View from Cariboo Dam: The water is uncharacteristically ripply.
Today’s run was notable for two things:
It was windy as heck, which is quite unusual for Burnaby Lake
I did my first 10K in over two years!
After doing the 7.5K run on Monday, I knew it would feel like a regression to go back to a 5K, and I was curious to see how a 10K would feel. The weather looked decent–8C and dry–so I headed to the lake and like Monday, started at a slower pace, heading clockwise, with the idea of a 10K in mind.
I knew by the time I approached the 5K mark (oddly, my slowest lap) I would keep going, so then it was a question of 7.5K or 10K. That got answered when I hit 8K and knew I’d keep going. I even had enough pep to offset my slow pace at the halfway mark.
The last time I did a 10K was on November 6, 2023 (Run 826). Weirdly, there is only a one-second difference in the average pace then vs. today, so I’m apparently pretty consistent.
I had no difficulty doing 10 km today. At no point did I start wishing the run was over or shift to WHY IS THIS RUN STILL HAPPENING GOD I WANT TO LAY DOWN. In fact, my stats were perfectly cromulent, with a faster pace than the 7.5K run and an average BPM of 151.
In all, I’m very pleased knowing I can still pull off 10 km.
The other notable part of today’s run was the wind. Burnaby Lake is usually pretty calm. It’s often dead calm, as the water at Still Creek illustrates. But not today. At one point near the start of the run I had to tug my cap down to keep it from getting blown off my head. Even though I only wore two layers again, it was still sufficient, even with the wind.
Overall, I am happy with today’s result. We’ll see if the legs/knees are also happy in a few days.
Still Creek, post-run: Not still!
Stats:
Run 1,011 Average pace: 5:56/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 10:30 a.m. Distance: 10 km Time: 59:30 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 8-9°C Humidity: 85-81% Wind: light to strong BPM: 151 Weight: 169.8 pounds Total distance to date: 6,880 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (150/225/375)
I somehow forgot what you call a piece of land that extends into water–a peninsula (duh), but searching for the term brought me to this site and the map showing all the different types of terrain and water types is information-dense in a good way, and just plain cute.
Also, it reminded me what an isthmus is, other than a word your tongue wants to twist.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Blue sky! (It didn’t last)
My last run was only 2.5 km, so to address the OCD of having my total run distance end in a decimal, I either had to do another 2.5 km or up the proverbial ante and do 7.5 km, which I haven’t done since June 25, 2025.
I chose to do the 7.5K. It went fine!
To make sure I’d have enough stamina, I set off at a deliberately slower pace and finished with an average of 6.01/km–so close to coming under the six-minute mark! My BPM was a bit higher, but despite being milder (7-8C), it was also breezier, so 151 seemed acceptable.
I didn’t experience any issues, though a stitch in my side threatened but didn’t fully materialize after the 5K mark. As a minor boost to my ego, I even passed another runner around 7 km in (she was running very slowly).
The trail was a bit damp after yesterday’s showers, but the newly resurfaced section along the sports fields is still holding up. The section past this, before you get to the rowing pavilion parking lot, is pretty floody and required a few dextrous leaps past some large puddles. Hopefully they resurface this bit soon.
Overall, a fine start to the week, and it’s nice to know I can push past 5K without any trouble (though I suspect my legs will be a bit stiff tomorrow).
Still Creek, post-run. The sun was hitting the area in a weird, focused way.
Stats:
Run 1,010 Average pace: 6:01/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 10:26 a.m. Distance: 7.5 km Time: 45:12 Weather: Clouds and sun Temp: 7-8°C Humidity: 83-79% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 151 Weight: 170.9 pounds Total distance to date: 6,880 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (140/217/357)
Stoney Creek, just a few steps north of the SkyTrain line:
A shopping cart under a bridge, with graffiti. I did a little post-processing to make it more dramatic. Yes, you read that right. A dramatic shopping cart.
UPDATE, February 22, 2026: I have now broken my short Cronometer login streak by not logging in. Insert itshappening.gif here.
Obviously the answer is no, I don’t. If I just eat food and don’t do anything outrageous, like switch to a diet of live grenades, I’ll probably be fine, more or less.
But it’s a question that I’ve asked myself after dropping my daily logging habit on MyFitnessPal after more than 13 years and switching to the information-dense layout of Cronometer.
It would be much simpler to just make what I feel are good choices and not actually try to meticulously track every calorie. It’s tempting.
The one thing keeping me using Cronometer for now is how prominently it displays the nutrients of the food you’re eating. This has shown me that I’m almost certainly not getting enough protein. For someone who runs multiple times a week, this is important!
What I might do, then, is make tweaks to my diet to up certain nutrients, verify the results in Cronometer, then decide if I want to keep tracking. Of course, at that point, tracking would probably be a lot simpler and faster, too.
Now excuse me while I go drink 10 litres of protein shakes1I don’t even want to imagine how my body and/or bladder would react to this.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Chilly, with a side of sun.
My watch wanted me to do a recovery run at a pace of 7.1 km/hour for 18 minutes.
I decided to sort of follow this by doing half of a 5K, which I did at my normal pace, finishing in 14:07 minutes. The run was shorter and ergo, easier, but it still went well, considering it was a chilly 2C out. Some factors:
I slept well last night, so I was well-rested
It was sunny (yes, it makes a difference!)
The humidity was low–only 47%
I started out to the right of the dam, on a nice flat surface–no early hills to slow me down
I dressed appropriately, so I didn’t feel cold starting out
Anyway, not too much to add–my first km matched my overall pace of 5:38/km, which is a whopping 16 seconds better than my previous run (doing the same route, even), and despite the cold, my BPM was also back down to 147.
I even saw a Lucky Heron™.
The only bummer is needing to do another 2.5K run, so my OCD doesn’t drive me bananas.
Brunette River, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,009 Average pace: 5:38/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 12:41 p.m. Distance: 2.5 km Time: 14:07 Weather: Sunny Temp: 2°C Humidity: 47% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 147 Weight: 171.3 pounds Total distance to date: 6,872.5 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (132.5/209/341.5)
This is my way of saying the number of apps needing updates on my iPhone is now 42. I am seriously impressed it’s gotten this high.
Meanwhile, I am still mulling over what phone to get as my ailing iPhone 12 continues to sputter out. I’m still leaning heavily toward Android and away from pricey Pro/Max/Ultra models, because my phone use would not justify the added expense.
My list so far includes:
Google Pixel 9a or 10a (they are near identical–it might come down to price if I went this route)
Google Pixel 10
Samsung Galaxy 25 or Galaxy 25 FE
Moto G Stylus (midrange with a few flaws but no dealbreakers)
OnePlus 13 or 15
I haven’t 100% ruled out getting another iPhone, because while there are no good big tech companies, I don’t feel Apple is worse than Google. But I’ve seen iOS 26 and Liquid Glass in action and I have an irrational dislike of how they look and feel, and there is no escaping them with a new iPhone.
That said, if I could be convinced, the models I’d consider would be:
iPhone 17
iPhone 16
The 16e (or rumoured 17e) would have been a contender, but it has too many weird compromises for the price.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Cooler than recent runs, but still very calm.
Going into today’s run, I was facing the following:
Four days off (one more than I’d like)
Several nights of mediocre sleep and stress
Still not back into a regular running cadence
And the proof was in the running, with a slower average pace of 5:54/km, my BPM weirdly spiking to 167 at peak around the 2K mark and my average BPM being 154, higher than normal (though the cold might account for some of this).
Despite the mediocre stats, I didn’t have any issues, but I felt the lack of energy in the final km. I wanted to push, but the tank was already empty. Still, considering my worst km was 6:03 (!), the overall average was not that bad.
I also saw my first regular in a while–the spitfire!
Conditions were fine. It was cool, but dry and with little wind. In fact, I almost felt overdressed wearing my running pants and three layers, possibly because the humidity also remained fairly high.
Anyway, it was good to get out. I will try to stick to a more regular routine and hopefully see better stats going forward.
View from the turtle nesting area, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,008 Average pace: 5:54/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 10:33 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 29:37 Weather: Mostly cloudy Temp: 4°C Humidity: 79-77% Wind: light BPM: 154 Weight: 170.1 pounds Total distance to date: 6,870 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (130/201/331)
This translates to about 13 years, or back to 2013. I remember going to the top of a mountain when on vacation in 2017 in Manning Park to get close enough to a massive cellular tower there so I could get a signal on my phone and log that day (we were going up the mountain, anyway). The app later changed so that you could log entries offline and it would sync and keep any streaks intact when you got online again.
But today I’m not logging in, which will end my streak.
MFP is not a bad app (or site) but I’ve fallen into some bad habits with it, shortcutting entries and fudging things for expediency, like a chore to get out of the way as quickly as possible.
The interface is perfectly serviceable, but last year they offered a preview of a new UI that suddenly went away with a “Thanks for your feedback, see you in 2026!” note that suggested the feedback was not kind.
In any event, I am going to try Cronometer again. Its UI is more modern, but perhaps a tad cluttered. I’ll adapt. It integrates nicely with my Garmin watch and scale and gives me a fuller picture than the free version of MFP ever did (most of the useful stuff there is gated behind a subscription). I may even subscribe to Cronometer to see how it goes, despite my general hesitance to subscribe to anything new these days.
By way of comparison, I was tracking my typical breakfast at 380 calories on MFP. Being more precise with my entries on Cronometer, it shows 440 calories and that’s before adding my usual slice of toast and jam, which will bring it to around 560 or so. That’s a notable difference on a daily basis.
If Cronometer doesn’t work out, Garmin offers its own meal-tracking now through Connect+, which is also (surprise) a subscription. We’ll see.
But for now, MFP and my 13-year logging streak, are going away.
I was power-washing some concrete stairs in our condo complex this afternoon and when you get to one of the corners of a step, it’s surprisingly tricky to avoid having the spray bounce back directly at you.
Which it did, multiple times. And with something like 2,500 PSI of force, you definitely notice it. It’s not often my face gets gritty, but it did today.
But a good portion of the steps are clean now, so it was worth it!
Before:
Dirty steps. And a stroller that appeared jusrt as I snapped the photo.
After:
Clean steps! Plus the stroller has returned to the stroller dimension from whence it came.
Where: Iona Beach Regional Park, Richmond Nature House (Richmond), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 7-8°C
The forecast was better than expected, with it being sunny right from the start. Nice! The start was a bit late due to two things: waiting to suss out the weather in the early morning, and when I got downtown, we found someone had parked in front of the parking garage of Nic’s apartment building, preventing us from leaving. Nic was just about to conclude the call with the people who would come tow the car when a guy came frantically running toward us, waving an arm and apologizing. He got in the car and left immediately.
We proceeded to Iona Beach, which we haven’t been to since June of last year!
Iona Beach
Looking across the Fraser River at Iona Beach.
The last stretch of road leading to the beach has been repaved, with new bike and pedestrian lanes added, completing the work started with the re-alignment last year of Ferguson Road. There is now full dedicated pedestrian and bike access stretching back to the airport, a huge improvement over what existed before.
We made our way through our usual loop and along the river saw a nice variety of waterfowl, including wigeons, common mergansers, a sunning cormorant and a couple of male buffleheads trying to impress a female. There was also a large congregation of gulls off in the distance. If we squinted our eyes, we could pretend they were snow geese, which we have yet to see this winter.
The main beach had a lot of ex-crabs, even more than usual. Maybe it was Crab Day.
In all, it was nice to be back at Iona Beach. I have no idea why we went over eight months between visits (as a birding duo–Nic has been more recently), but we’ll probably not wait another eight before returning.
Richmond Nature House
Emtpy feeders means no birds!
Nic has a new phone, a Pixel 10, and Google Maps was being rather odd, constantly telling us to make left turns. But then when it made sense to make a left turn (off Westminster Highway, to the nature house) it instead wanted us to go past it and make an illegal U-turn to get there. WTF, as the kids say.
After arriving, I joked that it would be funny if the bird feeders were empty.
The bird feeders were empty.
The trip wasn’t a complete bust, though, as Nic spotted an immature Red-tailed Hawk sitting up in a nearby tree. That, and an Anna’s Hummingbird that was very high up before mockingly flying away, were the only birds we saw.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
A handsome Bufflehead at Piper Spit.
Piper Spit was our last stop, with the light starting to turn golden. There were multiple people feeding the birds. I’m usually pretty chill about this, because people gonna people, but I somehow got triggered by a little girl repeatedly running (and screaming) at the ducks while the nearby adults with her just stood there, talking among themselves. I expressed my thoughts using words that could be heard in a generous perimeter, if you know what I mean (no colourful metaphors, though, except maybe a few shared with Nic as we left).
As for the (well-fed) birds, there were most of the usual gang, along with more Buffleheads, who obligingly came up close, allowing for some great shots of their fuzzy, iridescent heads. Perhaps distracted by food, I observed little drama, though one crow had what appeared to be a generous chunk of pastry in its beak that was being coveted by others.
There were a few dowitchers, but they were mostly in shadow by this time of the day. I mostly shot the Buffleheads.
Overall, a pretty good day, with the weather being much nicer than expected. We’ll get back to Reifel eventually.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Budding willows at Iona Beach
Looking down the Fraser River
Another shot of the Fraser River, looking west
A poofed-out American Robin
A Bald Eagle looking over the North Jetty at Iona Beach
A pair of Common Mergansers on the beach
Driftwood at Iona Beach
Chopper glare over Iona Beach
Pigeons snoozing on a sign
Empty feeders at Richmond Nature House
An immature Red-tailed Hawk, wondering where the birds went at Richmond Nature House
Female Bufflehead after taking a sip of water
American Coot pondering itself
A crow in mod-step at Piper Spit
A crow, proudly displaying the pastry (?) it found
