ESS-Related Rituals

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I’ve found myself taking up a handful of rituals that help ensure that I’ve covered streets properly.

My main one had been, when coming to a dead-end road, contact has to be made beyond the road. If there’s a fence or a barrier, I have to physically touch it. I curb-stall on the terrain that is beyond the end of the road. Sometimes, it’s on a curb but sometimes its just grass or gravel. Much like an aggressive in-liner skater:

curb-stall
However, last week, I went to do this—meaning to do so quickly and keep going. I didn’t bring my foot up high enough and I kicked the curb. I run in sandals, so I skinned my pinkie toe and had to do a patch-job on the fly. :laughing:

There’s another CityStride in my town that I trade notes with. He said he does/did the same thing, until he slipped on some gravel and fell on his butt to a full audience of apartment dwellers on their way to work.

Will I keep curb-stalling? Of course. Will I be more careful? We’ll see. :laughing:

Do any of you have any weird ESS-rituals that help your efforts—or at least feel like they might?

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I often extend my watch wearing arm at the end of a street just to give GPS a little extra time to register - curb-stalling on the move… Hope the pinkie is better.
I’ll be more mindful to think of other things I do without realising.

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Whilst on a run this morning I realised that when I have the option of running on pavements/sidewalks either side of a road, I choose the one that has my watch wearing wrist closest to the centre of the road, thereby increasing the chances of each GPS point being close enough to the nodes - so for me, that’s the right hand side pavement/sidewalk.

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I’ve also noticed that I tend to hit any short dead-ends in sight, even if I’ve already accounted for them in my GPX route. This messed up my nav yesterday, as it thought I had decided to forgo a certain section and set me off toward my end section. I need to start trusting my own routes! :laughing: