I’ve been bitten by the hiking bug.

This is not news. I’ve been a walker for as long as I can remember, and always love being in the woods romping along trails.

Right now, I’m loving it even more so.

MuMu is a great hiking pal and we have some fun romps in the woods. There are a lot of trails around Sechelt and many close to the house.

Day by day I’m getting braver and am starting to explore new trails.

I use an app on my phone that has GPS. It also keeps track of how I’m doing on these galavants. It’s called Samsung Health and it came with the phone.

It allows me to set an activity for time or distance, then let’s me know when I reach the goal. I usually pick time and tend to set it for an hour and go.

The app talks to me. It says things like, “One kilometre reached, duration of time is 12 minutes, 3 seconds, remaining time is 47 minutes 57 seconds. Estimated distance 5 kilometres.”

Towards the end of the set time, it will encourage me with a “Almost there, you can do it!” When I reach my goal, it tells me “Target reached!” and sends up some canned cheers.

It shows me the route I took and lets me know how many steps I took, and how many calories I burned. It’s fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other thing this app does is pause when I do. If I stop to take a picture, tie my shoe, or take a rest, It says, “Workout paused.” When I get moving again, it let’s me know with, “Workout resumed.” This way my one hour hike might actually take longer, especially if I take too many breaks.

Yesterday, I took a hike I’ve been on before. It’s part of the West Sechelt Matrix, which offers a plethora of trails choose from. This particular route starts with a big up hill climb.

MuMu and I dig in. The reward at the top and the wandering down trail through the trees, is worth the effort of the climb.

The talking app is a help and a hinderance. I know when I’ve passed the first km, I’ve got about 10 more minutes of climbing before the top.

However, there are places on this up hill trail, where I’m slow. Really, slow. As a matter of fact, I plod so slow up the trail that the stupid app… informed me several times, “Workout paused.”

NO!!! I talk back. I’m still going, I’m just slow! I wiggle a bit more to show movement, until I hear, “Workout resumed” but my legs will only go so fast up this mountain.

Yesterday, as I climbed and climbed, slow and steady, left foot, right foot, onward and upward, I had to ignore the stupid voice in my pocket. …It seemed the harder I was working, the more I was on a pause.

Maybe this app understands true stillness in motion!

Stupid computers.