After dithering for a while about spending the money for an IP rating more suited to dirt roads and downpours, I finally got my hands on a new set of bone conduction headphones. (My old Aftershokz Trekz still work but I’d need a new pair sooner or later so when a different brand appeared in my list on Amazon Vine…. *shrug* It was cheap enough even if I’d bought it outright that the “you must pay income taxes” implication of getting it through Vine made it worth trying.)

Also on the subject of “I’d need a new one anyway,” I finally caved and bought myself a new cell phone, so there’s waiting for that to arrive. Unlike the headphones, I’ve started having problems with the old one, ranging from simple compatibility issues with regular apps due to it being past the end of its life span for OS updates to actual hardware issues due to the number of times it’s been connected to a charger over the last five years and change (cords have started randomly falling out, which is always “fun” to discover on the drive to work when I’m trying to start my shift on a full charge).

But in the meantime I decided it was high time to make an effort at restarting my exercise routine. And since my room still needs decluttering and my current phone still technically works, that meant starting up Season 2 of Zombies Run.

Surprisingly, I don’t seem to have lost much progress in terms of my pace given that I went most of a year not doing any of my workouts. Contrast that 17 minutes and 4 seconds (13 seconds according to the Zombielink site) to the last time I did a GPS-enabled workout in April last year, and when I started trying to do this on the regular in January 2021:

My inexpert eye tells me I’ve made quite a bit of progress over the course of that year and change… and managed to keep it during my unintentional hiatus of about another year. I mean, a professional athlete might see this as a loss… but a professional athlete is probably also going to have a much faster pace anyway; it’s all about the percentages at this point.

Now if only my weight agreed with the kept progress. Still wearing a US men’s waist of 33 but they’re a bit snug at the worst of times, and my weight’s been fluctuating between 195 and 198. Well, until this morning… pretty sure the scale quit working on me because as much as I like the number it gave me I highly doubt I lost 30 pounds in one day! (Note, the scale was moved so the bathroom could be vacuumed and mopped. It may just need another attempt at reconfiguring as a result of that move or it may actually need replacing. If the second, I do have another digital scale via Vine lying around.)

While I don’t do night walks (unless you count “the sun went down before I got back home”), my willingness to walk during downpours means I still need something for added visibility even on my side road with very little traffic. To that end, I have a reflective vest (bought), a chest/back light (Vine), and now a pair of slap-bracelet style lights (Vine). Debating on getting another pair of the bracelet lights so I’ve got one for each limb though the trick is deciding what color will be most effective. This, too, makes decluttering a necessity as this gives me three (eventually five) items that will need to be kept charged in preparation for my outdoor walks, meaning I’ll need a convenient spot to set up a USB charging hub to keep all of them together.

Oh, and sort of tech-related… I now have two Aerogardens and an outdoor hydroponics garden. Let’s see if I can actually grow my own salad ingredients for (eventually) cheaper than buying them…. And keep looking for a shelf that fits over my sink for an herb garden. Not for cooking ingredients though I wouldn’t mind trying, but for the scent… I like peppermint and the pests don’t.