Run 538
Average pace: 5:18/km
Location: Brunette Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:30 am
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 26:40
Weather: Mostly cloudy
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 57%
Wind: light
BPM: 166
Weight: 156.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 4187 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone
I was originally planning to wait until Tuesday to resume my runs since pulling the muscle in my left upper leg last Friday but spontaneously decided today to go out for a 5K, since the aforementioned muscle hasn’t exhibited any sort of soreness or stiffness over the past few days.
And so I headed out after seven days off, back to Burnaby “yes, there really are bears here” Lake. My plan was to walk to the lake, do a 5K, then hitch a ride back on the SkyTrain from the Burnaby Lake station rather than face a 9K+ walk back home, which I felt might be pushing it only a week later.
I started out by making a trip to the loo, which seems to happen quite a bit now for some reason. I don’t mean going to the loo in general, just specifically when I get to the lake and my body seems to interpret that as “nature calls” (literally). After relieving myself I headed back over the dam and encountered a far-too-cheerful cyclist pulling a small wagon behind him. I secretly wished rabid geese on the bike but later found the same bike was being used to collect cones that had been placed as part of a Running Room event (the event was over by the time I got there). He was still riding too fast and was too dang cheerful, though.
A small section of the trail near the sports field was closed for repairs and a spray-painted line through the grass suggests they may actually be preparing to shore up Ol’ Floody, as I call this particular stretch. It would be nice if they fixed it to not flood, because when the trail floods and you detour onto the field you discover that the grass is actually kind of floating on a layer of mud and water that is really tricky to run on.
I did not see any bears this time, for which I am glad. I have nothing against bears, as long as they stay, you know, out of the city.
The run itself started at a steady pace and I felt fine. Conditions were actually pretty good–cloudy and temperatures in the high teens–and for the first three km it felt pretty much like any other run. Around the 3K mark I started feeling stiffness around the left knee, though oddly enough the actual pulled muscle seemed fine. I’d seen some stiffness in the left leg on previous runs and it seems the pull last week accentuated the issue. The stiffness progressed to a point but never enough to slow me down (my best times were actually in the fourth and final km), but doing only 5K seemed like the right call.
After, the afflicted muscle continued to behave and the stiffness has retreated, so I think I’m probably going to be okay if I stick to 5Ks for now.
The average pace surprised me, coming in at 5:18/km, much faster than I was expecting, so that’s also encouraging.
The run on Tuesday will wrap up right around the time the sun is setting. I’m going to have to decide on whether to run at lunch on the yucky golf course loop, or switch to running on a yucky treadmill, or coming up with some other hopefully not yucky option.
