Tag: #exercising

  • Ideas for 2022

    I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Mainly because, they always fail.

    I, on the other hand, try out new ideas to see if they stick.

    As you can see, two totally different things.

    This first thing I will try out is not drinking. Not total sobriety, but taking a break. It comes down to two things; health and finances. On the health front; I am twenty pounds overweight. I have the middle age man belly, which isn’t really surprising, as I am middle aged. The alcohol isn’t helping with the gut, and I think it’s adding to my depression as well. I don’t feel as positive of a person as I used to be. I don’t think I have a problem with drinking, but I feel like if I don’t start making steps to take my health seriously, that I could have a problem. The other thing is financial. Not that the wife and I are spending a huge amount of money on alcohol, but looking at our year-end review, we spent, on average, $100 a month. I think we can say that we know of a better ways to use that money.

    The next thing is that I will, oh god, start going to a gym for 30 minutes at a time. You might have heard that I am about twenty pounds overweight. Though I would like to say that it was all alcohol and sugary drink’s fault, it’s also inactivity’s fault. Yes, we were hiking most weekends this summer and fall, but one day every two weeks just isn’t enough. (We will pick up hiking again in the Spring.) It’s also the mental health benefits that comes with exercise that I am missing. In the past year, I have been harder on myself than usual. I know everyone has that nagging self-sabotage voice in their head, but most people work through it. For me, this past year, it has been harder and tougher for me to forgive myself, or even have the energy to follow through on a project. That’s not who I am. I was the guy who followed through and got shit done.

    And the last thing is that I have to admit that I didn’t meet my writing goals for the last four month, and in essence, for the year. I did okay, but I didn’t make the goal. I wanted to have three short stories completed by the end of the year. I got two finished, and I think they are in good enough shape to submit, but I wanted to have three. Now, I know full well there is nothing stopping me from submitting the two, but, you know, I didn’t complete what I set out to do. I have maintained the blog, though my viewers have dropped by half. So, instead of four people viewing daily, I now only have two. (And I think I know who those two people are. Hey, guys.) Maybe I do need to spend the $100 and get away from the free WordPress site, or might just need to come to terms with the fact that a random blog about one guys thoughts isn’t that dynamic anymore. It’s not 1997 when confessional blogs were all the rage. Anyway, the blog still brings me a level of joy and feeling of accomplishment daily, so I think this will keep going. The other writing? I need to get back to the grindstone. I need to put in the work.

    And I need to read more!

  • Hiking Review: Mianus River Gorge Preserve

    It had been a month since we had last been hiking. July was pretty busy with camps and trips and visiting friends, so as this weekend approached, I was pretty adamant that we were going hiking, damn it! Not that I had to coerce my family, but there was a thought that they might not be that into it. So, I went looking for a trail that wasn’t too far from home, which meant finding a place that was only about an hour drive time from the City. That’s how I chose Mianus River Gorge Preserve in Westchester County.

    My go to for trail finding is still the AllTrails app on my phone, and the site has not steered us wrong on our search of hiking spots. The app rated Mianus as “easy,” and I wouldn’t go that far, as there were some ups and downs on the trail for the gorge. “Moderate” might have been a little more accurate.

    That have been said, this place was a jewel. We got there at 11am, an hour later than we normally like to start a hike, but the trails were empty of people. Though we were not too far from a major road and a neighborhood, it was silent out there except for the sounds of the river and the forest. I actually found it hard to believe that a forest this untouched, it is one of the last old growth forests in the area, could exist so close to New York City. The river cutting through the land, and the embankment of the gorge was just beautiful to experience. Sadly, my pictures don’t do the Preserve justice.

    It had all the things we have come to like about hiking; the trails were all well maintained, which was good for the kid, the solitude of the forest was impeccable, and the trail head had plenty of parking.  The kid enjoyed spotting fish in the river, and the diversity of the fungi on the forest floor. For me and the wife, we enjoyed that the trails were rugged enough so that we felt like we were getting a work out.

    When we finished our hike, and had a picnic out of the back of our car. It was a littler after twelve noon, when people started to arrive and began to hike the trail. That lead us to believe that the late afternoon is the popular time there. As we watched other couples and families head out on the trails, we decided that Mianus River Gorge Preserve is trail that we want to do again. Maybe in the Fall.

  • Hiking Review: Leon Levy Preserve and Loop

    This weekend, the hike we chose was the Leon Levy Loop in Westchester County, near the Connecticut border. This was a little father out than we normally go, an hour from the City. Also, we went out on Sunday, instead of our normal Saturday, due to errands, such as going to REI to exchange my boots for a half size large, (And true to REI’s policy, they exchanged the boots, no questions asked) and I wanted to get a proper daypack for our hiking adventures.

    Another reason I picked the Leon Levy Preserve was that there were the “ruins” of the Black Mansion on the trail. I thought that this would be a little more exciting for the kid. Such as “discovering” some ruins and exploring the grounds sounded like a fun adventure for her. The land used to be a summer home estate, but fell in to disrepair, then was ravaged by a fire. The Jerome Levy Foundation donated the money to the Town of Lewisboro to purchase the land, and to create the preserve and trails.

    The Leon Levy Loop was the type of trail we were looking for. The was rated as “easy” and I will agree that it was, which makes it very kid friendly. The main Blue Trail was wide and well maintained. The canopy of the forest made the hike cool on a very hot and humid day. We saw a handful of other families on the trail that morning, but by no means did it feel crowded, which let us feel like we could explore unencumbered. We ventured off on the Pink Trail to take a look at the ruins of the guest house, which the kid loved. Her imagination was intrigued, and she came up with wild stories of what happened at the house, long ago.

    In our one hour+ hike, we didn’t even cover half of the Preserve, which was great, as we all enjoyed it out there. As we returned to our car at the trailhead, we decided that this was a place we would like return to, and explore the other trails around the Preserve.

  • Running Again, Mask-Less

    So, I did it yesterday. I started running again. It has been over a year since I tried any form of exercise, and it felt like it. I ran around the local park in my neighborhood, and there was a noticeable jiggle to me, which caused me to get itchy in the jiggly parts. I wasn’t crazy, I knew that I needed to pace myself. I had a thirty-minute time limit, and I knew to jog, then walk, then jog, and then walk. I didn’t want to hurt myself on the first day, though I knew my legs would start aching soon enough. And that occurred last night about 3am.

    Chalk one more up to getting “back to normal.” I was out running without my mask. In fact, I didn’t even bring it. As I ran, pretty much everyone else was also mask-less. The parks are filling up with people around here, and I have to say that half of the non-exercising people are without masks. A few people who were jogging had a mask on, but on the whole, not many.

    I am trying to follow through on the things I have been promising that I would take care of after I got vaxed. Get around in the City on mass transit was one, and now, getting myself back in shape. The kid is very supportive in this effort. When I got back from running yesterday, she looked at me and said, “I think you lost weight.”

  • Covid Guilt: I’m Doing What I Can

    I’m ran the kid through her reading drills, and now she is in her remote class, working on writing words and sentences.

    I guess this is now normal for her. I wonder what she will remember about all of this? At what age will she look back and say, this was a completely messed up time to be alive? I can hear her wonder aloud one day, “How did three people stuck in a tiny apartment in Upper Manhattan survive this? How did we not all go insane?”

    I don’t know the answer to that. I’m not sure if I will ever understand how to answer that.

    The other night the wife asked me if I had an exercise plan. My answer is that I’m not planning on working out until the kid gets back into school, and I’m not going to feel bad about that. I am the primary care giver for the kid; parent, teacher, partner in crime in playing around the apartment. It takes up just about all of my time. To carve out an hour a day, three to four times a week, is just about impossible. And I’m tired of beating myself up over it. I’m putting the kid’s wellbeing first, and that’s good enough.

    None of this is normal, but I keep fooling myself that I should be able to get it all done. Some days I can do it all, but most days I can’t. Just making it to tomorrow, happy and health is a victory.