Category: health & fitness

Ladakh Marathon, India

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travel, travel IndiaLeave a comment

The 4th Ladakh Marathon ran Sunday September 13th.

I tried to register in person on the 12th. And was turned down. Told they already had 4000 registrants. But went to watch the start anyway, just for fun.

In past years (we heard) the start was atop the Peace Stupa.

Ladakh Marathon 1

A runner from Bangalore and I climbed the steep stairs in the early dawn light, both feeling the altitude.

Ladakh Marathon 2

We were wrong. The start was actually down below on the other side of the Stupa.

Ladakh Marathon 4

The full marathon drops down to cross the Indus river. Then climbs up to Stok – the green patch under the mountains. The Dalai Lama spends a lot of time in Stok. I’ll start my trek there.

Ladakh Marathon 3

And they’re off.

Ladakh Marathon 6

Ladakh Marathon 5

I’d estimate about 1000 runners. Perhaps 4000 total were registered, counting all the local students that didn’t actually turn up. 🙂

Still, it was an impressive sight.

2012
2012

ladakhmarathon.com

acclimatizing to altitude in Leh, Ladakh

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travel, travel IndiaLeave a comment

Flying from sea level to Leh at 3524 metres (11,562 ft), it’s strongly recommended you rest for at least 3 days. To acclimatize.

I recall doing exactly that after flying in to Lhasa 3,650m some years ago.

Instead I decided to register for the Ladakh Half Marathon. … What could go wrong?

Luckily for me they turned away my last minute US$35 registration. With nearly 4000 runners already signed up, I was one too many.

I’ll acclimatize at least 3 days before hitting the trail. After all. 🙂

Rick Ley Ladakh

smoking around the world

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I hate smoking. Yet worldwide smoking rates are not declining. Richer, more educated nations are in decline. But in poor nations (like Nigeria) rates are on the rise.

Click PLAY or watch a short Economist report on YouTube.

The Economist explains – Why smoking rates aren’t falling around the world

 

 

next magnitude-9.0 earthquake – Pacific Northwest?

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travelLeave a comment

Rockin’ (who lives in Vancouver, Canada) linked to a scary article in The New Yorker:

Just north of the San Andreas, however, lies another fault line. Known as the Cascadia subduction zone, it runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, beginning near Cape Mendocino, California, continuing along Oregon and Washington, and terminating around Vancouver Island, Canada. …

By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded, the region will be unrecognizable. Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.”

In the Pacific Northwest, everything west of Interstate 5 covers some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. …

The Really Big One

An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.

Here’s a map of the I-5

I-5 highway

😦

I think I’ll depart Vancouver Island. Fly to someplace … higher. Colorado.

gain TIME in your life

On By Rick McIn cycling, happiness, health & fitness, philosophy, travelLeave a comment

🙂

Jed’s radical choice to quit his job and ride his bike across the world is a perfect challenge to the rest of us to get out of the routine and make some scary decisions. …

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

Ron Shewchuk conquering cancer – again

On By Rick McIn cycling, health & fitnessLeave a comment

Funds raised through The Ride to Conquer Cancer will support life-saving research and enhancements to care at the BC Cancer Agency, bringing hope to cancer patients in B.C. and beyond. …

donate HERE

Click PLAY or watch Ron’s plea on YouTube.

my bike was stolen

On By Rick McIn cycling, government, health & fitness, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I bought a new Hybrid at MEC. Within a week it was stolen.

Ghost Panamao X 3 Bicycle (Unisex) – CAD$725 (US$582)

Using the wifi at McDonald’s at 3611 17th-AVE SW Calgary, I’d locked it to a tree close to the busy road. Seemed a good idea at the time. Who’d cut that lock? It’s such a busy spot.

Police told me that homeless guys tend to hang out at McDonald’s. There were a number the night I was there.

Though seemingly hopeless, I filed an online Police report next day. I wanted the cops to know what bike was targeted where.

Immediately I got a phone call. They’d recovered my bike. Wow!

Actually, they called before seeing my report. A new Ghost (unusual brand) was spotted outside a Mac’s convenience store with no lock. The police took it when no owner could be located. (No doubt the thief fled the scene when he saw them.)

Knowing that only MEC sold Ghost, they stopped by the store to ask the manager about that particular serial number. He gave them my phone number.

I love the Calgary police now. 🙂

When I met the police to collect my bike those partners told me that they pick up about one stolen bike a week.

Thieves try to “change the appearance” of stolen bikes. In my case they took off the hybrid wheels and put on a pretty good set of (stolen) mountain bike wheels. They added two small lights. And took off my bell.

But a Ghost bike is pretty conspicuous. There aren’t many of them around yet.

I decided to buy a replacement set of Hybrid wheels. And put the mountain bike wheels on one of my mountain bikes. All in all, I’m pretty happy how things worked out.

And I’ll be much more careful with my good bike in future.

bait bike

Bait bikes won’t be coming to Calgary any time soon, according to city police, who now say there has been no progress on such a program since last summer when they were dealing with a spike in bicycle thefts.

It was nine months ago that Sgt. Katrina O’Reilly told Metro several departments within the police service were working on an in-house version of a program similar to those in other jurisdictions, which see GPS tracking devices hidden inside bicycles placed in public areas as “bait” for would-be thieves. …

Sgt. Katrina O’Reilly told Metro last summer there had been a “tremendous increase” in the number of bikes being stolen in break-and-enters, rather than from an outdoor rack or off the street. …

Bait bike idea shelved by Calgary police, cyclists frustrated with mass thefts

love outdoor escalators

On By Rick McIn cycling, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

Love ’em. 🙂

Over the last century, cities have been designed to accommodate the automobile. So, how do we redesign them to benefit people?

Outdoor escalators (climate allowing) are a low cost part of a solution to reduce the use of motor vehicles.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. It highlights the system in Medellín, Colombia.

The Central–Mid-Levels escalator and walkway system in Hong Kong is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. The entire system covers over 800 metres (2,600 ft) in distance and elevates over 135 metres (443 ft) from bottom to top. …

related – Medellín made urban escalators famous, but have they had any impact?

Norway tops the Social Progress Index

On By Rick McIn economics, education, ethics, government, happiness, health & fitness, Islam, travelLeave a comment

Gross Domestic Product has become the yardstick by which we measure a country’s success. But, says Michael Green, GDP isn’t the best way to measure a good society.

His alternative? The Social Progress Index, which measures things like basic human needs and opportunity. …

The Social Progress Index determines what it means to be a good society according to three dimensions: Basic Human Needs (food, water, shelter, safety); Foundations of Wellbeing (basic education, information, health and a sustainable environment); and Opportunity (do people have rights, freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination, and access to higher education?) …

Norway

Some countries over-perform on social progress relative to their GDP per capita. Costa Rica is the biggest aggregate over-performer, showing strength across all the dimensions. The key lesson here is that building social progress takes persistence. Costa Rica has had strong education, health and welfare systems for a long time, as well as a long democratic tradition. SPI measures outcomes — life expectancy, literacy rate — not inputs, like laws passed or money spent. There are no cheats or quick fixes

WHY WE SHOULDN’T JUDGE A COUNTRY BY ITS GDP

slide-14-michael-green

Saudi Arabia is the biggest underachiever. I’ve just arrived … Actually I’m scheduled to get to San Jose, Costa Rica May 1st, my first visit.