Years ago when I created this incarnation of my blog, I chose the domain name because it aligns with my philosophy: “Going Outside” – meaning to step outside boxes, expectations, and the everyday. Of course it also meant to encourage others (and myself) to actually walk out the front door too.
I am not terribly consistent on this last one. When the weather is cold and gloomy I don’t do much of it at all. What I also noticed as of late, though, was that I was very susceptible to inertia and the attraction of staying in a comfortable apartment. This is counterproductive when it comes to my overall enjoyment of life considering that I spend the better part of winter wishing it were warm and sunny out.
Having an Apple watch has given me some benchmarks on this front as it actually records how much sunlight I’m exposed to. Have a look:
Want to know why I take vitamin D supplements all winter This is it. Check this out: My watch noted an average of 9.3 minutes/day of time in daylight. This doesn’t mean I’m not going out but when bundled up it’s not like I’m actually getting sun on my skin.
Let’s fast forward a few weeks:
Looks a little better, eh? Almost an hour and a half a day in the sun when you figure in my time outdoors on weekends for rides and the like. Still no big rides or time spent outside but one look at this and you know I’m feeling the wind on my skin and sun in my face. But I’m still succumbing to my inertia at this point. Let’s look at this past week. This week I’ve tried to adjust my schedule a bit more to get out for longer rides mid-week and on the weekend. I didn’t quite hit my target for rides but I came closer than I’ve been in a while:
Look at that – my average is more than three hours/day. So much better! And honestly I feel it in my mood and energy levels overall. Imagine this: I’m doing much more exercise and still my energy is going up.
So what’s getting me out lately? Some pretty good stuff, actually. Mostly it’s been bike rides all over the place. Here are some of them:
Beare Hill used to be a landfill in the east end of Toronto. In recent years it was closed and re-naturalized to make it a lovely park. In the past I’ve seen snakes, deer and otters there. There are also signs warning of bears – all within the city. It’s close enough that it can even make an after work ride in the summer.
We had a bit of a heat wave a while back and that pushed me to morning rides. I was actually able to get in over 30 kilometres of riding before work which made for a great mood all day. There was even a bit of wildlife at the end of this one:
We are lucky to live near the Finch Hydro corridor which is something of a superhighway for bikes (walkers and runners are also welcome, of course). Aside from a couple of kilometres in total here and there to get to the trail and then between spots on the trail connected by road, it was mostly off road which made it a great after work ride since there was no rush hour impact. That is, unless you count after-work runners and dog walkers. That ride ended at the Claireville dam which created a lake that waterfowl seem to like. It’s also just far enough from the busy part of the city that there’s even a campground there.
When the pandemic was still at its height, Daegan and I did a bit of walking and exploring the ravines near us. On one trip we came across what looked like a new dirt road leading off an existing trail. It took us quite a ways, past some construction equipment and then to a tiny path in the woods. We walked over some railroad tracks and eventually got to a road with a 7 foot high chain link fence across it. It looked like we were on the wrong side of it all and if we wanted to get out we’d have to scale the fence. Over we went and eventually found our way to a road that led us to a samosa factory where we got samosas and ate them on the lawn outside. The samosas were not that great but the trail was lovely. I used it occasionally for riding a gravel bike on it and other times I would do trail running on it. Now, though, six years after we “discovered” it, it’s complete. I rode back down to our old neighbourhood to check it out. Now instead of scaling a chain link fence there’s a multi-story ramp to guide trail users up and over the GO train tracks. I was glad to see it done though it was kind of fun having a mostly unknown route to take for a while.
Today I had an intention to do a long ride but the heat, humidity, and a bit of hunger made me call it at the 50 kilometre mark. This was a mix of roads I’d been on, some new trails that helped me avoid a road I didn’t like riding on and a stop by a swamp where beavers had made a pond. On previous visits I’d seen the beavers but today they were probably resting inside their dam avoiding the heat. But as you’ll hear at the end of this video, the frogs are more than active. It was also really nice to see the lake again – it had been a while since I’d ridden alongside it.
But that wasn’t all that got me out the door. Yesterday, Sage and I went to a randomly chosen destination. We used Mapcrunch which can give randomly chosen streetview locations. Every day it shows a new one but if you adjust the options in the upper left hand corner to change the map area to show where you’re willing to go, it will give you a random location in there. And so we took the subway to Union Station, had a yummy lunch there and then took the train to Port Credit. Once there we were reminded how spoiled we are in Toronto. Bus stops to get where we were going were far apart so there was a long walk. Then after that, there was an 8 minute wait. This is comparable to what we might see in a more remote area of Toronto so it was no big deal. Eventually we found our way into a mid-century neighbourhood where we did our best to mimic the streetview we saw:
Then came the real fun. The temperature had become quite warm and it was time to find our way back. Originally we considered going back to Port Credit and visiting the lake, maybe getting an ice cream. But when we got to the stop along this charming quiet road (!) we found that the bus came every hour and we had 48 minutes to wait.
So fortunately we could consult the nearby bus schedules and after a very hot 20 minute walk with no shade to speak of we got to a bus stop that had slightly better frequency – a bus would be there every 15 minutes. This bus took us to the subway station where we picked up small rotis at a bakery – mine with chicken and potato curry, Sage’s with chana and potato. All along the way we played Upwords (a variation of scrabble) and read when it wasn’t our turn. It was a delightful way to spend the day. And that also, is why you see on the graph above that I was in the sun for nearly 400 minutes!
I had so much fun with the random map location for going by foot/transit that I’m going to start using it for cycling also. I actually used a similar app called Randonautica back during the pandemic and found lots of interesting new places I never would’ve gone. But now that app costs $4.95/week plus tax which is definitely not worth it. Still, adding randomness and sunlight into my life is a great plan if you ask me.
Good to see Sage after a long time. Please ask her if she stitches her clothes ? Randomly chosen places to go sounds fun. Here too most buildings have ACs and people working there do not get sun light and are prescribed Vitamin D. I liked your post Todd.
That app is costly. Now that you have the idea you can just think of a place and go there.
Hi Lakshmi – it’s always lovely to hear from you. The app is ridiculous – I’m not sure who is using it. But the site I mentioned, Mapcrunch is free and works great. It’s also just a fun way to see somewhere random in the world.
And yes, Sage is stitching her clothes herself. Almost everything she wears now is handmade. That way not only does it fit the way she wants it to, it looks how she wants it as well.
The same is true here – our houses and offices almost all have AC and of course heating meaning that the temperature is more often than not exactly what you want so many just avoid going out in it. Or go out to their air conditioned vehicle (our buses and trains have AC here) to the air conditioned mall and so on.
I noticed during the pandemic that there are lots of similarities between how India manages during the summer and how we manage in the winter. When it’s 40+ outside people are as likely to want to go out as when it’s -15. Those who have AC close their windows and ventilation is poor so COVID spread then like it did for us in the winter. And those fond cozy feelings we have about autumn? Those seem to be mirrored in the feelings about the monsoon. We’re just having soups and pumpkin spice lattes instead of chai and pakoras.