Radically Retired

Category: Walking for Health

  • The Hammer Lane

    The Hammer Lane

    Many years ago, when I hopped in for a semi trip with hubs, he explained the USA interstate highway system to me.

    He also explained what the drivers in their unique CB radio lingo were referring to in terms of the lanes on the highway through cities.

    The left lane next to centre was the “hammer lane”, meaning that you had to hammer down (accelerate) in order to pass.

    The right lane next to centre (excluding exit lanes) was called the “granny lane”, because this is where the slow traffic should be.

    The centre lane was appropriately, the “sandwich lane”.

    Our indoor track has three lanes, but they operate opposite to the highway. Our hammer lane is to the right of centre and granny lane is to the left.

    The gal in the hammer lane in my feature photo had just passed me.

    This gentleman was correctly in the granny lane

    I’m usually a sandwich lane kinda gal, unless someone’s speed has them in the wrong lane. Then, I’m hammer lane all the way.

    And then there are those who don’t play by the rules of the road and take up all three lanes at a less than normal pace.

    They looked like they were capable of walking faster

    As I come up behind groups like this, I call out “passing”, and the person on the right moves to centre.

    Next time I’m going to call out, “hammer lane”.

  • Wordless Wednesday April 29/26

    Wordless Wednesday April 29/26

  • Trade-Offs

    Trade-Offs

    Due to freezing rain and icy streets and sidewalks, this past week and most of the next week aren’t conducive to outdoor walks.

    We’re very fortunate to have an excellent sports facility nearby that features an indoor track.

    Despite it being nearby, I’m driving over there to do my daily power walking.

    My feature photo is the view of the Legacy Park paths from the second floor walking track windows.

    I did some editing to clean up the photo and add a touch of drama to the overcast sky.

    Here’s the original:

    The paths are more apparent in the original and it also gives a better sense of the height it was shot from.

    Sometimes there are trade-offs in post processing, just as there are tradeoffs for walking indoors vs out.

    The trade-offs are both positive and negative. I prefer to focus on the positives
  • In My Mind’s Eye

    In My Mind’s Eye

    On yesterday morning’s power walk, there wasn’t a breath of wind, which resulted in stunning mirror reflections on the river.

    Because I didn’t want to slow my pace, I didn’t take the time to adjust the exposure on my iPhone camera before I took the shot.

    The result was a slightly more washed out photo than what I had hoped for.

    Our province’s motto is “Land of Living Skies”, so my goal in many of the landscape images I capture here at home is to honour that motto.

    In addition to not taking the time to adjust the exposure, I didn’t wait until there were no vehicles passing by. I don’t mind vehicles in a landscape photo that showcases reflections on water, but only if the vehicles themselves are also in the reflection.

    A bit of post processing brought the photo to how I envisioned the scene. I first removed the cars using the eraser in my phone’s native photos app. I then took the photo into the Lightroom mobile app for minor adjustments to exposure and colours. I added a wee bit of vignette at the end to draw more light to the main subject. Within less than five minutes of simple editing, I was able to achieve what was in my mind’s eye for this scene from yesterday morning (feature photo).

    In some instances, I edit out telephone and power lines. This time, the lines were also a detail in the perfect reflection so I left them in.

    Here’s the original.