Radu Luchian(ov): Pastime:
Outdoor Activities

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
-- Confucius: The Analects

We are born in societies which keep us safe and confined in houses, vehicles, away from danger ... and life. There's a lot to do inside in a modern life, but we should not forget the world outside exists. Otherwise, sooner rather than later our bodies give up and stop pretending to be alive.

These days there are social media (like Strava), or games (like Geochaching, Ingress, PokemonGo, WizardsUnite) which entice us outside for our good.

Here they are, not sorted by preference, but from the lowest to the highest energy expenditure:

Rafting

We tend to raft on the Bow, the river passing through Calgary, almost every year once or twice on hot summer days.

Walking

Walking is Joska's favorite form of exercise. Me, I like it if it's with purpose, but I prefer hiking to random walking on city streets.

Rowing

When river rafting hits calm pools, or when we're in a hurry, rowing comes in, good upper and mid-body exercise.

Hiking

Now that's cool. Hitting the slopes on paths through the not-so-wilderness is nice in summer, and sometimes scary in winter. We have cleats now, and collapsible sticks, hopefully to reduce the scare factor of icy paths at high angles. I used to do more extreme wall climbing, both on fake walls, some of which caused some falls and chest fractures when I was younger, in Romania, but these days my bones, muscles and joints can't take it anymore, so I stick to hiking up to the point of scrambling.

Road cycling

Great way to burn a lot of calories. Many paths in the city and its parks and even the roads in the city are fair game. There's a network of paths maintained by the Rotary club, a loop around the city from further North than I live up here, tofurther South than Joska lives. I like to cycle to her place from mine, it takes about 2h of intense exercise. There are also paths in the neighboring cities, like Chestermere, Okotoks, Cochrane.

Mountain biking

Now this is even more intense. I don't ski, I'm bad at snowboarding, so mountain cycling is as extreme as I get with sports. Here in Calgary the terrain is pretty wavy, we have NoseHill, the Paskapoo slopes next to the Olympic park, the Glenmore Reservoir paths, and Fish Creek park. Out in the countryside it's pretty flat, but Canmore has some neat mountain trails, a couple as far as Banff if you're OK carrying the bike over some tricky places which involve a bit of rock climbing and scrambling. Kananaskis is a more often haunt for us, and the Banff park also has gorgeous paths.

I got my right arm, wrist and shoulder fractured in a well-known path in the city, here in my neighborhood, a couple of ribs bruised in the Olympic park, both while mountain cycling, and my right shoulder fractured in the Netherlands, on flat terrain, road biking. No surgery in any of the cases. So the benefits of exercise have been reduced a bit by the injuries... but the adrenalin and exhilaration are almost worth the almost three years spent convalescing.