Got this one in before my daughter’s hockey game. She was up and ready to go and gave me a disapproving look when I said I was going to get a quick run in and told me I had 25 min to get back. I got back in 25:26 because I had to take a photo (of course) and slowed to get around a family.
Hills and Heat was the theme of today’s run. I even knew the heat was going to get to me but I pressed on and of course the sun was up high beating down on me. I was glad for the miles in the middle to be back at the Richard T Anderson Conservation Area.
Of course right before I jump on a call nothing connects… Come to find out we are having internet issues in the area. This is where I am thankful I have a little backup service for now that I didn’t disconnect from our camper. So all is good and meetings / work can continue today.
100 days an counting...
Something I didn’t do when I decided to run a 5k a day was talk about or even mention it. Thinking back I believe I told only one person over coffee one morning. 😉
Taking a step back, my goal was at first a week, then a month, then a couple of months but I never was thinking 1 year being the goal.
However, it was never a goal when I started so maybe that is why I didn’t but I know at some point I got it stuck in my brain and I could have talked about it.
So 100 days of what, well 100 days of not having a drink of an alcoholic beverage. I should be clear on the why this is interesting and I am talking about it. Honestly, it is nothing special or big grand reason as to why, I just told myself I am going to give it a try and that is what I am doing. I have been building up some millage running and I guess part of me wanted to see if it would change how I felt or recovered during the week or after long runs. So 100+ days this is my current take aways both from a good or just interesting perspective from my own personal experience (in no order):
- I noticed about 1 month into this I was very tired and exhausted, I don’t know if it attributed to this but I had a stretch that I was just tired for a good week or so straight almost like my body didn’t know what to do without. I won’t say I was addicted but I do wonder if like taking a week off of coffee (caffeine) sometimes you can get headaches.
- I think from my fitness perspective it has made my longer runs 100% easier and possibly a faster recovery after the fact.
- I have dropped 10 lbs from where I was hovering in all of 2023. Some of this I have changed some eating habits but I do wonder if that habit has been easier by not having some extra endless calories from time to time.
I guess I didn’t really touch on has it been hard ever, the answer to this is yes in fact. As I made the decision to just step away for a little while I was very cognizant that I had a week of business travel where we were with our consultants and had many dinners out. I don’t mind not having a drink but sometimes I think if the server came to me first as I was a more seniored person at the table most of the time I set the tone of not getting a drink and then everyone else followed. There was also a parent Hockey party that I feel like 100% of the time involves drinking so I did get a handful of questions as to why I wasn’t drinking anything. No one really cares but it is something to note that people do notice and you 1000% will get a question. This also was noticed but not really asked as we celebrated my birthday a while back and went out to eat with my parents. Finally, I have noticed as time as gone on and further reflection, I have kind of avoid the easy pitfall places like hockey “safety meetings” or catching up with someone after work for a drink. Both of those places I know I do not have to drink so it isn’t that at all. I think some of with this current habit change and seeing it though for a while it was easier to avoid them. I need to get this part out of my head though as I still need to be social with friends and colleagues if this experiment continues.
So that is all I have for now and as I sit over 100 days I am not going to say I might stop today or continue for another 5, 50, or 100 days. Just a reflection point for myself as it has been an interesting experiment.
This post has been sitting in my drafts since day 50 but it is well past that at this point. I think there is two reasons here: (1) I wrote it and was going to post it right away but got distracted and never really came back to it (2) I still was for some reason not sure about posting it out as I didn’t and still don’t have what that end goal is or if there is a reason to this experiment.
This run was saved by Apple Watch notifications… Well more specifically it got me to my meeting on time that forgot about as I thought I still had another 30 min so wasn’t in any rush. Come to find out I had 10 and Siri gave me the heads up in time.
Sun was really shining down for this run but ducked into the trees for a second to get this photo. Just kind of ran on cruise control today and tried not to check the watch except to see how many miles had ticked by.
I realized a couple miles in today that there was still smoke in the air from the fires but assumed it wasn’t too bad. I did get a text from my wife almost when I was done saying her school was not allowed to have kids out today due to the air quality but here I was out there running. 🫣
Sometimes Single and Double won’t do…. Obviously I needed to buy the MEGA STUF
Portland Observatory
Running the other day I ran by the Portland Observatory which is on my list to actual goto when it is open but I haven’t had a chance as it isn’t open year round.
I find older cities and towns fascinating as the town I live in doesn’t have the same type of historical story or maybe more specifically not as many older buildings still being used today. Granted there is history where I live but not to the same extent as Portland, ME (or other places). There is so many buildings I see during my wandering around Portland that I wonder what it originally was used for and all of that just like the Portland Hey Building and Portland Co. Pattern Storehouse that I only breilfy wrote about before.
So when I saw the picture above on my flight home, I decided to spend some time with this wonderful Free High Speed Delta WiFi while watching movies to do a little digging about the Portland Observatory. This is the summary of what I found.
The tower was built in 1807 by sea captian who turned entrepreneur Captain Lemuel Moody. It was constructed in a remarkably short period of time (4 months from April to July) due to the simplicity of the observatory’s design and the use of local materials and labor. Despite its quick construction, the observatory was a well-built and sturdy structure, able to withstand the harsh weather conditions of the Maine coast.
Photo Copyright of Maine Historical Society
It was a commercial venture to give ship owners a competitive edge if they paid Moody a subscription fee of $5.00 a year to alert them when their ships were arriving. With a telescope at the top he could see incoming ships from as far as 30 miles away and then could hoist signal flags identifying the vessels coming in.
This signal tower also increased the efficiency of Portland Harbor and the Observatory remained a working marine signal tower run by the Moody family until 1923 when the invention of the two-way radio made it obsolete.
The original cost of constructing it was a mere $6000 in 1807 and during the peak of the observation towers services it generated an estimated $1,000 in revenue per year from these fees, demonstrating its importance and value to the maritime community.
In 1866, the observation tower actually survived the Great Fire which destroyed much of Portland. This helped solidify the observatory as a symbol of the city’s resilience and determination to rebuild the town after the devastating fire.
The Portland Observatory is the only remaining historic maritime signal station in the United States.
No I am not getting on a private plane but they made us walk quite a ways from the actual terminal to get out here. Glad it is a nice day out.
Wanted to get a run in this morning before a busy day of work and then flying. Plus how can I pass up one last morning run along the water and then through the city.
Decided to meander around the streets tonight before dinner. Didn’t have a solid plan as I just didn’t want to run too far but the weather was nice.
Went for a longer run this morning as it is going to be a long day of meetings at work. Decided to hit the Back Cove again and now that it is lighter outside in the mornings I ran across a lot of people.
After getting into town so late last night I didn’t think I was going to wake up and run today. However, with it being so much more sunny at 5am here I shot out of bed thinking I overslept. I didn’t and knew I wouldn’t fall bask asleep so I went running.
Changed it up this time and decided to have dinner at Luke’s Lobster. I am not sure why I don’t come to this place more often good food and a nice view. Helps the weather is amazing out right now.
Writing with Obsidian
For the past couple of posts I have made, everything has been written in Obsidian and then pushed to Micro.blog via Micro.Publish created by Otavio Cordeiro.
Not only have I used Obsidian to create and post those, they have mostly been done on my iPhone as well. I have also found that using Jarrod Blundy’s wonderful iOS shortcut called Multimedia Uploader to get pictures on my site is the perfect addition. I can then copy that link and put it in my Obsidian document, so I can finish any extra writing as necessary prior to hitting publish.
This new process has been working well, and I not only have been doing it for my longer posts as part of WeblogPoMo2024 but also on some of my shorter posts about runs and other random thoughts that would not come through my Status.lol.
Not sure if I will continue with this for the long haul, but right now, this has also renewed my want to use Obsidian as I can use it on my various devices. A great example is this specific post: I started it on MacOS, but I am finishing it up on the plane on my iPhone prior to takeoff.
It was a warner one than I anticipated but I know my body is not heat ready still with all these changes in temps. However, I pushed through the miles for this run as I know my evening will be spent in airports and on airplanes.
Where Balloons go to Deflate 🎈
I didn’t think much of it a couple weeks ago when I found a balloon sitting next to my office door in the backyard. However, a couple days later I saw another mostly deflated balloon in my side yard by where I take the dogs out. After that a day or two went by and yet I found another one blowing around in the backyard as it had my motion camera going crazy.
Not really sure what that logo is.
Again I thought nothing of it but was starting to think it was very odd. Finally, I was taking out the trash one night and saw something moving slowly in the street towards my house. Yep another balloon.
This was slightly disturbing as it slowly was moving towards my house in the street as I thought it was an animal.
Now this time it really got me thinking… Where do balloons go to deflate?
It is actually a great question and had me wondering what happened to balloons that people let go of in the air on purpose or accident. I mean they have to go somewhere or deflate and end up in someones yard or in the trees. Come to think of it every year on my mother-in-laws birthday since she passed away we would have the kids write messages on balloons and let go of them in the air. Cute and fun I know but now I am worried what if someone every year got these random balloons that showed up in their yard talking about their Grandma Diana. I am wondering would those people have thought about it and then the consistency of when it would happen. As come to think about it we would do it on special occasions as well. However, now that the kids are older we don’t do it as much or frequent so maybe those people are wondering what happened?
Lets just hope my house doesn’t become a constant balloon deflating ground as I don’t really want it to look like this.
The kids slept in this morning so I took that time to quickly get a run in. Legs felt heavy today so probably good that this week had some lighter millage in. I didn’t know how wet the conservation area was going to be but not all that bad on the trail.
Mystery Solved just a NameDrop
Last night I saw this random animation on my Apple Watch that I had seen once before but had no idea what it meant or why it started. It seemed to be telling me to do what the animation was suggesting but again no idea why. Honestly, it had an eerie sense to it like I was watching something on the show Severance. This is a screenshot from my watch of what I saw:
I went my normal Apple expert route of bothering Jason Burk with anything and everything I randomly want to know about my Apple products. I am pretty sure he appreciates all of the questions or Apple issue rants I send his way. However, this one stumped him and didn’t have an answer for me either so I went to internet searching.
Come to find out it is an Apple feature called NameDrop… Never heard of it 🤷♂️.
NameDrop (part of AirDrop) is an easy way for you to share your contact information with someone, or receive theirs, without handing them your iPhone.
Ah, well that makes sense and actually now that I know what an interesting feature. I am sure it was talked about and I missed it but I think back to when my kids were younger and trying to exchange contact information with other parents (assuming they had iOS devices) this would have been super slick.
Still the one odd thing is you can activate it between your own devices which I would think it would know I don’t need my own contact information from my phone to my watch or vice versa.
I decided to capture a longer video below vs just the quick screenshot I took earlier.