2024s
- 😷 Got COVID for the first time at the end of March. The effects carried on for a couple months. I wrote about it on the 25th April, headaches carried on for another month after that - almost like I was always hungover. I’ve finally kicked it… though…
- 🩼 My knees have been playing up. All the running with not enough body maintenance has finally caught up. I’ve been seeing the physio, been given exercises, and have just started to run again with some promising results.
- 🏃♂️ With COVID and shyte knees, my running took a back seat. Half way through the year, it’s looking like my streak might take a hit. That’s ok. This is my recorded stats since 2010:
2016 was a fractured foot. 2019 was when I moved to New Zealand, closer to the mountains, and when I started going a bit bonkers with vert.
- 👨👩👧👦 After Dad and Ruth’s visit, Soph and the fam came. That was fun.
- 🍻 Adz and Lou visited for their 10-year wedding anniversary. Perks of living in a holiday destination!
- 💲 My Allocate Smartly trading system made 2.06% for the quarter, and a 7.77% annualised return to date. Been running 11 months now. I’ll contemplate the continuation of this. 12-month term deposit rates are currently around 5.9%, which is below what I’m making but I’m carrying risk. Here’s my accumulated equity curve (Hatch) tracked against the SPX and AS system I use.
- 🌱 In the garden, as winter approached, I planted garlic (May 18) and broad beans, composted all the summer crops, mulched. Pruned the fruit trees the week of shortest day.
- 💻 I found the fediverse and created a blog and website. I attribute this to my COVID and injury which freed up 10-20 hours a week of what would normally be running. I do this… switch to nerd-mode when I can’t run. I am having a blast, reminded of the fun I had back around 2000 when I tinkered with websites and mIRC scripts, even if I’ve tried and failed a few setups. I have found a community of very creative and positive people whom fill my RSS feed with joy. RSS is new to me too. I think I missed the worst of social media, being off Facebook and Instagram for a few years, and completely missing Twitter. Mastodon has been my new social and fedi-gateway.
- 🏠 Prepared my spare room for Airbnb. My housemate left, so I have decided to give Airbnb a go. I swapped the study for the spare room so the room will be more private at the front of the house. Part of the prep was installing shelving in the wardrobe. Was fun getting out the circular saw again. I’m almost ready to advertise, just waiting on a lockbox to be delivered and need to do some minor prep work.
- 📚 Read a lot of Junited posts. Really appreciate @birming@mastodon.world for kicking this off. I gave it a stab but dwindled off towards the end of the month. I picked a theme of location/places, which I found a little hard to maintain. Still, the posts I found were great reads.
- 📚 Read Data Grab by Ulises A. Mejias and Nick Couldry ⭐⭐⭐
- 📚 Read The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday ⭐⭐⭐
- 📚 Read Cuddy by Benjamin Myers ⭐⭐⭐
- 📺 Watched a couple of screenings at the International Permaculture Festival of Ideas. Inspiring stuff.
- 📺 Watched The Bear (Season 2) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing show. Sheesh its intense.
- .gpx
- .fit.gz
- .tcx.gz files.
- Bulk extract .gz files using 7-zip. 7-zip allows you to select all files and extract them all in one go.
- Install the fit2gpx python library
Type
pip install fit2gpxinto command line (as admin). Note fit2gpx can also do the extracting in step 1 if not done already (see documentation) - Run the code from Python IDE:
from fit2gpx import StravaConverter DIR_STRAVA = 'C:/strava_bulk_export_parent_folder/' strava_conv = StravaConverter( dir_in=DIR_STRAVA ) strava_conv.strava_fit_to_gpx() - Converted files will be in the activities_gpx folder.
- Download/clone tcx-to-gpx-converter to a folder.
- Type
npm installinto the command line from the folder’s location. - Copy the tcx files into the input folder.
- Type
node convert.jsinto the command line. - Converted files will be in the output folder.
- On the western side up from the Matakauri Wetland, weaving through climbers anchors and ropes, is the steepest entrance. Once through the climbing bits you’re onto a network of MTB trails. Plenty of fun to be had here.
- Tucked between a couple of buildings a couple hundred meters up Gorge Rd is another entrance which gets you straight onto the MTB trails, bypassing the climbing bits.
- On the southern side off Vancouver Drive is a fire trail which gets you under the powerlines and more MTB trails or the main track beyond.
- On the eastern side tucked behind the reserve off Highview Terrace is another entrance that leads straight into more MTB trails.
Totally switched off, ready for the weekend. Sorry boss.
Lunch walks
#walking #lunchwalk
Quarterly Review 2024-Q2
Pretty meh in terms of health, but caught up with friends and family, found some new interests, and kept plugging on.
#PlanAndReflect #QuarterlyReview
Glorious day to be back at it. Knees felt good. In fact, I could feel the new muscle groups (from strengthening exercises) doing their thing. Maybe I’ll bounce back stronger.. 🤔 #trailrunning
converting bulk exported strava data to gpx
When you bulk export your Strava data you’ll receive a zip file of:
To get them all into gpx format follow these steps.
Extract the .gz files
Convert .fit files to .gpx (requires Python)
Convert .tcx files to .gpx (requires node.js)
#TechNotes
Training ground - Queenstown Hill
Queenstown Hill is a nice little 500m climb tucked just behind town. It has a Council-maintained trail to the “Basket of Dreams” and is one of the more popular walks given the proximity to town and carpark at the base of the main trailhead off Belfast Terrace (south-west face of hill). There are a myriad of guerilla mountain bike trails scattered within which makes for fun alternative routes.
The actual peak is on private land and sign-posted to stay clear.
There are 4 alternative entrances that I know of:
I used to live right under here on the south-east side at the lakefront so it was a regular. I’ve since moved 15k away but I still work in town so usually pop out the office door in the evenings before heading home.
My favourite bits are the rock-climbers route on the western side and the MTB trails on the eastern side.
All my GPX files that touch the hill, including some jaunts that stitched on some other hills to the west.
If you zoom right in you can see those fat lines are made up of a tonne of outings. My python coding picked up 143 jaunts to date.A bunch of my GPX files overlayed, just coz.
Chart shows where I’ve done some up+down-to-the-top sessions, a couple of doubles, a longer one starting on the flats, and the little flat bits around 450m that are the stretches of road when I’ve entered/exited from the east.
Views. Bit moody this day.
Basket of Dreams with Ben Lomond (left) and Bowen Peak (right) beyond.
Afternoon sun casting a silhouette of mountains on the Remarkables.
Having fun in the mud. I spent 6 hours on the hill this day covering 35km and 3,128m.
MTB trails.
Lots of pine.
Wintery night trots.
Many locks on the gate off Vancouver Drive.
A million cairns in case you get lost.
#trailrunning #trainingground
From the bus. Shotover River is low.
Mountain biking is huge here. With it comes a network of guerilla downhill tracks scattered in our hills, often hidden just off the sides of maintained trails. For me they’re some of my favourite trails to run up and down.
#trailrunning #Queenstown
Walk up Queenstown Hill after work.
I’ve hit 200 passwords in my password manager. Time to cull.