Archive for the 'Fitness' Category
I thought about going for a bike ride today, but with rain in the forecast I decided to walk instead. As I started from home it wasn’t raining and was a bit warmer than yesterday. I headed east on North Street and picked up the Railroad Trail to Whatcom Falls Park. There were a lot of people out on the trail — walkers with dogs or kids in strollers, joggers, and a few cyclists. I took off my rain jacket before I’d gone too far and rolled it up in the hood for easy carrying. I was traveling light, with just a Clif bar in my pocket for a snack. I counted on water fountains working in the parks.
Whatcom Falls was running full, but not at flood stage. I headed toward Woburn Street on the Water Line Trail, which has been designated as an off-leash dog area. There were a few dogs and their owners out enjoying themselves, all well behaved. When I got to the back side of Bayview Cemetery I headed south toward the corner of Yew St. and Lakeway. From there it was a long climb up to the top of Yew Street hill. There were three cyclists ahead of me riding up the steep hill, but even riding slowly they were much faster than my walking pace.
Somewhere along the road I saw my first flowers in bloom. Nothing interesting, just the weedy Senecio vulgaris. It’s not too unusual to see it blooming during the winter. About the time I got to the top of the hill it started to rain and I put my raincoat back on. It also seemed to be quite a bit colder and a little windy. I passed the new elementary school under construction near the fire hall. I hadn’t realized the school was going to be right next to the road. There’s no shoulder at that point and some of the cars seemed to be going a bit faster than I thought they should. I had to watch out for them.
When I got down to Lake Padden I entered the park and followed the trail around the near side of the lake to Padden Creek gorge. I headed down the gorge trail, enjoying the sound of the creek cascading over rocks beside me and noting the trees that had come crashing down in one of our winter windstorms. I took the loop trail, which follows closer to the creek, for the first time. It’s not much farther, but more interesting than the main trail. The gorge trail ends at 36th Street, which I followed until I came to the street that descends the hill and passes under I-5 to become Old Fairhaven Parkway.
There’s a fairly new trail and bridge that crosses Connelly Creek and then passes by the newish Bellingham co-housing development on Donovan Ave. I hadn’t been down that way for a while and had never seen what the co-housing group had built. It’s attractive, with the houses clustered together and all the auto-oriented stuff around the edge of the site. I followed Donovan to 16th and headed up the hill. There’s a trail where the hill is too steep for a street, and then the street continues.
There are a lot of nice front yard gardens on 16th Street, as well as on Garden Street which I followed next as I worked my way back north. There was a hazelnut (Corylus sp.) just starting to bloom along the sidewalk, probably not our native species since it was in someone’s garden. I stopped briefly to examine the catkins. When I came to WWU there was a sign pointing to the trail down to the Boulevard, so I took it and then followed the South Bay Trail into downtown and then home on city streets.
Overall, the route was a bit over 15 miles and I walked it in 4 hours 20 minutes, averaging about 3.5 mph. An online calorie calculator said I burned about 1100 calories along the way. I mapped the route using my TOPO software, which reported about 1145 feet of elevation gain and loss, with the high point at the top of Yew Street hill. There was enough water available at Whatcom Falls and Lake Padden to satisfy me, and my Clif bar was enough of a snack to hold me until I got home for a modest lunch.
February 10 2008 | Fitness and Gardens | No Comments »
I set a rough goal to bicycle 1000 miles since I started logging my distance in mid-August and this afternoon I made it! It’s definitely harder to find nice days to ride during the winter months than during the warm and sunny days of August and September, but I’ve managed to get out. This afternoon’s ride was one of my regular routes, about 17 miles with a sustained 5 miles of uphill cranking. There was slushy snow at the side of the road at higher elevations around North Lake Samish and on the hill heading toward Lake Padden, but the main road surface was merely wet.
For the statistically inclined:
Since I can’t predict how much I’ll be home in 2008 I’m not ready to set a cycling goal for next year, but I should definitely be able to do more than this year since I won’t wait until August to get started.
December 26 2007 | Bicycling and Fitness | 2 Comments »
The low winter light on Mt. Baker this afternoon was as nice as I’ve ever seen it as I bicycled east on Slater Road. There’s lots of fresh snow on the mountain, and the Black Buttes cast long shadows on the side of the peak, accentuating the volcano’s shape and texture. It would have been picture perfect except for the uninteresting strip of clouds hanging over the summit.
I wasn’t in a position to do any photography anyway. I’d been working furiously preparing high-res files for a stock agency and just had to get out of the office and burn off some energy, so I went for a brisk but relatively short bike ride in the afternoon sun. I only rode a little under 17 miles today, cruising along the flatlands near the Nooksack in a loop that took me out Marine Drive, up Ferndale Road, east on Slater, and then back to town on Northwest.
Wednesday afternoon I also took off for a ride, but with more hills and an inevitably slower pace. It’s nice to be able to get out and ride during the winter months to keep my blood circulating and general fitness level up.
I’ve also put in a couple of days of kayaking since Thanksgiving. The first was about 10 miles on Lake Shannon near Concrete, with glorious views of both Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan. It was a gloriously sunny day with heavy frost on the ground when we launched. The second kayak outing was on Saturday on the Samish River, paddling upstream from the mouth at Edison. It was a cold and snowy day, although we didn’t get snowed on as heavily as we thought we would. There were numerous bald eagles and other raptors perched in the bare trees along the river and several blue herons at the water’s edge. We also saw lots of coots and smaller numbers of other waterfowl. Upstream of the tidal influence the current was about 1 mph, just enough to notice but not enough to cause a lot of extra work.
The Mt. Baker ski area opened on November 27 and I went up for opening day. The snow was cold, the sky blue, and the skiing great. I ran out of legs before I ran out of daylight.
We’ve got so many recreational opportunities around here that it’s sometime hard to decide just how to go out and play. That’s a blessing.
December 06 2007 | Bicycling and Fitness and Kayaking | No Comments »
We don’t get a lot of nice sunny days in November around here, but today was glorious with temps in the low 40s. So I took off early afternoon for a 31-mile bike ride around Lummi Peninsula. It’s a nice loop on roads that mostly have a good shoulder and not too much traffic mid-day.
One of the challenges of biking this time of year is figuring out how to dress. I’ve decided that long underwear under my bike shorts on the bottom, and a long underwear shirt under a lightweight cycling jacket on top works fine. I think I want to invest in a pair of bike tights, but haven’t found any I like at a price I’m willing to pay. My fingers get a little cool in regular fingerless bike gloves, and my feet got a bit chilly in lightweight bike shoes and cotton socks.
I started out strong, averaging about 17.8 mph for the first 1o miles. At 17 miles I was up to 18.3 mph. Then I started to tire as I rode along the gently undulating Lummi Shore road, enjoying the view across Bellingham Bay to Bellingham, Mt. Baker, and the near-full moon a few degrees above the mountain. By the time I got to Marine Drive, about 27 miles in, my energy level was really sagging. I kept going, but riding slower and slower, and made it home. My overall speed was 16.7 mph, about one mph and 7 minutes slower than the last time I’d done the same ride.
I’m wondering if I just ride slower when it’s cold. I decided I hadn’t eaten enough for breakfast and lunch today, so simply running out of fuel was part of the problem. I tanked up on a cup of hot chocolate, an energy bar, and a bowl of raisins and nuts when I got home.
In any case, vigorous exercise for a couple of hours is a great antidote for sitting at the computer captioning photos.
November 20 2007 | Bicycling and Fitness | No Comments »
I may have written this before, but I’m a sporadic exerciser. I like to swim and do it more during the winter months in an indoor pool. Last week, after not swimming for perhaps a year or more, I decided it was time to get back in the water. I go to the Arne Hanna Aquatic Center in Bellingham for the discounted noon lap swim. It’s a good mid-day break from working with images on the computer and its cheaper then.
The first day back in the water I was only able to swim 100 yards at a time (4 lengths of the pool), with a 60-second rest between. I swam 8 sets that day. A couple of days later I could do 250 yards (10 lengths) with a 60-second rest. The next time in the water I was back up to swimming a mile (74 lengths) of crawl without resting. My time of 40.5 minutes won’t set any records, but I’m still amazed at how quickly I get back to the distance I’ve swam in the past.
Hopefully I’ll keep myself motivated to get to the pool two or three times a week during the winter months. I also want to keep bicycling, although I may not make the 100 miles per week I was doing in late August and September. Short daylight hours make it harder to get out and ride. I bought a new bright yellow cycling jacket so I’ll be more visible, but riding distances at night just doesn’t seem either safe or fun.
November 02 2007 | Fitness | No Comments »
