Category: Walking

Cherni Vrah

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

One of my New Year’s resolutions was that I would hike to Cherni Vrah three times this year. Making steps in the city is easy – it doesn’t take much time, it’s flat, there’s food and water everywhere. Hiking is hard, it takes at least 45 minutes to reach the starting point. Then you drink what you carry. And last but not least, my hidden goal was to make the entire family go to the mountains.

Took us forever but we managed to do it with the kids today, so it couldn’t be better. They didn’t complain too much, which was also nice.

If one thing didn’t go well is that I need to wash my new white sneakers because I stepped into the mud several times. These are my only comfortable shoes at the moment and I made a sacrifice for the successful hike. Maybe this will motivate me to look for a backup pair next week.

Happy Easter!

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

Bulgaria celebrates Easter this weekend. To honor the holiday, we visited The Cross, and this was also our first hike for the year. The Cross eco path is a special hike for me because my 10K steps journey started there in 2023. Ultimately, counting steps changed my daily routine, my health, and inspired me to blog regularly again.

I shared the story here.

Enjoy some bright colors from my day.

Breaks from counting steps

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

Regular fitness activities require healthy breaks. The body needs to recover from the micro injuries. Muscles grow, the tendons heal. It also feels good.

Walking is not quite the same. We are made to move and we are also not made to not move. Walking doesn’t generate the same stress as strength training. It’s a light activity.

As a result of this thinking, I adopted the strategy to only have breaks when it’s simply not possible to go out. Got Covid or a knee pain? Break. It rains, snows, life is stressful, the project must ship this week, or I really feel like having a break? Go out and walk.

This approach simplifies decision making. I don’t need to ask myself if I am above or below an imaginary line that lets me do steps. I just hope it’s sustainable. Doing something wrong every day comes with consequences. Walking too much could be that as well.

Sofia Today

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I walked to the Book Fair today (well, skipped a few bus stops, but mostly walked). I was under the impression that I’d taken some pretty cool photos on the way there. After all, I crossed the city center. This is what I actually found later in my camera roll.

Three photos in total.

A colorful building on Lyuben Karavelov street. I twist my neck every time I pass by because the people who restored it painted outside ACs. I don’t know why but I find it cool.

Sticker graffiti with USA’94 near the Romanian embassy. It’s ironic because I ordered a gamebook called USA’94 a few days ago. After seeing the photo, I googled the book to see if there’s any resemblance – none. Whoever does these stickers is unrelated to the gamebook community.

And a Twingo 1. Renault is about to revive the Twingo 1 car (1993-2007) as Twingo E-Tech. The concept car has eyelashes by design. I owned a similar car when I was younger. It’s great for parking.

This particular unit is the facelift version from around 2001-2006.