Showing posts with label connected home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label connected home. Show all posts

Sunday, June 12, 2016

A good day to have run with water

This seemed more organized while I was running it
Today's run (street): 4.4 miles

I've been trying to get out early on weekends and managed to do that most of the time. I wish I got an earlier start this morning. By 7:45 AM, the heat and humidity were already raging. I'd considered trail running which is generally cooler, although it can be very buggy on days like today. I ended up staying local, but mostly avoided my neighborhood. My route ended up looking a little strange.

I thought about taking water with me, but my Ultimate Direction water bottle is cumbersome and has a tricky valve. I should get another Amphipod Hydraform bottle. My old one got me through many training runs at Bethpage. According to Garmin Connect, the temperature was 81° during the time I was out. It didn't show the humidity level, but I'm guessing it was about two thousand percent.

Although I did my best to choose shady sections of road, there was a lot more sun. I was surprised to see a lot of other people running this morning. Most were moving quickly, at least compared to me. But that didn't bother me because I was getting in my miles. I'd hoped to run four and, despite conditions, I covered even more. By the time I got home, my clothes were completely soaked.

The torture continues
You'd have thought I'd learned my lesson about connected home technologies, but I went to Home Depot this afternoon and bought the Wink hub. The setup went much better this time and I'll know at dusk whether the programming worked. Even so, with this morning's tough run and a better experience with the lighting system, I feel like I accomplished something.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

A long run and an unconnected home

Along the Bethpage trail
Today's run (Bethpage bike trail): 5 miles
Yesterday's run (street): 3.2 miles
Sunday's run (street): 4.4 miles

Last Sunday I wasted so much time on a home technology project that I ran out of time to write about my run. I barely recall the workout and had to look at Garmin Connect to remember the route. It was around my neighborhood and not very memorable. Later in the day I took on the challenge of adding the internet of things to my home network, involving a linking hub and programmable LED bulbs. I expected that to take about 45 minutes. After resolving all the technical issues, it ended up taking over three hours.

As much as I wanted to run on Wednesday or Thursday, my work schedule didn't allow for it. I didn't have bandwidth to do a workout until Friday. I worked from home and wanted to get out around 6:00 AM. That's when I typically leave for work and I often see runners around the neighborhood. I was curious if I'd see the dummy who runs in the middle of the street and never moves over when I'm behind him in my car.

The runners I did see were self aware enough to to keep to the left side of the street. I had a little more flexibility in my schedule yesterday, but decided to stick with my usual Friday route. It's always a struggle resuming my running after not running for four days. After a couple of minutes I fell into a comfortable stride.

Weather conditions during my run
I had a early task this morning that delayed the start of my run. I ended up going to Bethpage for five miles on the northern end of the bike trail. The weather was near perfect, perhaps a little warmer than I'd have liked. I did fairly well on the hills, although I did get passed by a guy pushing a jogging stroller up a steep a section.

But not very well
I'm not sure where I'll run tomorrow. It's supposed to be very windy, although the weather reports aren't talking about rain. Hopefully I'll get to some other home projects on my list. I ended up sending back the bulbs and hub because the app used to control the system was pretty useless. Being a technical masochist, I'm planning to get a different brand and try again. Just like running, you can't stop just because of one bad experience.
 

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