The first fall 2014 run with bonus monsoon

Run 354
Average pace: 5:26/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.05 km
Weather: Heavy rain
Temp: 18ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 374
Total distance to date: 2968

If Sunday’s run was a struggle through the blasted heat of the desert, tonight’s was trying to dodge the flash flood from the once-a-year deluge.

With a very low bar of beating my previous tortoise-like pace of 5:41/km, I was still not looking forward to tonight’s run, given the soggy forecast. On the first full day of fall the first fall storm was sweeping in, with high winds, rain and plenty more rain on top of that.

The forecast was accurate. It poured throughout my run and my dodging skills were given a full workout as I ducked, weaved and just plain leaped over increasingly huge puddles.

Perhaps because of the uncharacteristic need to leap, my left butt cheek actually felt a bit sore toward the end of the run.

I bottomed out around the halfway mark (3rd km pace: 5:37/km) but was overall fairly steady, just slower than average. Even with the torrential rain, the run was an improvement, if still generally horrible. My pace was 5:26/km overall, slow for a 10K, downright sluggish for a 5K but 16 seconds better than Sunday’s run, so I’ll take it.

It promises to be about the same temperature but perhaps a little drier on Thursday so the bar is still set low: beat tonight’s pace.

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