The many joggers everywhere run

Average pace: 4:35/km <– personal record (for runs over 10K)

Location: Burnaby Lake
Distance: 11.49 km
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 16-17ºC
Wind: light to nil
Calories burned: 779
Total distance to date: 1829 km

Ran Piper Mill trail, Conifer and Spruce Loops.

Success!

It’s pretty rare for me to do runs on consecutive days as I like the day off to rest and recover but given my short, botched run yesterday I was determined to get in a proper run today.

Conditions were in stark contrast, as if two entirely different seasons had bumped up against each other. Yesterday the air was thick and warm, with the temperature soaring to an unseasonably high 30ºC. Today it felt more like an early fall day, with the sky cloudy and threatening showers and temperatures only into the mid-teens for the morning.

I headed off with a simple plan:

1. Ride the SkyTrain to Production Way/University station.
2. Walk to Burnaby Lake from there.
3. Reverse the process to complete the run!

It took approximately 22 minutes to get to the lake vs. 38 minutes if I had walked the whole way. Definitely faster but not remarkably so. Although the morning sky was gray it did not rain, which was nice. The cooler temperature was ideal for running and I sprang off to a zippy start, noting a Running Room sign placed beside the trail. Apparently there was an event taking place. This turned out to be the Rhythm of Life run sponsored by the Burnaby Hospital. It had begun an hour before I started my run, at 8:30 a.m.

The first tangible sign of the run (apart from the Running Room signs) came around the 2K mark when I arrived at Piper Spit. There was a water station there replete with cups of water. Tantalizing as they were, I was not a participant and went on by. By now I was starting to encounter some of the official entrants, with their numbers pinned to their shirts. Many looked pretty casual and some walked rather than ran. The walkers in particular tended to cluster in groups that hogged the entire width of the trail, which was a minor irritant. I also saw very little of the usual runners etiquette–the waves, the nods, things like that.

As I got to the athletic fields it became clear that the eun was primarily moving clockwise– opposite to me. It was a little awkward having so many joggers constantly streaming toward me but also kind of fun, too. Less fun was a wobbly cyclist on one of the boardwalks. Boo to you, cyclist, I say!

I knew my initial pace was decent and kept pushing to maintain a good pace. The only bit of discomfort was a little soreness around my right ankle, which I believe is a remnant from running on the rail ties. It was slight and didn’t slow me down.

By the end I came in with a best-for-over-10K average of 4:35/km and a bunch of new personal records:

• Fastest 1K: 4:19
• Fastest 5K: 22:29
• Fastest 10K: 45:44
• Fastest mile: 7:01

While I wish the total round trip time for the run had been shorter I am very pleased with the performance on the run itself. I am not keen on running three days in a row so my next run will likely be on Tuesday.

Chart (records are in pink)

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