I went for a walk in the early afternoon to Burnaby Lake and back (8 km) as the temperature was hitting 33°C. This may not seem like an optimal time to walk, but most of the route is on a river trail with a good bit of tree canopy and the humidity was low, so I sweated, but only a bit. I also wore sunblock because I’m not stupid enough to let myself get sunburned twice in the same summer (yet).
Weather app shot:
Everywhere you go, it’s gonna be hot.
A few river shots. And yes, it felt cooler down by the water. Not Fonzie cool, but maybe a little.
Where: Iona Beach, Terra Nova, Richmond Nature House (Richmond), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Mostly sunny, 21°C
It was Richmond up in the hizzy today, which meant planes, planes and also some birds.
Iona Beach
Freight ship plying the waters off Iona Beach.
After some early morning showers, the sky mostly cleared up and it was pleasantly warm–and super muggy–for the remainder of the day. We started at Iona Beach and worked back toward a group of people shooting something apparently exotic. But it was just mallards. I guess they are exotic if you don’t see them normally. But in the same green sewer pond we also saw a Northern Pintail couple, the first we’ve seen this summer. We took an alternate trail into the wooded area and did not see much there. A trip down to the river provided the first of several blood sacrifices from Nic as he walked manly through thorny brush.
Once we moved into the open area, filled with scrub and smaller trees, it was chickadees everywhere, along with House Finches, swallows of various sorts and hummingbirds trying to stab each other. It was a birdpalooza, perhaps brought on by the abundant berries growing all over.
In the open gravel area Nic heard, then we saw a couple of Killdeer. They appeared to be nesting, so we gave them a wide berth. One seemed to be trying to draw us away from a nest and I felt bad being there. As penance, I didn’t manage any shots.
The main beach provided opportunities for shooting surly gulls. You know the ones. There was also a disturbingly large amount of broken glass along the shore, spread out over a fairly wide area. Nic picked up like 50 kg of it.
Terra Nova
Looking toward the mountains and airport from Terra Nova.
We then headed across the bay to Terra Nova, which yielded great scenery, a large retro biking group, an ice cream truck playing “Happy Birthday to You” (WHY?!) and not many birds at all! There was a heron standing in the main pond, up to its knees in goop, and looking about as pleased as you’d expect.
What we did see a lot of, other than planes, were bugs of various sorts, and especially grasshoppers. We found one on the trail that was oddly unmoved by our presence, then we realized she was laying eggs in the gravel. Kind of neat and kind of gross at the same time.
Also, lots of planes. I shot about a thousand of them. It was Plane Day for me.
Richmond Nature House
A fake turtle on real wood at Richmond Nature House.
Nic wanted to see if there might be some action at the Richmond Nature House. There was not, other than a few errant hummingbirds and a House Finch. However, the small pond had a turtle (fake) and plenty of dragonflies (real), making the trip, which was not really out of the way, worth it. In summer, it’s all about the bugs.
Tlahutum Regional Park
View of the community gardens at Tlahutum Regional Park.
We concluded at Tlahutum, though we did not venture to the big pond. We saw some Canada Geese in the river, a kingfisher that I could not capture as it zipped by, and at least one Willow Flycatcher.
In the community garden, we continued to see lots of juvenile birds getting their flap on, mainly House Finches, some cowbirds, and robins. Yellowthroats continued to taunt form out of view. I shot a bunch of flowers. Nic shot red soldier beetles getting it on. And on and on.
In all, a fine outing, even if half the spots were a bit bird-deficient. But it’s the summer and that’s expected. Plus the pintails were a nice surprise.
The Shots
All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.
I swear I’ll have the post and photos soon. It’s kind of weird how busy I can get doing things I don’t particularly enjoy.
In the meantime, here’s as preview, with two of the photos I took.
Photo 1, the pond at Iona Beach, looking all windswept at 16:9 ratio:
Framing!
And because we went to Iona Beach and Terra Nova, I took about 10,000 shots of planes landing and taking off. Here’s one of them, a Westjet jet taking off against a cloudy backdrop:
Flying still terrifies me.
In the birding post (soon™) I will include photos of actual birds.
A while back I decided to use a picker and go out and occasionally pick up the bits of litter around our condo complex. One of those “If you want something done, do it yourself” things that has become a primary philosophy of mine. I usually do every Sunday and other days as needed, covering most of the complex and the sidewalks.
Today’s haul looked like this:
Not visible: About a thousand cigarette butts
I also watered some of the trees in the heritage courtyard this afternoon using a hose with a spring-loaded nozzle (the only way to water with Stage 3 water restrictions in effect). Shortly after I started a crow showed up and stood just inside the range of the water, lapping it up as it fell down on her/him. Eventually three other crows joined in, drinking from the small puddles that eventually formed, showering under the spray, or even attempting a bath in one of the bigger puddles. It was cute. Hopefully these crows won’t attack me now when I enter their turf.
Anyway, this is what I post when I can’t think of anything else. Hopefully my brain will be more inventive moving forward.
Sometimes I post a flurry of nonsense and other times my mind just rattles around, shrugs and says, “I dunno!”
The last few days it’s been doing the latter. I can’t say why these things happen when they do–I could probably write a bestselling self-help book if I figured it out–but it’s been persistent, if intermittent, since I was old enough to scribble mostly inside the lines.
In celebration of finally posting some nonsense, albeit not a flurry of it, here is, of course, typing cat.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Warm and dry. The air, that is.
Or something like that.
First, I’ve decided to add the Performance Condition stat to each run, because I love stats. Garmin explains it here:
For a real-time assessment of your current ability to perform, look at your performance condition. During the first 6 to 20 minutes of your run, this metric analyzes pace, heart rate and HRV. The resulting number is a real-time assessment of the deviation from your baseline VO2 max, with each point on the scale representing about 1% of your VO2 max. The higher the number, the higher you can expect to perform.
Today, mine was +1, which is a bit better than neutral, but considering conditions, pretty good!
Speaking of conditions, I got a late morning start, and it was already 25C at the start of the run and 26 by the end, with humidity down to around 40%, which is definitely dry mouth territory. I hydrated at the fountain before the run, but even for 2.5 km, it might have been nice to have a water bottle or something with me.
The heat also made me alter my planned short loop. Originally I was going to take the side loops, then come back on the main trail before diverting back onto the Spruce Loop to finish. Instead, I simply reversed course and went back on the side loops, because they are mostly under the shade of second growth forest, where the main trail is a lot more exposed. This was a good call.
I experienced one issue–some cramping in my chest (not the surgery side) around the 1 km mark. I believe this is because, strangely, I was actually pushing a bit. I eased up a little, and it was fine after that. While I did flag a bit in the second km, I made up for it and finished with an average pace eight seconds faster than Monday, despite the higher temperature, at 6:18/km. Still overreaching, but I think it’s going to keep saying that until I’m in better shape.
Overall, better than expected, given conditions. I am pleased. Friday is looking to be cooler, which will be nice.
View just west of the dam, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,045 Average pace: 6:18/km Training status: Overreaching Performance Condition: +1 Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 11:20 a.m. Distance: 2.51 km Time: 15:48 Weather: Sunny Temp: 25–26°C Humidity: 40–39% Wind: light BPM: 152 Weight: 170.4 pounds Total distance to date: 7,035 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (15/33/48)
As he noted, it’s kind of like those Garfield Minus Garfield comics, where Jon ends up looking crazy. Except in this case, it makes the comic funnier. Or at least weirder.
Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Mostly cloudy, 21°C
I guess my Forerunner 265 wasn’t lying when it said take a rest day, because I was so pooped in the morning that I skipped Reifel and Boundary Bay. Nic swung by after, and we spent some quality time in the community garden at Tlahutum.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River in a green mood.
For the first part of the outing, we hit the trails, and it was mostly Song Sparrows and the occasional crow, but we did see a young, scowly Great Blue Heron sitting atop one of the bird boxes near the big pond. The big pond itself was looking a bit green, and seemed to be bird-free. On the way back, we spotted a small group of what were probably young Rough-winged Swallows hanging out in a few trees south of the trail, their extra-big mouths still not quite assuming adult form. One adult, and likely a parent, was sitting among them.
Weirdly, we saw a couple of Barn Swallows just standing on the trail. Maybe they do it sometimes just to see what it feels like.
After tantalizing glimpses of a Common Yellowthroat in the tall grass (Nic saw it and got some OK photos, I did not see it at all), we moved onto the community garden and zigzagged through it. The plots here are in full bloom, with flowers and veggies in abundance, meaning pollinators were also around.
But not just pollinators. There were quite a few birds buzzing about, many of them young and scruffy-looking. House Finches were racing about in small groups pretty much the entire time we were there. I managed a few decent photos when they deigned to sit still for more than a moment.
Overall, the gardens proved to be relaxing, with the clouds providing relief from the sun, but still high enough to provide decent light most of the time. My watch would have approved.
The Shots
All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.
Some of these are more interesting than “great” shots. Also, dragonfly sex. You’ve been warned.
Baby duck flapping its winglets.
Song Sparrow in the grass, looking for bugs and such.
A Song sparrow perched in a tree.
When a mommy dragonfly and a daddy dragonfly love each other very much…
American crow on a steel railing.
A barn swallow takes off as a guy in jeans approaches. It's kind of arsty?
Broody young Great Blue Heron.
Heron pondering, perhaps.
Fixed wing bird, species Lufthansa 747.
Northern Flicker in the garden.
Flicker looking back.
Coquitlam River.
Hello kitty!
An Anna's Hummingbird engaged in a staring contest with the camera.
The biggest, tallest sunflower I could find.
A Spotted Towhee, moments before it pooped, as one does.
House Finch in the garden.
House Finch perched, with a young robin in the background.
An immature American Robin hanging out.
Some kind of fly thingie.
A young Rough-winged Swallow looking out.
Two Rough-winged Swallows reacting to the arrival of a third.
Brunette River, pre-run: Calm, and not that humid.
Well. It’s not just a deep subject.
My plan today was to scale back my effort because my runs are consistently being declared as Overreaching, even though I’m just doing what my watch tell me to do (more or less).
I headed out relatively early, at 9:30 a.m., to beat the heat, and tracked my 1.5 km walk to the river trail. The watch declared this as Unproductive. It’s literally a 15-minute walk. I harumped to myself, then decided to forgo the planned 5K in lieu of a gentler 2.5K.
But the 2.5K was declared Overreaching like most of my post-surgery exercise. Well.
The other stats were also not great. Just before the 1K mark the performance rating popped up: -3. Not good! My BPM was higher despite today’s run being shorter, cooler and after two days of not-running: 152. I was also two seconds slower on average at 6:26/km, though that was in part due to me trying to “run gently”. I also had a few issues with phlegm, which I now associate in my mind with the river trail, though it wasn’t as bad as before. I took my li’l water bottle with me, though didn’t drink from it until post-run.
It occurs to me when I run at the lake, I get a drink from the fountain before heading off, which may help.
I didn’t experience any particular issues, other than the phlegm, the only real highlight. As I type this a little over 45 minutes after getting home, it feels like I’ve hardly exercised at all.
My next run will be 2.5K to keep my OCD in check, but I think after that I’m just going to do whatever feels right to my body, rather than strictly follow the dictates of the watch. I won’t be a slave to technology!
Now to jog around the condo for 20 minutes to feel like I’ve done a workout.
The river, post-run: Increasingly shallow as we head deeper into summer.
Stats:
Run 1,044 Average pace: 6:26/km Training status: Overreaching Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 9:45 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 16:08 Weather: Sunny Temp: 18–19°C Humidity: 51–52% Wind: light BPM: 152 Weight: 171.6 pounds Total distance to date: 7,032.5 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (12.5/25/37.5)
My watch said I overdid it, all but calling me dumb.
So today I am mostly taking it easy, but here are a few more shots of Still Creek I took yesterday after overdoing it. Conveniently, my run ends right about where Still Creek is at its most photogenic.
All shot on my not-decrepit Samsung Galaxy S26.
Still Creek, from the footbridge.Creek under a cloudy sky.Pacific coastal mountains looming in the background.Not Still Creek! This is the lake and the rowing pavilion, where something fancy was happening.
