Why I Love Wearables - Fitbit Mania Is Well Warranted: A Review

A pal of mine pointed out to me that I tend to use the word 'motor' a lot. I suppose he's right. But it's a word that lends itself to frequent use by virtue of what it signifies: those that are mostly, usually on.
Those that always want to be doing, moving, getting things done, exploring. Or as the saying goes: Agito ergo sum i.e.: I move therefore I am.

And like goes with like. All of my closest friends and associates have this in common: they have a motor that tends to be on the majority of the time. And using things like a Fitbit or an Up24 allows one, who's in the habit of being on, to further finesse one's state of being on.

I stumbled into wearables a good while back. Being struck by the bug of neophilia and thoroughly in love with technology, I tend to get drawn to anything and everything new in its realm. Plus, in order to truly have a feel for something I have to have hands-on experience with it. My car, I'm told, is a veritable shop of gadgets. To me, it's best to always be prepared but I suppose I'm digressing.

While I'm an iOS-er through and through, I did play extensively with the LG and Samsung watches but since they don't connect to my Apple devices I had to gift them to members of my family and instead directed my attention to Jawbone and Fitbit which I could easily sync to my iPhone.

I first settled on the Jawbone Up24.  I used this model for a good half a year. In terms of accuracy this unit delivers. It tracks movement and sleep really well. Plus, the alarm feature on it comes in handy and I find it stronger and better than the one on the Fitbit. For a while, I actually was using both at the same time but that's another post.

I started using it after I completed the first races of the year in 2014. It was after I picked up wind surfing and paddleboarding. My use of the wearables was more of a byproduct of all the exercise I was doing. However, the reason why I moved away from the Up24 is because I moved past it. I grew and I needed more. The more I was doing, the bigger the needs.

I lead a very active life. In addition to running 10km a day, I am very engaged in my work which allows me to be highly mobile. Plus, after a long work day, the day doesn't end there for me. I crave more activity and I shift my attention to yoga, biking, lifting and every weekend I either paddleboard, wind surf or snowboard.

Hence, a wearable that's a. water-proof, that b. allows me to see what time it is, c. that has caller ID so that I know when I'm overdoing it and I need to get home by comes in handy. And this is why I switched to the Fitbit Charge. Which I love! But something tells me soon I will graduate to the next model, the Charge HR because that's just what's been happening and that's the natural progression of things.

Wearables fit well with my nature. The fact that I can now track every aspect of my daily activity is a huge plus in my life. I get to monitor why my pace is slower or faster in certain reliefs and how to go about gaining more speed. In short, I'm in tracking heaven!

Naturally, all of this tracking led me to one expected end point: run a marathon!

Of course. I suppose a marathon is a direct byproduct of running 10km every single day of the week. All of a sudden, 10km feels like child's play. And you want more. And more. And more. And your insatiable nature takes over and you wonder what's next.

The other great things about the fitbit is the social component of it. You can see how you stack up against the other people in your network which will then push you to do more and be better. It's a superb way to monitor your activity and that of the community. After all, regardless of how on our motors are, we all need other people to help push us further.

So, if you don't have one, I highly recommend that you get one. Not only am I enjoying mine, which by the way connects well with the Map my Run app which is what I use for my marathon training and daily running, I also got some for my family. They're all hooked as they keep counting their steps and go for the ideal 10k steps a day.

Hence, happy tracking, folks!

The Power of Habit - A Review

As I was processing some difficult news this morning, my eye noticed the cover of the latest book I've been reading, Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.

The power of habit leads us to movement, progress, success, health even when facing unfortunate developments. Duhigg discusses the case of a woman who goes to a lab and over the course of two years manages to radically transform her life. She has not only successfully quit smoking, but also managed to run a marathon, and move up at work. It turns out, according to her neurologists, that her success was linked to a change in the patterns inside her brain.

The author postulates that the power of habit is so grand that without it, we would be lost. Much of good can be accomplished with relative ease due to it. While reading from it I got to thinking of my chess tutor when I was eleven. I had a hard time staying put, in a chair, and I always sought the easy way out. The easy check mate. "Muscle memory, Brikena, muscle memory. It needs to get exercised. While sitting down. Don't move your right leg. Don't tap on the table. Don't chew gum. Focus....." he used to say to me. I didn't like it when he'd say it as I'd rather check mate the other party quickly (or get check mated by it quickly) and run outside to my friends for a game of whatever.

It's amazing how we can get good at so me many things by relying on habits that at times appear to be clothed in antithesis. Consider bike riding and chess. The reason why I mention the former is because Duhrigg makes mention of it in his book as well and my experience is congruent with his explanation. He mentions bike riding as an example of practicing the "art of not thinking."

Biking like swimming are things I learned by myself. The same applied to chess in the beginning but once I displayed some understanding, I was given a tutor. I would watch my Dad and brother play and I'd mimetically get to a point of understanding. That's how I got to see how limited but dangerous the queen could be and how impulsive and manipulatable the knight is. But I digress.

When it came to swimming, it happened in the Adriatic. It was afternoon. I had a red bathing suit on. I had been in the water for hours and my lip was purple. My mom kept wanting me to come out of the water but I said "no!" "I need to learn this now!" I needed to do a frog style underwater. I just had to keep practicing. And so, after swallowing who knows how much salty water, I became, to quote Mom, fish-like. To this time, diving and swimming frog style under water is one of the most relaxing experiences in life. You learn it by doing. By not thinking, by simply allowing the body to enter in a dialog of understanding with water. The same applies to bike riding. I have a hard time with visual memory. I do, however, remember vividly when I first got to ride an adult's bike and swim long distances in the sea.

I loved riding bikes when I was a child. And I loved chess. I had two camps of friends. The popular ones who leaned more towards visibility and public games and the really smart but painfully shy group would come to my parents' guest quarters and practice the various theoretical chess openings. The chess nerds, or as my brother used to call them, the Kasparovs. Kena, dinner time. Are the Kasparovs gone yet? The art of thinking came in handy with the Kasparovs. And its sort of opposite is what I espoused when frolicking in the sun with the bike riders and swimmers.

The art of thinking and the art of non thinking are required in both activities. When it came to chess, I had to learn the hierarchy of strategy and how to better fight the opponent. When to attack the tower, or make the queen move so that the king would finally get nervous and eventually start moving nervously till he'd get check mated.

When it came to riding bikes or teaching my friends how to ride them, the advice was simple, and funnily in sync with Duhigg's premise: do, don't think. Duhigg makes the point that learning how to do different activities is going to require different modus operandi. For instance, the skills required to learning how to ride a bike are not easily explicable to the conscious mind. Chess is a bit of a different story.

Duhigg says that our conscious mind is not nearly fast enough or accurate enough to handle even what seems like a relatively simple task such as hitting a golf ball–which is why superior athletes must learn to practice “the art of not thinking,” in order to succeed.

In sum, The Power of Habit is a good read. It might make you revisit your past and the times when you first learned how to do things you're currently good at.

Heartache Comes in Many Bike Forms, So Does Happiness

This is Denim, aka, my Honda Metro scooter which I rode almost daily from 2004-2006. I miss it terribly. I knew that the day would come when I wouldn't be able to ride it anymore but that thought would only reinforce the pleasure I would feel every time I was on it. Very often, I carried passengers on Denim. Many of my friends would demand that I pick them up on Denim. Many incoming texts would read, 'You picking me up on Denim? Not Daisy, Denim, ok?' And, of course, I complied.

At the time I owned Denim, I also owned a little Volkswagen pick-up. The Volkswagen's name was Daisy and Daisy had orange leather interior and bright yellow exterior. Daisy was happy. It, however, did not get to see much of me as my love affair with Denim didn't diminish in intensity till the last day. And, I suppose, I was a one-vehicle-type-of-person then.

So, I rode Denim and my passengers, usually taller guys and a few taller girls would ride along. It was quite a sight. I loved every second of Denim. I was known as 'scooter girl' and I dug it. Then it was time to move to another state on account of my career and it was time to part ways with Denim. It's been four years and I still miss Denim terribly.

The reason why I'm walking down memory lane at this point is because I experienced another hard toy-related experience this week. It does have a happy ending, however. In the beginning of the week, I thought I'd lost my oh-so-very-special i.e., costly Specialized Hard Rock Pro. As I was telling Camille, one of the worst things about being a hyper person and doing a lot of things in one day is having a bit of a tough time recalling every single activity of one's quotidianity. I suppose that's why I kind of like Twitter. It does sort of journal what one does, in a way. But I digress.

After coming back from the trails, I seemed to have gotten carried away by my other daily tasks and didn't put the Specialized back in the garage. So, I resigned myself to the thought that, well, there goes another thing that I lost of account of my nature. It's a bad feeling having things taken away. It's an even worse feeling to lose things you love a lot. And I've already had another Specialized share the same destiny in the past. When I lose things, I can't help but wonder that I somehow lacked some appreciation of them while I, well, had them. The thing is, I'm truly appreciative of the stuff I own. I'm a minimalist, for the most part, and that which I do own is purchased after some measure of thought. One thing I tend to object to is baggage as I like to be as light as I can when I live and travel.

Below see some footage of me gushing over the awesomeness that was my Specialized. It dawned on me during the beginning of the week that the only time I felt like this was when I had my other Specializes stolen and when I parted ways with Denim. The thing is, losing stuff hurts. It hurts a lot. But what can one do? Granted, everyone takes a loss once in a while, and some perhaps more than others. Losses do also serve a pretty didactic purpose. They teach one, mid-pain, to devour the present more slowly.

For an avid biker, I sure have lousy luck, as my friend Liam says. With bikes, that is. Generally, I'm the type who picks myself up by the bootstrap and doesn't spend time on whining. Actually, another thing I greatly object to is whining. I believe in coming from a place of 'yes' and being dedicated to solutions instead of focusing on problems. Few things manage to get my stomach tied in a knot the way property losses and damages can, though. I love to bike. Biking has always made me feel happy. Plus, it's such a tease to live in an area where you're surrounded by beautiful mountain trails and the beach and they're all saying in unison, 'get on the bike and come see us. We know you want to....'

And thus it was during the first part of the week. Till last night, that is. As I was talking to a friend of mine who's coming to visit me for a bit, I had another call waiting on my other line. They had found my Specialized. A wonderful gentleman saw it and took it to the Lost and Found because it looked too expensive and he thought the owner would suffer much on account of its absence. Boy, was he right! So, I put my visiting friend on hold and told him that the Specialized had to come first. I made arrangements to retrieve it and this morning we got to spend some time together again. All is well with the word.

Biking is truly a way of life. Even though I enjoy driving, granted more so in the West than anywhere, biking is one of those activities that lifts you up right away. And if it's done on a Specialized, then, consider my creativity enhanced. So, tonight, the tip of my Bob Marley hat goes to honest people who see a costly Specialized and turn in it to make the owner's day.

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Bikers Share the Street

I have recently converted to road bikes. My Cannondale served me very well but it was a tad ostentatious for the relief in Central Ohio as it is very flat. So, I moved up, as my biker friends would say, by getting a road bike. The thing is, (and I realize this is a tad bizarre) when living out West surrounded by high mountains, I also rode a fantastic road bike which would have been a better fit for Flat-landia. And the Cannondale would have served me a lot better there but irony is, after all, one of the things I live for, I'm told.

My current bike is not just any bike. It's a Jamis Ventura which when turned loose on the brand-new asphalt morphs into some kind of superhero. It flies and it seems to be saying that I better fly with it if I'm keen on staying on top.

Almost daily, however, I am observing that some drivers are a bit impatient with riders and one of them for instance, expressly told me to use the sidewalk. Now, if I had more time, I would have, politely of course, informed the car passenger that, in the event that he has a driver's license he should have already gleaned from the test manual that bikers are to be treated like other motorists. We share the road and both parties need to be aware of the rules of traffic. Bikers should NOT be on the sidewalk. However, all I could say to the man in the space of a second was, "Nah!"

And I went back to enjoying the superb piece of engineering that is the Jamis Ventura.

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Spring Cycling

We biked about 20-25 miles today on a few trails in Central Ohio. While much of Ohio is quite flat, it does have some very good trails.

My tip of the hat today goes to the beauty of well-kept trails and solid engineering of bicycles made with care. Thanks, Cannondale.

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Southern Utah

The Times has a nice spread on Southern Utah today. Those of you who have not yet experienced Southern Utah, love the outdoors, hiking and biking, and are thinking about vacation ideas, might I suggest Southern Utah? It will amaze you.

Read the piece here.

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Truck-Prius-Mountain Bike

Ok, here is something for you to consider.
The notion of the hierarchy of/in the food chain came to full organic life today.
It was morning and about to snow. It was not snowing yet, however. Now, a bona fide snowboarder and mountain biker would get this, i.e., that the weather means little of consequence.
So, I'm on the street, minding the traffic rules, waiting for the green light to appear when this monstrously big truck makes a left turn and almost runs over the blue Prius on the lane to my left.
I thought, 'wow!'
The Prius driver looked scared as any life-loving driver would have been in the same circumstance. She could really only do two things in that circumstance:
1) move to the right and threaten to harm me in the process
or
2) stay put and be potentially hurt by the beastly big truck.
The Prius, silver-haired driver looks at me confused, shrugs, and starts accelerating giving me a gestures I could translate as: "I'm really sorry to do this but if I don't move, I and the vehicle are in danger."
Nothing happened to all parties at the light but something did happen to me and I became, yet again, more acutely aware of space on the lane and how power is distributed.

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graphs per cannondale and prius

Free Bikes on Campus?

I feel strongly about bikes. In my case, the bike represents not only an active and serious hobby but a way of life. On the average, I cover about 50 miles a week which is much more during warmer seasons. I believe in notions like 'agito ergo sum' and being on my Cannondale brings that very thing to fruition.
However, I find many examples from my quotidian routes of drivers who seem to have a hard time with the idea of bikers safely riding on the lanes. Biking and bikers are featured on driving manuals and, based on that bit alone, I assumed that people would be aware of the biking breed and respectfully acknowledge them on the road. Alas, this is not the case all the time.
I have biked in different countries and US states and I find that there where biking is used more by people be it recreationally or transportationally, it is safer to ride.
But drivers are not the only ones at fault. Many bikers seem to forget to abide by traffic rules as well. Hand signals are not always used and the red light is seen as optional. So, drivers and bikers, safe traffic goes both ways. While driving I have caught myself making comments like: "Grh [insert eye-rolling], where did you learn how to ride?! It's a LEFT turn, Armstrong!" And as a rider I often think: "Oy! Driver's manual and the law says I need to be on the road not on the sidewalk!"

I was very happy to read about this practice some US campuses are following. A snippet says:
"When Kylie Galliani started at the University of New England in August, she was given a key to her dorm, a class schedule and something more unusual: a $480 bicycle. Bicycles to be given to freshmen at the University of New England in Biddeford, Me.
The University of New England bikes are personalized. Free or subsidized bike programs at colleges have had mixed success.

“I was like, ‘A free bike, no catch?’ ” Ms. Galliani, 17, a freshman from Fort Bragg, Calif., asked. “It’s really an ideal way to get around the campus.”

University administrators and students nationwide are increasingly feeling that way too.

The University of New England and Ripon College in Wisconsin are giving free bikes to freshmen who promise to leave their cars at home. Other colleges are setting up free bike sharing or rental programs, and some universities are partnering with bike shops to offer discounts on purchases.

The goal, college and university officials said, is to ease critical shortages of parking and to change the car culture that clogs campus roadways and erodes the community feel that comes with walking or biking around campus."
Read it all here.

Things Ohio: The Alum Creek Bike Trail

The latest thing of beauty I discovered about Ohio, with the help of a solid recommendation, is Alum Creek. If you are an avid bike rider, have tried difficult trails in the past, and most importantly, have access to a heavy-duty mountain bike, this trail will be a very good choice.
Between two somewhat experienced riders there were only a couple of falls. So, before you embark on this journey, make sure to pack some neosporin. A good study of the map might come in handy as well as the biking task might seem a tad daunting towards the end. It might be helpful to picture the experience before actually doing it. One of the trails is a sheer 6-mile full of adventure and unexpected turns.
The very last bike trail experience I had that was somewhat close to this one was in Little Cottonwood Canyon out West. I can say, at this point, that this trail was challenging, serpentine, and difficult. In other words, definitely worth a try or five. Overall, it's a fantastic experience and one which those of you who are visiting Ohio in the near future should see about experiencing.
Plus, the Fall colors and the water formations around the trail inform the experience very well.
YouTube has a good photo-journaling bit on it. Listen to the words of the narrator. I concur with him entirely.


And here's some footage of the Upper Little Cottonwood Canyon Trail. If you find yourself in that neck of the woods, definitely try it too. It won't disappoint.