The Daily Parker

Yesterday Cassie and I took a 9 kilometer walk through the Lincoln Square and West Ridge community areas. If she got tired, she didn't admit it, at least not until we stopped for a beer:

Otherwise, not much to report, other than I started Agency, William Gibson's sequel to his novel The Peripheral. It's really good. I'm already a third the way done and should finish in a day or two.

Having the morning free, and having a lot of cool air and sun, I took a quick stroll around Nashville. I'll have more later, but for now, here's the Tennessee State Capitol, apparently under construction:

Of course, since the Tennessee General Assembly has a well-Gerrymandered 75-24 Republican majority, I would expect they're actually deconstructing the Capitol. But whatever.

I also passed by Riverfront Station, the downtown terminus of Nashville's adorable little 6-times-a-day toy commuter train:

It may be a really sad attempt to have real public transportation, but it's also a train station, meaning there are Brews & Choos-qualified breweries right by my hotel. I'm planning to visit one today. You'll have to wait until at least Friday for the reviews, though. And also for better photo editing.

As predicted, none of yesterday's snow stuck around. Here's (a new edit of) yesterday's photo:

And the same spot just over 24 hours later:

In fact, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology WHQ has remained above freezing since just before 9am Monday, though it did scrape along at 0.1°C for a couple of hours last night.

Today's forecast predicts a high of 14°C, and this weekend's Garmin challenge predicts Cassie will get a 5 kilometer walk this afternoon.

Despite getting back to a relative normal in 2023, 2024 seemed to revert back to how things went in 2020—just without the pandemic. Statistically, though, things remained steady, for the most part:

• I posted 480 times on The Daily Parker, 20 fewer than in 2023 and 17 below the long-term median. January and July had the most posts (48) and April and December the fewest (34). The mean of 40.0 was slightly lower than the long-term mean (41.34), with a standard deviation of 5.12, reflecting a mixed posting history this year.
  
• Flights went up slightly, to 17 segments and 25,399 flight miles (up from 13 and 20,541), the most of either since 2018:
  
• I visited 3 countries (Germany, the UK, and France) and 5 US states (Washington, North Carolina, Arizona, California, Texas). Total time traveling: 189 hours (up from 156).
• Cassie got 369 hours of walks (down from 372) and at least that many hours of couch time.
• Fitness numbers for 2024: 4,776,451 steps and 4,006 km (average: 13,050 per day), up from 4.62m steps and 3,948 km in 2023. Plus, I hit my step goal 343 times (341 in 2023). I also did my second-longest walk ever on October 19th, 43.23 km.
• Driving went way down. My car logged only 3,812 km (down from 5,009) on 54 L of gasoline (down from 87), averaging 1.4 L/100 km (167 MPG). I last filled up April 8th, and I still have half a tank left. Can I make it a full year without refueling?
• Total time at work: 1,807 hours at my real job (down from 1,905) and 43 hours on consulting and side projects, including 841 hours in the office (up from 640), plus 114 hours commuting (up from 91). For most of the summer we had 3-days-a-week office hours, but starting in November, that went back to 1 day a week.
• The Apollo Chorus consumed 225 hours in 2024, with 138 hours rehearsing and performing (cf. 247 hours in 2023).

In all, fairly consistent with previous years, though I do expect a few minor perturbations in 2025: less time in the office, less time on Apollo, and more time walking Cassie.

So far today, Cassie has gotten almost exactly 10 km of walks, including a swing through the Horner Park DFA. This is a happy dog:

We also passed by a controlled burn in Winnemac Park:

They burn out the natural prairie areas periodically to help them grow back stronger. My only concern is that I believe there are several families of coyotes in the park. I hope they didn't lose their homes, or worse.

Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership.

We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half:

Sadly, we were so busy enjoying the day that we forgot to take pictures.

The next Dog Day is January 19th. Given Chicago's normal weather that time of year, we may skip it. Then again, both Kelsey and Cassie really enjoy snow.

My Brews & Choos buddy and I trudged 15 kilometers yesterday to visit two previously-unreviewed breweries and two old favorites. Correction: I visited two old favorites and two new ones, she visited one old favorite and three she hadn't visited before.

My Garmin device doesn't have a resume-later feature, but hers does, so she captured the entire route (in miles):

We had bog-normal November weather for Chicago: cloudy and 5°C. We also had a slice of Jimmy's Pizza and a modest amount of good beer. Altogether, a good day.

Brews & Choos Reviews will post this afternoon and tomorrow.

Just a few more notes about last Saturday's 43-kilometer walk to Lake Bluff. First, some photos, including the obligatory Baháʼí Temple photo from about 14 km in:

And the Green Bay Trail in Glencoe, Ill., around 27 km:

The walk felt much easier than previous years, so I ran the numbers to find out why. For starters, this year I took longer (6:32:38) to get to 42.2 km than in 2020 (6:20:32) or 2021 (6:17:41)—but last year I took even longer (6:41:36), so that's only part of it. This year was the coolest, peaking at 22.8°C compared with last year's and 2020's 26.1°C and 2021's 24.4°C, which also helped.

But the most interesting data point turned out to be my heart rate. Here's the comparison of the four completions (remember, I didn't finish in 2022):

Huh. This year I spent the least time in the threshold zone, and over 20% of the time warming up, while in previous years I pushed myself a lot harder. I did that on purpose; I really didn't want to exhaust myself as I had in every previous year. I just wanted to enjoy the walk with my Brews & Choos buddy. Data: in all previous years I completely bottomed out my Garmin Body Battery score; this year I had 20 points left.

So, a couple of takeaways. First, most importantly, do the walk in October and not September. My birthday weekend almost always feels like summer even though it's officially autumn; mid-October, we've got cool weather. Second, if I manage my sleep, diet, and energy levels well enough, I can start next year's walk feeling great, and (third) if I manage my heart rate, I can end it feeling great, too.

But maybe it's OK to push a little harder. Could I have cut 15 minutes off my 42.2-km time by moving in the threshold zone earlier? Probably. Should I have left 20 points on the field? Probably not.

Before then, however, we're planning a Brews & Choos-ish like we did last November. Look for that in the coming weeks.

Moving this annual 42 km walk to October really helped:

I'll have more to say about this later today or tomorrow. Right now...I'm a bit sore, but a lot less sore than I was last time.

The sun is just coming up over the trees east of my office, I'm having a bagel and coffee, and I'm checking the forecast for today's 42-kilometer walk:

Right now we've got 9°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ, meaning a chilly start to the walk. But with the forecast high at our end point of 22°C with dewpoints under 6°C all day, and just a few clouds (bottom panel), I couldn't ask for better.

Here we go!