Stars, Moon, and Bare Feet

Yesterday I was tired all day. It was hard to get through the day because I was so tired. Shortly after dinner I sat down to read and fell asleep. When I got up this morning I had planned to go for a run, but still feeling tired, I scaled that back to a walk around the neighborhood. And if I was going to walk, I could try it barefoot. Or at least barefoot part of the way. I took my Xero Shoes along because the road is very rough and I figured I'd want to switch.

Outside the sky was clear. The air was cool, not cold, actually a perfect temperature. A crescent moon hung in the sky surrounded by stars. I don't know all of the constellations, but I recognized Orion. The neighborhood was mostly dark, but there are some streetlights (I took the picture above under one of the lights). A lot of the houses have porch lights on, some more than one. After walking a while barefoot I could tell the ball of my foot was getting irritated. Either my form, the rough road, or a combination, threatening to raise a blister. I stopped and put on the Xero Shoes at that point and continued.

It was pretty peaceful until a car came down the road toward me when I was almost back home. They slowed, nearly stopped, then drove past, turned into a driveway and turned around to drive past again before turning on the street where I was going to turn. I think they were lost because they did turn into a house on that street and park. Otherwise, no cars, no dogs chasing me.

I still feel like I could use some rest, but it was good to get out and walk. I need to do more barefoot walking, I haven't been barefoot outside nearly enough this year!

Morning Mountain Bike Ride

Not a lot to say about the ride this morning. Yesterday we had a bunch of rain and a flood advisory, but this morning the moon and stars peeked through the clouds. A few puddles remained, but not much. It was just a nice cool, dark, morning ride.

Tough Trike Morning

I say tough, but it wasn't really all that hard of a morning ride. The trouble was waking up, hearing the water gurgling down the drainpipe outside the window, dripping from the trees, and playing the mental game. I've got a lot to do, a novel to write, a cover to paint, and have to leave early for work. Maybe it was better to just get up and do those things. Or even sleep longer, that was tempting.

In the end I got up. If I can't spend a half-hour exercising, that's pretty sad, isn't it? Of course it ends up taking longer than that, to get dressed, get the trike out, put it back when I'm done, etc. Still, if I don't have my health, that would be worse.

Running too

It rained last night, but had stopped by the time I got out to run. I woke up at midnight last night and spent the next hour trying to sleep. Giving up on that approach, I went to my computer and worked on my latest novel for a while. It's the third book in a fantasy series, Goblin Alley, about a young runner who discovers that alleys connect to the faerie realm, to the goblin city, and he becomes involved in a series of adventures. Naturally, it ends up meaning a lot of running. I'm relaunching the first book next year, along with the second (unreleased right now) and the third.

I'm out of shape right now. My running has an awful lot of walking in it at the moment. That's okay. I got out there and I did what I could. The app didn't track the time I spent fiddling around to take the picture, but according to my stopwatch I was running for exactly 30 minutes.

Early Ride

It's pretty much back to riding in the dark again. About the only time I have to ride is early in the morning, soon after getting up, and it's still dark. It actually started getting light on the way back but the sun still wasn't quite up. I don't mind so much since I have a good light. The picture looks darker than it seems while riding.

Reboot

I'd like to say I've been riding, and running, and it'd be the truth. I have. I'm at 54.93 miles for the month of August. It's the most I've done since I February and March this year. When I last posted in April I had planned to bike every day and then the impact of doing two jobs hit home. With the longer commute I simply didn't have time. The second job ended in June and I've gradually been doing more each month since.

Weight Drags Me Down

The trouble with getting back into exercising regularly, and eating better, is that I've put on quite a few pounds this year. I'm back up nearly at the heaviest I've weighed. It's like I've picked up a big bag of dog food and am trying to get out and run or bike lugging that around. No wonder people end up in a cycle of gaining weight and exercising less, which leads to more weight gain, and so on until getting up off the couch is a chore.

I'm not making as much progress as I'd like. I've tracked my weight since June 30th and it has gone up and down. In the end? No progress. I'm going to start figuring out what I want to eat, based mostly on a paleo/primal approach, and ease into that. I'm also getting back into riding, running, and aping around again (using the Gorilla Workout). In addition to tracking weight changes, I'm going to take weekly pictures of myself to compare how things change.

Today's Ride

I went out for a loop around home on local streets. It started on the Yelm-Tenino Trail and then went out in a loop that took me out around us and back up through town to the trail again, and then home. Along the way I saw this little donkey in a field. He ran along the fence wanting to get a good look at this strange person on a trike with flags waving. He came up and got a good look while I took the picture. Didn't seem scared at all. Fun ride, some good hills that took some effort to climb (really not in shape). Cars on the road gave me wide berth, there wasn't any shoulder or anything on these roads. 

I'd like to think I'll be more consistent about this going forward.