Every single activity! - well perhaps not any more...

I am in a phase of not logging every activity that I do in Strava... there I said it! Well okay I will always log my runs and probably my cycling (such as it is), but I was in the habit of logging near enough every walk that I did - to the shops, walking the dog, family strolls. It was something that I often did a fair bit of that then grew into a ritual during the SARS-Cov-2 lockdowns, where we were for a time restricted to one exercise outside per day. During that time particularly the recording and almost celebrating of walks took on a new meaning, although I had long been in the habit of attaching 'silly' titles to my walks (usually walks whilst I had a running injury) so it wasn't too much of a stretch to start naming and logging lockdown activities.

"Why then stop? Bored?" No not really, I sort of belated started to question quite what I was logging and by extension what I was doing. Every walk being turned into electronic data and then squirted into the great worldwide server complex for near posterity (or as long as the files are kept there). In listening to people discussing the nature and environmental impact of cloud storage centres I kind of linked up the fact that the more data I logged the greater my 'carbon footprint'. Now hey, I am not going off grid just at the moment and if you follow me on twitter or instagram you might note that I can not be considered abstemious with my posting habits. I am though rethinking quite what I use that type of cloud storage for to an extent, and logging every time I walked to the chip shop as an everyday activity was faintly (well not so faintly) ridiculous.

Also of course* logging every activity has other implications too and most notably in my mind is security. There is / are people who if they want to can work out where you live and when you are most likely to be out, thus working out when might be a good time to burgle your home. I know I know it sounds far fetched (and I have f' all worth pinching) but apparently it happens. Granted this, for me at least, is one of those secondary parts of my thinking here because my main thoughts were around the above environmental footprint perspective - but it is not to be over looked and if you are someone with concerns about people who might get 'stalky' then look at your settings on whatever platform you use at a very minimum. I do use the privacy zone in Strava, but got twitchy over time about the fact that it might not take an internet genius to work out my regular dog walking patterns, for example.

* - terrible use of language "of course" implies you know what I mean and why, and lets face it there is a high degree of likelihood that you have no clue what I am about to write and I shouldn't assume that you do.

At the risk of entirely disappearing up my own internet connection ultimately I sort of have a notion of winding the clock back and using some social media less and using other tools like this a bit more (bringing together more strands in one place and not in massive image files (my instagram accounts, ahem, I am thinking of you!), but I haven't really thought all that through yet. In times of reflection, and lets face it the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic has brought a fair bit of reflective time, I just get to pondering whether I could be a bit more strategic with how I use this here internet thing.

Hope your 2022 got off to a good start - what are you logging?

Got any plans?

 It is not like this time of year is ever linked to new beginnings or that people seem to embrace the great new lists of things or anything, but I don't currently have a plan... and that's okay. Should I have a plan? Well probably - I am not fit at the moment so a plan might be good, I have a marathon in my diary so a plan would be good, I have a zwift membership so a plan would be good, and I have started a Leader in Run Fitness course so a plan really really would be good. Just at the moment though I give myself permission not to have one, to go with the flow, and have some down time. The only plan I actually have, in all honesty, is to get a plan some time quite soon and get back onto things.

Rise and fall, quiet and busy, full on and kicking back phases are a part of life that are sometime not appreciated. All go, go, go leads to running out of steam, all no, no, no leads to stagnation and boredom. So I am taking this short time out and then looking to get back on it. That I had an injury before Christmas has 'helped' produce the quiet phase, but as that seems to be healing its perhaps time to have a look at some new years plans... they don't all have to be made on New Year's eve ready for January 1st, they can be whenever you need them.

Hope your moving / activity is where you want and need it to be just now - Happy New Year!