I’m going to try to post every day, to see if I can help grease the wheels of my mind, or some other iffy metaphor.
And I promise no easy outs by just posting cat pics1This will be more difficult than you might imagine, which is both amusing and sad.
I wasn’t sure what to expect heading out later than usual today, except that it would be hotter and probably more challenging as a result.
I was half right, because it was indeed a full six degrees warmer, with humidity also way down, though curiously it still felt humid, so a dry mouth was not a problem.
But I was wrong about it being more challenging, because I posted an overall pace two seconds faster than Wednesday at 6:20/km and my BPM dropped from 149 to 147. Nice. The BPM likely benefitted from a brief pit stop at the Nature House to hydrate at the water fountain there, just past the 2K mark, but not too much, as I really did just sip and run.
I did begin to feel the heat, as they say, later in the run, but managed to keep a consistent pace from beginning to end, with a variance of only five seconds from slowest to fastest km. I think this worked to my benefit.
And despite the sunny conditions, there weren’t as many people, dogs, or geese around as on Wednesday. I have no explanation for this.
The Pavilion Trail has been resurfaced, and the water is being held at bay for now. Parts of the trail seem a bit unfinished, making me feel there is more work to do. When I got to the end, where it reaches the rowing pavilion parking lot, there was a Trail Closed sign. But there wasn’t one at the other end, so it is existing in both a closed and open state at once, a paradox unto itself. Or someone nicked the other sign.
In all, this was a nice way to end the week, doing back to back 5Ks, seeing improvement and having no issues.
Stats:
Run 1,049
Average pace: 6:20/km
Training status: Productive
Performance Condition: 0
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:35 a.m.
Distance: 5.01 km
Time: 31:48
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 25–26°C
Humidity: 38–37%
Wind: light
BPM: 147
Weight: 169.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 7,050 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (30/76/106)
Music: Glass Houses, Billy Joel
The weird part is I actually ended the month at the same weight as last month and the same weight as January 1, so in seven months I have achieved no weight loss (or gain) at all, which is impressive in its own way.
And that weight is 169.4 pounds.
Stats really didn’t shift too much. Body fat % is up a little, everything else is flat. I was bad when it came to snacking multiple times throughout the month. I had Pop-Tarts. I sought solace in food.
I again vow to do better. It could happen! I don’t have any handy snacks as we head into August, so that’s a plus.
Stats:
January 1, 2026: 169.4 pounds
Current: 169.4 pounds
Year to date: Unchanged
July 1: 168.5 pounds
July 31: 169.4 pounds (up 0.9 pounds)
Body fat:
July 1: 26.0%
July 31: 26.4% (up 0.4%)
Skeletal muscle mass:
July 1: 29.8 kg
July 31: 29.9 kg (up 0.1 kg)
BMI:
July 1: 24.1
July 31: 24.2 (up 0.1)
Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
I figured I was ready for another 5K, so I attempted one today and succeeded, woo. Also good: my training status is productive, which pleasantly surprised me, and my BPM was a nice 149.
I was slower, but deliberately so. The first two km especially were done at a very measured pace, coming in at 6:30/6:29/km. I did get faster each km and by the fifth I’d improved to 6:12, basically matching the pace of my previous shorter run.
The weather was fine. I got lucky in that there was just enough high cloud to blot out the sun for pretty much the entire run. Much of it burned off shortly after, so the walk back was under sunny conditions. It was 19-20°C and humidity was in the mid-60s, which helped prevent any dry mouth.
There was a fair number of people on the trail, but it’s midsummer and the weather is nice, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone was friendly and courteous. I even saw the spitfire, but for a change she was walking and I was running. It felt weird.
The trail was in decent shape after Sunday’s day-long showers, but I had to double back on my walk out because apparently they are finally addressing the floody parts of the trail to the north of the rowing club:
I started to get a bit tired the last few km walking back home and may regret it tomorrow, but I’m pleased at how today’s run went. Yes, my pace of 6:22/km was slower, but it was planned and all other signs are good.
Oh, and the title of the post? When I was walking the river trail to the lake, a guy jogged past me. Pretty nondescript–dressed in a dark t-shirt, black shorts, black running shoes, no cap. A few moments after he passed, I caught the distinct and piquant body odour emanating from him. I think the light breeze managed to waft it perfectly to my nose, as I can’t remember the last time I could smell a runner. But I did today.
Stats:
Run 1,048
Average pace: 6:22/km
Training status: Productive
Performance Condition: +1
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:01 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 32:02
Weather: High cloud, some sun
Temp: 19–20°C
Humidity: 67–63%
Wind: light
BPM: 149
Weight: 169.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 7,045 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (25/68/93)
Music: Shuffle play
Where: Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, some drizzle, 20°C
The alliteration will stop when it gets too terrible even for me.
The weather was looking iffy, but we braved not the weather, but traffic, to get to Maplewood Flats (which actually has a big ol’ hill in the middle of it). It was cloudy, but otherwise fine. We saw some bushtits and they were fantastically difficult to capture, as always, along with some mallards, one brooding heron, some gulls and not much else. The scenery was nice and the inlet smelled especially briny, perfect for people who want to “touch ocean.”
We opted to skip Piper Spit, where no doubt people were hauling giant bags of seed to the pier and shovelling it all into the water. Instead, we did a bridge to bridge walk, starting at Still Creek and going to Deer Lake Brook. Along the way we saw mallards, wood ducks (and youngsters), a rare sighting of a Swainson’s thrush, about a million Canada geese claiming the sports fields, and lots of very pretty scenery. The weather continued to hold, with a very occasional bit of drizzle here and there. The park was busier than I expected, given the weather. Maybe Netflix has finally raised its prices too much.
A person at the rowing club said they’d seen a beaver and indeed, we saw the head of a muskrat or beaver as it swam down Still Creek. I am not expert enough to identify by the back of a head at distance, so I’m going to claim it was a beaver. Maybe THE beaver.
We ended the afternoon at Tlahutum, but opted to focus solely on the target-rich environment of the community garden. There, it was almost exclusively young birds, looking all spotted and scruffy and getting out there in the world. Robins dominated, though there were lots of house finches as well. We also saw a fair number of hummingbirds, some white-crowns and towhees. Bumblebees were out in numbers and as always, red soldier beetles were getting it on.
Nic once again demonstrated his ability to scare off birds by either getting too close (I declared I have better BirdSense™ than he does and stand by that) or by pointing at them. I always felt his pointing reminded me of something and I finally figured out what it was:
I mean, if I was a young robin, I’d book it, too.
I actually got some very nice shots of the beetles and hummingbirds, so I was pleased. We opted not to take our chances any further as by this time it was starting to sprinkle lightly, but it was still a bounty of birding.
All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
Today it was all about the differences in conditions:
The humidity prevented dry mouth but surprisingly wasn’t a big factor, either negatively or positively. I sweated, but not profusely.
The pace breakdown for each km was:
The last was only 500m, but it’s interesting that my pace improved so much because I didn’t feel like I was pushing. I did try extending my stride a bit instead and maybe that helped. Also the smaller gap between the first and second km is welcome after seeing the bottom fall out on previous runs.
I did a short loop going clockwise and originally planned to turn around after crossing the first boardwalk, but as I approached, a mower with giant mowing attachment was occupying the entire width of the footbridge before the boardwalk, so I opted to turn around at that point, which was fine.
I did experience that proto-cramp on the right side of my chest again, but it never really did much, so I don’t think it was a factor. I otherwise felt…not bad.
And woo, my training status after the run was Maintaining, a welcome sign of normalcy after several weeks of “you’re overdoing it!” I am going to try a 5K again on Friday and hope the weather is equally conducive to running (right now it’s showing a high of 26 and sunny). We’ll see!
Stats:
Run 1,047
Average pace: 6:11/km
Training status: Maintaining
Performance Condition: 0
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop)
Start: 10:58 a.m.
Distance: 2.51 km
Time: 15:34
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 18°C
Humidity: 85–79%
Wind: light
BPM: 153
Weight: 170.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 7,040 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (20/60/80)
Music: Shuffle play
I like doing this periodically because I never check my previous rankings until after, and it’s always fun (to me, at least) to see how albums shift up and down the list.
Onward!
Notes:
Here’s one I saw on Mastodon. I love his style and subject matter.
You can see his work here: https://www.simon-bailly.com/
From the official R.E.M. video for “Crush With Eyeliner”, from their 1994 album Monster:
(I love this song and would, in fact, marry it if I could.)
The video:
I was able to check out Piper Spit and the Butterfly Garden post-run. Here’s a few shots I took.
Too slow, but I am impatient.
A combination of hot weather and other things meant that I haven’t run since last Wednesday–nine days ago. That’s enough to start undoing some of the slow progress I’d been making. But not enough to undo all of it. Read on!
I started out kind of creaky, as expected, but kept to a steady, if unspectacular pace. My PR1PerformanceRating was +1, which was encouraging, even if my first km pace of 6:28/km made me sigh a little/ I flagged slightly in the second km, but made up because my overall pace ended at 6:29/km or what I call Surgery Slow™. And I guess it’s fine. I only experienced the mild threat of a cramp in my chest again, which seems kind of laughable considering the pace, but these things will improve in time. Also, while the training status of Unproductive seems bad, it’s actually an improvement from the previous Overreaching, which is Unproductive++. Progress!
It was not as hot as the last run, but humidity was much higher, so sweating was more conspicuous.
The decision to only do 2.5 km was a no-brainer, but I didn’t do a short loop, at least. I stopped at Piper Spit after to take a few photos of the only two people there, who were feeding the birds, of course.
In all, I was glad to get out and get through it. Next week is looking generally more reasonable, temperature-wise, so I’m hoping to hit all my regular runs.
Stats:
Run 1,046
Average pace: 6:29/km
Training status: Unproductive
Performance Condition: +1
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:13 a.m.
Distance: 2.51 km
Time: 16:17
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 23–24°C
Humidity: 59–55%
Wind: light
BPM: 149
Weight: 170.9 pounds
Total distance to date: 7,037.5 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (17.5/51/68.5)
Music: Shuffle play
