I originally planned to mow out front on Friday, which would leave Saturday for the back. However, the breezes on Friday were quite strong, and when I checked the Met Service weather app, it said the wind would be “fresh”. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, not even after 29 years of seeing it in NZ weather forecasts. Yesterday, when the app still mentioned “fresh” breezes, I finally looked it up.
It turns out that a “fresh” breeze is one with wind “force” of 5 on the Beaufort Scale—another thing I knew nothing about, so I had no idea what that meant. The first explanation I saw first said “or 17-21 knots”. All I recall about knots is that it had something to do with the number of nautical miles per hour—but nautical miles are another thing I don’t really understand, either (too much math involved). As someone who grew up in the middle of a continent, with no interest in boats or sailing, I never really needed to know about knots or nautical miles.
Fortunately, the Internet is there to help. One explanation offered “19 to 24mph”, which would’ve been helpful, except that after 29 years using the metric system daily, I’m kind of rusty on Imperial measurements. Turns out, that same explainer said it corresponds to 29-38 kilometres per hour, and that I can understand.
Whatever the scale, the “fresh” breeze was quite strong at my house on Friday—it could’ve easily blown the sun hat off my head. I postponed mowing the front to yesterday, Saturday, when the breezes were much gentler—does that mean they were “stale”? (more than likely, it'd have been a 3, or even a 2 on the Beaufort Scale).
Which brings me to what I learned today while mowing the back lawn. Actually, I’d briefly considered doing that yesterday evening—before I came to my senses.
For the first time ever, today I realised that if I set my Apple Watch to record me doing an “Outdoor Walk” workout, which mowing basically is, I could record precisely how much time it took, how much energy I burned, how far I walked, and what my average heart rate was. I’ve been mowing the lawns at this house for nearly five years, and I never thought of doing that before. Sheesh. The results are in the image above.
Today, my mowing adventure (the word “workout” seems a bit inappropriate) took me 18:32, including putting the mower away and taking off my mowing shoes (my cool-down?). The total distance I walked was 1.37 kilometres (approximately 0.85 miles)—just walking back and forth in my back yard, and not even all of that (I did the side yard yesterday). Huh.
In total, I burned 1,095kJ (roughly 260 US calories), which, my watch told me, is the most I’ve ever burned doing a walking workout. Okay, then. Also, I think the kilojoules measure sounds like a bigger deal, which may motivate me to continue walking, because I’m competitive with myself.
The data said my average pace was 13 minutes, 28 seconds per kilometre, and I know from records of my previous walking workouts that that’s around 2 to 3 minutes faster than most have been. Nice, I guess.
My average heart rate was 108 BPM, which is a bit faster than I’d have expected mowing a flat—though quite bumpy and lumpy—lawn. So I looked at the full data, and it turns out that the peak was 131-133 BPM, which was roughly at the halfway point, probably about the time I was over it and wondering why I was doing that to myself, and if I just went a bit faster, it’d be over faster. I mean, that’s probably what was going on.
When I next mow, probably around 10 days or so from now, I’ll do the “Outdoor Walk” workout thing again, and over time I’ll build a picture of what’s going on with my body, something that will probably lead to an indoor workout: Making a spreadsheet to track it all. I’ll definitely enjoy doing that much more than the mowing.
Over the years, doctors have praised me for doing the mowing, but I honestly thought they were just being kind. Thanks to today’s adventure, I know for sure that there reality are health benefits for me. Between that and finally learning what a “fresh” breeze is, this has been a very educational weekend—and productive, too.
But I’m glad I won’t have to worry about either for awhile.
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