Category: Walking

The Footbridge

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

One of the two pedestrian overpasses in my neighborhood got renovated and reopened. Here’s how it looked in the beginning of January and today.

We had no easy access to the park for 6 weeks, which affected the number of steps I make.

I don’t think the overpasses are practical. They are inaccessible and difficult to maintain. The elevators get used as toilets. I think a real solution would be a traffic light and slowing down the traffic on the main boulevard (Tsarigradsko Shose). It’s too noisy and dirty as is, it’s not just that it cuts Mladost in half and the wrong half is miserable despite the park.

Speaking of the park, I finally visited it today. The temperature was -10° C. Some very cold 5k steps.

A year in steps

~ Veselin ~ 17 Comments

I started building a walking habit about 2 years ago. I had this crazy annual goal to average over 10K steps per day for the whole of 2024. Happy to share that I could make it with room to spare.

Life is much easier if you don’t need to count your steps every day. It takes time and is often unpleasant. I tried all sorts of tricks, from waking early to spinning the treadmill in the evening. It was all inconvenient. Was it worth it – probably yes. Walking is like mild gym plus mindfulness combined. It unlocked hiking not just for me but also for my family. Helped me with the blog as well – lots of cool things and cats are just hanging out, waiting to be spotted.

My fitness goal for 2025 will be more complex.

  • I’ll try to climb Vihren (2 failed attempts in 2024)
  • I’ll try to keep an average of 10k/day for 2025 as well but increase the difficulty by doing more hiking and less city
  • I’ll try to add 1h/week of gym time, starting with body weight exercises like push-ups and plank. The 1h comes from the 7-minute-workout, 7×7 is 49, or roughly 1h. The idea is to build a habit this year rather than achieve any weight loss or body composition change.

Wish me luck.

What is your favorite form of physical exercise?

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite form of physical exercise?
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Torn between pull-ups and hiking.

Pull-ups are great, you against your weight. Each cookie and chocolate bar you ever ate pulls you down. Your will pulls you up. Who will win? However, I lost my ability to do pull-ups about a year ago and it is not on my list of things to do next year. Which leaves us with hiking.

Hiking is like walking but you’re somewhere far from computers, wifi, work, city life, cars, and many of the stress factors. You against a hill. Or against your thoughts. Much better.

Just a cool photo from before I became a car brain. Not sure why Photos decided to show that to me. The shadow in the mist is Glozhene Monastery.

This was likely from my old blog, maybe 15 to 20 years ago. I can’t reach Malyovitza these days but whatever I can reach, I do in a similar fashion. Jeans, LOL. So inappropriate. Some things never change.