01-25-2026 Ride

Slept well, got up around 6:00, downloaded the volunteer guide for the San Diego Humane Society and went through it. Then I got ready for a bike ride. It was in the low 40s, colder than it's been recently. I bundled up a little more, also tried the gloves that Paula gave to me. Headed up Aguamiel Rd and over to Duenda Rd, initially following the reverse of the time trial course. Gloves worked okay, but my fingers were still colder than I would have liked. Stayed on the reverse course until Sabre Springs Pkwy, where I turned right on Evening Creek Dr, took it down to Sabre Hill Dr, and took a right there to climb up the small hill. Then back down to Evening Creek Dr and back to Sabre Springs Dr, turning left on Poway Rd and riding until I took a right turn onto Oak Knoll Rd. I followed this road all the way until it dead-ended, turning left on Seiler St and then right on Buckley St to get to Poway Community Park. I cut through the park on sidewalks, which took me over to Civic Center Dr. Back to Poway Rd, turning left there and riding down to Pomerado Rd.From there to home, I was back on the reverse of the time trial route. Took it slow on this ride, no inclination to push the pace.

Avg speed = 15.1 mph. Total mileage = 21.8 mi

Avg power = 136. Weighted avg power = 158 W

Total elevation gain = 1140'

Avg heartrate = 112 bpm

Relative Effort = 18

Training Load = 77

Intensity = 72%

https://www.strava.com/activities/17174892686

I was hungry by the time I got home. Had eaten a banana and a biscuit before the ride, but it wasn't enough. I made some coffee and ate some toast and yogurt, then I got ready to ride over to the SD Humane Society in Escondido for new volunteer orientation. The orientation was decent, lots of background jobs need to get done, but I'm wondering it they will keep me constantly busy during my volunteer shifts. Will give it a try and see how it goes. Ate a bigger lunch (hungry again) when I got home while I watched some TV. Then I did some cool vibe-coding. I've been creating MP3 copies of all my music files so that I can load them onto my waterproof bone conduction headphones. I found a program, Free M4a to MP3 Converter, that does batch file conversions and stores the results in a single folder. So I asked ChatGPT to write me code that would read the album name metadata from the files, create a folder with that album name, then move the file to that folder. After a couple of minor adjustments to the code, it worked great. I'd been creating, naming, and populating the folders manually before that, and it was tedious. This method is super fast and will save me a lot of time.

Update on books. I recently finished Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down. It was well researched and a harrowing narrative about a mission in Mogadishu that went south quickly when a couple of helicopters were shot down. Started John Scalzi's The Last Colony, which I may have read before. It's the third book in the Old Man's War series. Tried to talk to Mom in the early evening, but she was feeling out of sorts. I chatted a little with Ross about the medical alert button, which she hasn't been wearing and which she is signaling that she wants to discontinue. Watched some TV with Ann in the evening, continued with my MP3 file collection, then read for a while before bed (<>).