Figured I should get some miles in today since it was Global Running Day! 🏃♂️
Legs felt heavy at the start but loosened up along the run so it was a good idea to get out there.
Been a long time since I have done a long run late in the evening. The goal was to start earlier but things pushed it back. When I finally started I decided to just go with it. Wasn’t bad overall air quality and temp was good, legs felt heavy in the last stretches and it was really dark.
Happy 16th Birthday to this kid today! I can’t believe he is 16 years old and will now be out driving in the real world without his parents. So proud of him!
Decided to kill some time and ran some loops around these ponds in Maple Grove while waiting for my daughter at a birthday party. I haven’t spent much time up here but it is a really nice area with lots of walking, running, biking trails around this main area. Not sure you can tell from the photo but the sky is filled with smoke so I guess it helped keep me out of the sun.
Setup Change - Computer Swap
I have been spending more time than I like to admit making small (but big to me changes) in some setups I have. I was going to put all of the changes in just this post but relized after writing the first one might have gone into too much detail so I will break it out as I probably need more time to polish how to describe the other setup changes.
The first and easiest one was my beloved MacBook Air M2 16GB RAM and 500GB storage. It’s such a great machine, and when I bought it, I was actually able to use it for my day job instead of the Windows machine they gave me. That worked well for about nine months, but then (like companies do) security got ratcheted up and I couldn’t access our Google Suite of things (e.g., email specifically) so it became less than ideal to keep using it.
That didn’t stop me from using the MacBook Air though, I would use it for everything non-work-related. However, after a while I just started leaving it connected to an extra USB-C docking station I had near my work setup, and honestly, it probably hasn’t left that dock in the last six months.
Meanwhile, my wife, who works for the public school system, has an old Intel-based MacBook Air (not even sure which version) with only 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM, barely enough to do anything. She’s constantly running out of space, and it’s painfully slow. So it felt like a no-brainer to give my MacBook Air M2 a new home.
That said, I still liked the idea of being able to remote into a personal computer, since I’ve been doing other projects from it and enjoy the separation between work and personal machines. I ended up finding a great deal on a Mac Mini M1, 16GB RAM, 1TB storage for just $350, and that was the extra push I needed so I jumped on it.
It arrived the other day, and for the first time ever, I used Time Machine to get the new-to-me machine up and running. I was really impressed after some time (maybe my only gripe is not knowing how long it would take) everything was loaded on there. And as far as I can tell, it feels exactly like my previous computer, just now as a desktop.
This setup is a win overall. I’ve got a machine I can sit in front of like I’m doing now, or just remote into as needed from my work computer or iPad. And as for the laptop, it’s now going to be used by my wife for schoolwork and photo editing. The photo editing is something she couldn’t really do on her work computer (way too slow). So she used to carry around our child’s iMac, which she claims is portable, but let’s be honest it’s really not.
I had a little gap in meetings and work today before the afternoon so I decided to make it a short run to check out how the setup of Schooner Days was coming along. Seems like they are ready for the crowds this weekend!
Decided to get a run in at Hyland Park Reserve as overall it was a nice evening out. It was so nice to get out into the woods away from city streets as I was able to be in nature and it paid off by seeing a good handful of deer while on the trails.
Tried to loosen the legs up on this run. It was nice out there even with the mist the whole time. Not to mention was great catching up with my running friend again now that he is starting to build back miles again.
Finally, my Obsidian Plugin Status.lol Publisher got accepted to be out in the wild now and can be found in the community plugin section. 🥳 Now that it is approved I can make some other updates I had been waiting on as I didn’t want to muddy the water during the approval and fixing what they wanted.
Decided to make it a long run day on the LRT with an out and back. Felt good, but the last mile reminded me of a hot, waterless run a year ago 😅. Luckily, I had just enough today and found a working fountain at the end.
Had a great time exploring Sunfish Lake Park after getting something checked on my vehicle. Wasn’t really the plan but glad I had some running gear to go check out this out of the way park. Honestly, when on the trails I felt like I was no where near anything as I was all alone.
A quick nap
I found myself struggling to focus this afternoon as I was just really tired from all of the meetings today as well as just tired from the week so far. Sitting in the shed working away it was warm and I was getting sleepy. So what did I do, took an 8 min break with my eyes closed and felt as good as new and pushed on though the rest of the day.
To be clear, I don’t like to take naps as people would think of naps. However, a short timed amount like today is perfect for me. I always set a timer because I can’t have it be more than 15 min so today I set it for 10 but woke up before then.
Reflecting back, this is something I should do more when I feel tired in the afternoon and out of sorts. I used to do this all of the time when studying for the CPA (Certified Public Accounting) exam at the library in college. I was fortunate (or unfortunate), to have been able to sit for the two day exam right before we graduated from college so my whole last semester of school was spent taking classes in order to make sure I could graduate and then studying for the exam in my “free time”.
I am glad I had such a drive at the time but I knew that I wouldn’t want to try to study for this once I left school and started a real job. I figured I had to give it my all this first shot to jsut get it done. So I spent my whole last semester of school (or what felt like it) in the Library. I only left for classes, 30 hrs of work, and sleeping at night (when the libray was closed). Since I was there for countless hours I had developed this little trick of just taking a quick nap for 10-15 min and that was long enough for me that I could be back to normal and push on into the evening.
My girlfriend (wife now) was always intreged by this but also wildly frustrated when I would do this as she tried it a couple of times and would either not be able to nap and have wasted 10-15 min or would actually fall asleep and then when waking up would feel 100x worse.
So it probably isn’t for everyone but for me it did the trick and hoenstly got me though that semester and I skated by passing the exam thankfully and hopefully never going to have to take it again.
Decided to try to squeeze this run in after dinner (mistake) and before picking the youngest up from swim and dropping off the oldest at hockey. However, with the weather it was worth it! ☀️
Someone is ready to call it a day from the shed office… 🐶
Just running in the rain today. Couldn’t avoid it as it rained all day today like yesterday so I decided to get out there and really it wasn’t to bad.
I probably should have done a really long run today but I wasn’t really feeling it so I set out for shorter. However, the cool overcast weather allowed me to go a little further than I was thinking I would which hopefully should set me up for some good millage this week (weather dependent).
I really do like Flighty hands down it has been great on my travel trips lately. However, I don’t really like what I am seeing here. 😵💫
Foggy morning today but still a great day for a run around Back Cove. I probably should have started earlier in the morning because by the time I got back I didn’t leave myself a lot of time to get ready and jump on a call. Thankfully I made it with a min to spare.
