ReNe: new toy

Got a pedometer when I went to the AC today. Free. $12 deposit when I return it, not sure if there's a due date but $12 for a pedometer is not expensive. Like how a supermarket trolley costs $1.

Anyway, this is a very simple device, works on detecting the motion by your hips. It clips onto your waist and has 2 modes: steps, and time. Nice. Can't wait to try it out tomorrow. It's an approximately 5km return trip to work, and according to this, that's only about 6250 steps. Another rough rule-of-thumb calculation is 500 steps in 5 mins, so the hour I spend walking each day is about 6000 steps. That's not a lot at all because according to the same website,

5,000 - 7,499 steps/day is "average" for most people but is not enough to provide all the health benefits of walking.

and

10,000 or more steps/day is a good target and puts you in the “active” category.

That's my aim. Yeah. The "active" category.

(According to some stats on that same website, the top 3 steppers this week logged 50913, 16283 and 15049 steps a day on average. Now the 2nd and 3rd placed numbers are believable, but I'm a little incredulous over the top ranked guy's numbers. At 50913 steps, that's over 40km a day, or over 8 hours walking! But then again, you can also count steps while running, so maybe he ran a lot.)

MiKE: Shopping at Sanko

Sanko Supermarket is a Japanese grocer with pretty decent Japanese stuff that one would expect to find in any Japanese city (Having seen a few in Hokkaido and Tohoku, I'd think my judgment's right on this). Nothing particularly special, I guess, if one were to be in Japan. Sanko is located at 730 Queen Street West. It is along a semi busy street together with a motorcycle leather specialty shop (think Harley Davidson), and a place called Miss Demeanor, where, on my way back, I was about to comment to myself that the lingerie clad mannequins in the window looked surprisingly real. Until they started to move..

Well, back to my story. So, I am now convinced that I must go out everyday and brave the cold and get some exercise; even if it is to the conventional grocers just round the corner on Bloor West. And I had been noticing that my soy sauce was diminishing quite quickly. So I thought to go and get some, from Sanko, because I tried one particular soy sauce in sg (this one from Meidi-Ya, Liang Court) - some Usukuchi Soy Sauce, and I liked it. Very light and versatile. The interesting digression I have here is that we found out about Meidi-Ya onboard the CX flight back to singapore from Tokyo - there was a Japanese program informing visitors of places to visit; and it was mentioned).

But then, I had just paid my credit card bill, and it would take at least a couple of days before the credit line was reinstated. So I thought to sleep on it. After the nap, I awoke to see the last rays of the sun setting, and I resolved to go out before the sun fully set. Donning on the layers, I looked forward to a walking workout to keep the blood flowing and to help the sore muscles from yesterday's workout, and of course, mentally created my shopping list, and worked out that I probably could pay a bit of cash and the rest by Visa, calculating that I could spend about $40.

On the way there, I was struck by just how cold it was, and how useless plain old wool was against cold and wind. It seemed like the cold air just passed through the fibers as if it were a sieve. I guess the button down front did not help. By the time I got to Sanko, my nose was dripping (anybody know why it does that?) and my cheeks were numb. Went in, was glad to defrost but was apprehensive about going back, laden with stuff. For the moment, I ignored the cold, reveled in the goods laid out before me, and found the bottle of sauce that I was looking for - the exact same one that I got in sg! I must have gotten a bit carried away; between two sizes, it was cheaper to get the larger size; in many cases it was a dollar more (out of base price $3-4 for double the amount). Picked up what I thought I could carry in the bag alone (No way was I going to be carrying plastic bags even with gloved hands), and then went to the counter to pay. The bill came up to $55.17

I tried $20 cash + Visa; the transaction was not approved. $40 + visa, not approved. Sighing, and sheepish that I was holding back the queue, I handed over my last $20 bill, got change and then left. Walked home, at as fast a pace as I could, reached back in about 35 minutes, and was tired and glad that I made it, once more with a cold, dripping nose, and numb cheeks. Just for the record, Google maps counts the distance as about 3km one way, so I got in about 6km of a pretty fast walk today, all in 0˚C weather. I am so pleased with myself. And to top it off; here is my haul:

Back row: Japanese mayonnaise, Wasabe, Bulldog sauce, Usukuchi soy sauce, Japanese rice toppings, seaweed mat (*50 sheets!*)
Front: Yaki soba noodles, frozen edamame, shelled and in pod, and gummy sweets.

Ahhh, life's little luxuries.

MiKE: more AC adventures

This time I am quite certain that I did 12 laps, in 11:47. I was monitoring the timing with each lap, making sure that each lap time had the second counter less than the 12 o'clock position, which means that each lap was less than a minute. I did get a little demoralized and slowed down at the beginning of lap 9 though - I realized that I had 4 more laps including the one that I was starting on, and I think I actually took a full minute to do that lap.

After the 2.4km run, I did a bit of weights for upper body exercise, and then I climbed onto the elliptical trainer. I got it figured out - I was thinking about it since the last time I was running on the track. It appeared that the trainers were not connected to any power supply, which meant that the electronics was probably driven by the pedal motion converted into electricity via a dynamo. I started pedalling, and the electronics came to life. That much is pretty plausible - it is not hard to design very low power electronics, but then I still cannot figure out how the device is able to adjust the resistance.

On the trainer, I maintained an approximately 150 pace cadence at a 150 heart rate for 15 minutes, though I wonder how precise the heart rate monitor is, which measures by two sensors at the handgrips.

Today though, I did not go have pizza, instead I shopped at Bloor Superfresh, and had dinner at home instead. Just as well: tomorrow morning there will be water disruption, so I guess I have to eat out for lunch.