN2025

 

AM - 30 minutes of "weight work."   I am looking to do at least a significant part of this focused on single leg work because it really highlights the lack of left leg strength I have.  The one legged squats on the stairs with the opposite side weight really demonstrates how "lopsided" I am.  

TZ added a little bonus at the end:  sitting in the squat position.  This is way harder than I thought.  So, add it as a regular.  

5 mile walk afterwards.  90 minutes.  I am pretty sure I should be able to do this on the daily, it is not much more different than the amount of time I took for a run.
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We were talking to JZ about New Years, resolutions, etc.  He, like us, is not a big resolution guy for all those typical reasons, but he came across one that he shared with us, and that he will look to accomplish in 2025:  1000 hours outside.  

It is a pretty cool goal.  When you do the math, that is about 2 hours and 45 minutes a day outside.  For the average working bloke (and JZ is just a few months into his first post collegiate job), that is pretty challenging, especially in the colder months.  Put a few camping and back packing trips in there in the warmer ones and you start to bank some hours.  

Strava tells me that I did 370 hours of activity last year.  That comes with 2300 miles of running, very little biking, and a tiny bit of kayaking.  I did do some walking/hike with TZ that I didn't record.  We didn't camp, but we were trying to guess how much time we had dinners outside, say with people outside.  We concluded we'd not be at a 1000 hours.  It is a lofty objective.  Worthy too.  

What was particularly cool about it though was his statement, "yeah, I have come to recognize that I am a happier person if I am outdoors regularly."  

Ain't that the truth for all of us.  

Wednesday 01JAN2025

 

It snowed last night, unexpectedly.  The evening walk in the snow and the early "retirement" to bed was a perfect way to roll in the New Year for me.

Happy New Year.  

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I hear it everyday in some form.  

Getting old that is.  Everyday somehow the world gives this message of "you are getting old."  It can be with the interaction with aging parents, a look in the mirror post a shower and seeing the new lines and curves that come with time, the junk mail that delivers AARP flyers to you, or people at work who tell you so. 

Quick sidebar - I was having a discussion at work with some folks and a person mentioned the song "Stairway to Heaven" came out in the mid 90s.  Yeah, that led down a path of additional conversation, probably which contributed to the perception by co-workers that I am old.  

The messaging is often packaged up in some fashion that is naturally, well, negative:  your vision is failing, your hearing is going, you are not as strong as you were, you are not as fast as you were, you need to take these medications, you are losing your mind and becoming feeble ...

Of course, there is a truth to those things and I am not suggesting to ignore them.  But the daily drum beat of it frankly is boring and not helpful.   

Even the positives of being older get boring.  Yes, I have less fucks to give on things that perhaps worried me when I was younger.   I am less concerned if I get laid off, worry less about my performance rating at work, and simultaneously don't need things for happiness but can pretty much get whatever I want when I want it if it makes me happy.  I can take a breath and recognize a point of being grateful more than I could.  While those are wonderful attributes of a few more laps around the sun, the packaging of them as "wisdom with age" is eyeroll worthy.

I guess, most days, I'd rather not think about it.  I'd rather just "be" - and working on those things that I am working on regardless of the age.  As Shad might say, "don't let the old man in."  

I can't avoid it, but I am working on seeing it and letting that shit go.

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Walked 5.1 miles this AM with TZ.  30 minutes of weight work.  I have started tracking that in Strava to retain a workout log.  Of interest today was doing single leg squats on the stairs with a kettlebell opposite the working leg.  The left leg is weak in stability and strength in comparison to the right.  

Today's listening included Hank Williams who died on this day in 1953 at the age of 29.  

Tuesday 31DEC2024

The last day of the year.  

A lot has changed in this year. 

 

Here is one of those things ...

In May, I separated as partner of the company I helped to build over the last 8 years and went to work for Meta. Yes, the Facebook company.  I don't do anything with Facebook or Instagram or any of the apps people know about.  I work on the hardware side of the house, also known as Reality Labs.  There are a couple of dozen reasons why I made this move.  The short story version is that I went to be a part of the entire lifecycle of designing, developing and launching products that could be positively impactful to people's lives. 

And it has been great so far.  

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I got out for a walk with TZ and Sage in the AM.  3 something miles.  Despite it being chilly, there was little wind so I layered up for a bike ride.  1.8 miles into that, I had a flat.  I decided to nix the ride and did some weight work.  I then looked up a body weight video on YouTube and did that.

I can't say it wrecked me, but I could tell very quickly how I was getting a workout out of this.  These exercises are the very things I would not do for ... uh, well, never did ... because I was running.  And because I was running, I was either too tired to do them, or I thought they weren't useful, or that they were too easy or some other excuse.  All of those might have been true on some day or once, but not so much any more.  

I put this blog on a hiatus for a bit.  I didn't think it was particularly useful to write about how being in the sixth decade of life that my running was declining, about my back and forth with alcohol, about other things were tripping me up.  It seemed redundant and boring.  

It is actually.  I have come back to this because these writings hold me accountable to some degree to address what I am currently dealing with:  a problematic knee, the eventuality of not running much, getting on a project of getting some other elements of fitness back, exploring that and spouting off about whatever is going on in my chimp brain.  

The "TL;DR" here is "GZ has run a lot of miles, he has a jacked knee, he is trying to rehab it but he is not real disciplined at that, and he thinks by doing a little weight work he might get jacked, but he thinks by writing about it, that might force him to do something more from an accountability perspective. 

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Something else I have wanted to experiment with but I have not is "intermittent fasting."  This is another thing I have rolled my eyes at and thought just couldn't work for me because "hey I am a runner and I need my fuel."  And with that, I'd chow back a 2000 cal breakfast after a 15 mile run.  

I got away with that when I was doing 15 mile runs.  And they were part of 70 mile weeks.  And I had a 40 something metabolism.  

But I don't do those things anymore.  And I have put on 20 pounds over the last decade.  It is that sort of weight that you don't see unless you are holding up a picture of me from 2015.  Then you say, "Damn, you were skinny dude."  It is a bit of a different thing than saying "man you have put on some weight."  

It's ok.  I have.  I am not looking to get anywhere near racing weight of a decade ago, but the pudge I have developed is not something I ought overlook.  I am hopeful that the reduction in alcohol helps that.  I recognize an overhaul to the diet is where this ends up.  A "test" along the way will be to see how I do with intermittent fasting.  

I tried it today.  Last food went in my mouth last night around 7.  Took some coffee with milk in it as part of the wake up but nothing else until dinner at 6.  Frankly, I wasn't hungry until a bit later in the afternoon.  I was okay with the whole process.  And, like skipping on a beer, I could hear the brain yelling about what it was being denied  - the classic fight of what it wanted versus what was actually needed.   

Oh, flu and COVID boosters today.