A fitness tracker or a satellite communicator? If the latter, which one did you get?
Yeah, my one comes in handy, especially in winter. I can navigate fine, but it's a fucking hassle in fog/heavy rain or at night trying to deal with a map. Throwing on breadcrumbs and knowing I'll have an easy path home makes it a lot less like work.
Satellite. I had zero internet on my hike/trailrun today but it still perfectly mapped everything out the entire two hours without interwebz. It is a Venu. There is a newer version available but I am cheap. It is also sort of useful in that you don't have to dig out your phone to read messages or other notifications. You can pay with it, but I don't get why I would do that. You can hook it up to music streaming services and listen to music and podcasts that way with it. It maps out your hike, tells you your distance, elevation gain/loss, heart rate information, there is a pulse oximeter, will map out your entire performance on your hike or run by elevation, heart rate, and cadence. It also tells time, lol. You can use it for swimming in addition to a bunch of other land based exercises. Lots of other stuff, but my phone is in the other room somewhere.
It is a thing, but I personally have never done it.
Oh, I see, a GPS smartwatch! Looks good.
The light of morning is at 3:30am here now and that is when I start out just to avoid other people (and their unleashed dogs that I have had chase me) on trails I know well. Also I hate outdoor activity in heat. Cool of the dawn is ideal.
One day, left around 11 and got back home sometime after 21.
Yeah, I bought this because my Fitbit literally fell apart (RIP - decided never again with that), but I do like the feature where people can know where I am exactly when I want them to know or can give an exact last known location. I've gone my entire life without a tracker like this and have done a lot of hikes alone in the middle of nowhere, even in countries I didn't speak the language (Europa, but yeah). Still if the tech exists, it is better to have it because I roll the dice whenever I decide to do some of these things alone and at least my family should know where to recover the body if nothing else.
Neat! Looks like it would have been pretty.
I used to hike with an enthusiastic runner for a bit and he did the opposite - go for a quick run after a hike to recover from walking that allegedly made his back hurt.
That's odd. I had a runner tell me that exact thing the other day. She said hiking makes her legs and back hurt.
It's mechanically different. Walking and running utilize different muscles to different levels. It's probably weak glutes combined with heavy boots. The heavier your feet are, the bigger toll it takes on you lower back. If you're not used to it, it can be surprising how much heavy footwear bothers you.
I'm slowly but surely replacing my regular heavy boots with barefoot hiking shoes. I am able to use them for about 80% of my hikes, including some less technical Alpine ones recently. They can be folded and if I really tried, they'd probably fit in my pocket. The sole is around half a centimeter thick. I still don't believe all of the barefoot propaganda and don't think they're a cure-all (they haven't cured my problems with feet so far) but I felt legitimately bad on the mornings I had to put my heavy boots on.
Tell me more about these? Of course I could Google & probably will, but I'm interested in your experience, what you use them for - sounds like they are for more mountain hiking than ambling hiking? Cold weather or year-round?
I envy runners. I suck at it, have always sucked at it, even when I used to run (jog) regularly, which was a very long time ago. Never could run far and never had that "sailing" experience that some people look like they do. And I fucked up a ligament in my ankle on a jog when I was 17 that to this day (a few decades later) is funky and loose and twingey; I brace it for walks and use shoes that are supposedly more stabilizing types. Might should see an ortho for inserts or something.
Well, the idea is that people's feet function better with thinner soles and more room for toes, allowing them to use all the muscles properly and eventually achieve a healthier posture, reduce pain etc. Most of them are designed primarily for walking on easy, everyday surfaces and are not recommended for sports. But you can find barefoot running and hiking shoes too, as well as waterproof and winter ones.