works of wanderlust

  • fifty walks, eleven twelve thirteen

    fifty walks, eleven twelve thirteen

    I haven’t been hitting a good cadence with my walks and I’ve been hitting an even worse cadence reporting on them.

    So far in June I’ve only done three of my 10k strolls, numbers eleven, twelve and thirteen.

    So. A quick recap to catch up and maybe not feel so much of the weight of this effort that is the parts dragging me into the mud.

    Eleven: I set out east from the house with the goal of crossing a stretch of Whitemud Creek trail I’ve never before attempted. I walked through the neighbourhood, over Rabbit Hill to overlook the city, down into the crossing and the new(ish) foot bridge, and then north.  North is a stretch of wilderness between the road at 23rd and the asphalt footpath in the utility corridor. We have never gone this way because there is no clear trail (at least not one that doesn’t emerge into the neighbourhood and cheat on some paved roads). There is a trail, it turns out, but it involved some serious scrambling and a lot of adventuring. I made it, and looped back towards home.

    Twelve: I made the destination on this walk the “something new” as I trekked across the river on the path towards the little neighbourhood across the river. We’ve run by a little shopping complex a hundred times but have never stopped. There was a cute little bakery over there that I figured would be my destination, and it turned out to not only be the perfect distance away for an out and back adventure, but I scored a poppyseed roll to boot.

    Thirteen: It has been raining something fierce this past week. The downpour was so bad they issued a drainage advisory, asking people to limit water usage for showers and laundry to avoid overtaxing the sewers. In a calmer moment I set off in a drizzle from the parking lot of a park across town. The Kid had her first day of summer job orientation at Rundle Park and while I’ve run around that area before I’d never traversed the area around it much. I set off north and did a huge loop up to Hermitage Lake and back along the gravel paths. I got soaked and muddy, but took some interesting pictures.

    All this walking brings me up to thirteen walks and over 144km total… and the realization I need to step it up a little more as summer hits.

  • weekender, ten

    weekender, ten

    I had done a long walk on Friday midday (see my fifty walks posts) so I was content to crash and watch some television that evening.

    But the weekend got a bit busier. 

    The Kid and I followed Karin over to South Common. She was doing a fitness class over in that part of town, so we killed an hour checking out some of the shopping nearby, wandering through the bookstore and Best Buy before landing at Bulk Barn to buy some baking supplies.

    I spent a chunk of time in the afternoon noodling on the keyboard trying to learn a particular song—it’s going pretty well, but slow for a new learner—while the Kid baked.

    We took the dog for a long walk, too. She needed it. We needed it. It’s been rainy a lot recently.

    That evening Karin and I were out at the symphony. For Christmas (yeah, like six months ago) she had got me tix to the Music of Final Fantasy. The full Symphony Orchestra had brought it to life to a crowd of folks who were probably more comfortable at a comic convention than a concert hall, but it was interesting and complex music and well done.

    Sunday morning, in mixed weather, I started my climb up towards a half marathon. We made the small jump up to a twelve klick run. It rained and it shone and we got some clouds and sun and a rainbow to boot. Twelve feels hard right now tho, so ten weeks until a half marathon is starting to feel the pinch. A few years ago I was running halves for funzies, but it’s been a few, ugh.

    That afternoon I had to finish my potluck contribution. I had hoped just to buy a dip for my bread but that didn’t pan out so I was ingredient shopping instead and then later doing some rushed prep to get a dip made that should have rightly stood overnight. Again, ugh.

    The dish was for our orchestra potluck. One of our members has a huge country barn made up for big events so about thirty of us trekked forty-five minutes out of the city for a quiet party and dinner. We chatted, ate, even played a game, and did the one thing we don’t get to do much while were sitting in our chairs playing instruments every Monday evening: mingle and talk.

  • fifty walks, walk ten

    fifty walks, walk ten

    I really wanted a curry. 

    Thus was the basis of my tenth walk.

    There are a lot of Indian restaurants in town but to do a simple takeaway lunch meal without much fuss I knew I had to head downtown to the place where I used to frequent, oh probably, weekly back when I worked downtown.

    Tacking on a ten klick walk around that was the trickiest part.

    The Route

    I parked at the rec centre just across the river from the downtown core. It’s not busy during the day and I am, after all, an annual pass-holder so I figure I have some claim to be able to use the parking lot for a couple hours. I set off along the riverside paths, down to the (newish) footbridge, over and up into downtown (stopping for my lunch of course) and then wove through the core back over to the legislature grounds and back across the High Level bridge.

    The Effort

    The forecast had been threatening a thunderstorm so I was hoofing it with an eye on the western sky, but it never actually materialized until I was almost back home and safe inside a dry vehicle.

    There was a respectable amount of hill climbing, but nothing horrible, and hey—no hill was going to set me back from a downtown casual stroll.

    In the end I walked 10.8km in 2 hours and 27 minutes, bringing my total up to 110.9km and a little over 28 hours in all.

    The Highlight

    Back when I was working downtown but just as I was exiting that job they had announced a big park project. They were going to turn an eyesore parking lot into a city-block-sized public park. I think it opened recently, and I timing aside it was sorely needed and open enough for me to wander through.

  • fifty walks, walk nine

    fifty walks, walk nine

    I will admit that the Kid seems more eager that I complete this fifty walks challenge than I do these days. I am still pushing forward of course, but she’s been the one to nudge me out the door for the last couple adventures.

    The Route

    On Wednesday she suggested we walk to the bakery.

    It’s not a terrible idea, though out of the context of needed to do loooooooong walks on the regular, the six and half klick distance to get to the bakery would likely discourage many.

    At first I was a little hesitant though not because of the distance. I’ve been trying to do a variety of routes and not, say, just walk the same ten klick lap fifty times. My goal has been that they should all be fairly unique, but due to the limited number of ways to cross the freeway in this part of town walking to the bakery meant walking a fairly similar route my walk number three a few weeks back.

    It was different enough though, so I relented and we set out.

    The Effort

    It is proper late-spring, nearly summer and it’s been unseasonably hot.

    I would tell you that’s due to climate change but you either already know that and probably don’t need reminding—or your head is trapped in some misinformation engine and why the heck are you reading this blog?

    It’s been hot. It was hot when we walked, and the route taking us as it does out across the interchange bridge over the freeway it was a bit noisy for a while too. Not exactly a relaxing stroll for the first three or four klicks.

    But we visited the bakery and then tucked into the neighbourhood and found our way back under the semi-secret under-the-bridge connection across the freeway that the Kid didn’t know existed but now will probably have her exploring the river valley with her friends this summer.

    The poor planning (of a destination rather than a route) left us with a 14.5km total distance in 3 hours and 2 minutes. Yikes. No wonder I was sore the next day. 

    The big news is that all this means that after nine walks I’ve now passed one hundred kms and a little over twenty five hours: a day and a dollar.

    The Highlight

    Again, at the risk of getting all sappy and fatherly, the highlight is walking with the Kid on these. How many dads get to spend the better part of a day with their eighteen year old daughter, and willingly so? Huh?

  • weekender, nine

    weekender, nine

    Here we are in the last week of May already and summer seems to have arrived.

    The Kid got all four of her wisdom teeth removed on Friday, so that little bit of fun shaped the bulk of our weekend. There’s nothing like mouth surgery to put a damper on the first good weekend of barbecue season.

    I got up early on Saturday to make my way out to Parkrun. I am not exactly a model participant in the weekly free race. This was my sixteenth outing, one of which was at a Tokyo Parkrun last year. They keep meticulous count of participation numbers, and one of the big deals is hitting milestones so that everyone can celebrate.  The first milestone is twenty five races, so at my current rate I should hit that in 2028. Guh. On the other hand, Leon checked off his one hundredth run on Saturday so a bunch of us went out to be there.

    That afternoon the Kid, still sore but medicated, wanted to take the dog for a walk. It was a great day. The sun was up, the sky was clear, and it was shorts weather. We took the pup to the dog park and did one of the side loops out of the neighbourhood entrance, slow and easy because (a) it was warm and (b) she was still only twenty-four hours post surgery. Yeah, it’s dental surgery, but still… four teeth!

    That evening we went for sushi. She was still struggling with getting food down, but picking apart some rolls and a hot bowl of miso soup was just what the doctor ordered. Maybe. We didn’t specifically ask him.

    Sunday morning we did the regular long run. One of the reasons I often bail on Parkrun is that running a race-ish run like Parkrun and then going out for our long main training run of the week less than twenty-four hours later is tough.  We did ten klicks, lots of it trails, and yeah… it was tough.

    I spent most of the afternoon puttering around the yard.  The garden is doing well, and of course  I decided to tackle a big ol project in ripping out a bunch of dog-peed dead grass and replacing the sod. I’m going to post this and go buy the sod, but the old grass is removed and ready for new lawn.

    I chilled in the sun for a while and enjoyed a few minutes of relaxing time, but then we were true to the weather and fired up the barbecue for steaks. Can’t pass up those opportunities when they arise, can we?

about

Welcome. I’m one of those weirdos who still writes a personal blog. In fact, I’ve been writing meandering drivel online for decades, and here you’ll find all my recent posts on writing, technology, art, food, adventure, running, travel, and overthinking just about anything and everything …since early 2021.

I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about just about anything that interest me. Enjoy!

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