Outdoor runs

I blame myself.

And the three women and a dog.

I got off to an unusually early start this morning, beginning my run at just after 9 a.m. I opted to go clockwise around the lake again, and the plan was to moderate my pace a bit and see if I could extend beyond 5K.

Ho ho.

What happened instead is as I was getting a drink at the fountain, near my starting point, three women went jogging past me with an unleashed dog. The dog seemed well-behaved, but still, bad people! I decided to let them go on for a bit before heading out, so there would be a nice gap between us.

What I should have done is waited at least a few minutes, which would have made catching up much more challenging. Instead, I was only just onto the Avalon trail (the first stretch of the run) when I saw I was clearly closing the gap with them and would need to decide whether I wanted to slow down to stay behind them, or put on the boosters to get by and establish a comfortable gap with me in front.

I went for the latter.

As I blazed along I looked at the watch and noticed it wasn’t getting a heart rate. My heart was definitely beating, so I tried pausing and unpausing the run to see if that might help. It didn’t. By now I was at 0.87 km into the run and still no heart rate. As I am monitoring my BPM much more closely now, this was a point of consternation. When it finally kicked it, it reported a BPM of 170, which is uncomfortably above my “safe” level, so I slowed my pace and ended with perhaps the biggest drop-off ever from one km to the next:

• First km: 5:47/km
• Second km: 6:26/km

Basically, I started out so fast that I burned out, then still had 4 km to go. Whoops. I actually got progressively faster, finishing with a 6:09/km pace in the final stretch.

The trouble acquiring a heart rate has happened a few times now. By coincidence, I have started looking seriously at a Garmin watch for my runs, to get better and more detailed metrics than Apple offers.

I did manage to find enough energy to do a lot of running on the remaining stretch around the lake, so that was nice. And I also have to consider it’s only been two days since my last trip around the lake, so I am pushing myself more now. In that light, things went pretty well.

Stats:

Run 683
Average pace: 6:13/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 9:05 a.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 31:16
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 16ºC
Humidity: 93%
Wind: light
BPM: 153
Weight: 169.8
Total distance to date: 5020 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (135 km)

I had a hankering to run clockwise today, and when I hanker, I listen to those hankerings. Unless it’s to eat an entire chocolate cake, then I try to resist.

So I set off, this time being a little less cautious about starting slow and indeed, my first km came in at a zippy 5:56/km. The last km was even better at 5:53/km. In fact, if I hadn’t slowed for the second (6:10/km) I would have had an overall pace below 6:00/km pace, which is pretty good for a lake run. Still, I can’t say I’m disappointed with a pace of 6:01/km, as it’s still 13 seconds faster than my last clockwise run around the lake.

In terms of issues, I began to feel some discomfort from the ankle and up into the hop on my right leg, which was odd and something I attribute to spending hours yesterday sitting in a chair playing video games. I was probably slouching like a sullen teenager without realizing it. I figured if I just maintained pace it would likely work itself out, and it did!

While I did stop the run at 5K, I found myself running more and more on the way out from the lake, to the point that I was pretty much running again. Next time I think I will try to ease off on the 5th km and then try pushing for more and see how far I go. I believe my stamina has improved enough to give it the proverbial college try.

Also, at the end, I successfully dodged between a bunch of geese that had decided to chill out all over the path. It must have been nap time, as they were indifferent to my presence in a very un-goose like way.

Stats:

Run 683
Average pace: 6:01/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 12:05 p.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 30:18
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 15ºC
Humidity: 68%
Wind: light to nil
BPM: 155
Weight: 171.8
Total distance to date: 5015 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (130 km)

This is the first time in a while I’ve done two lake runs in the same week, so go me!

Conditions were good–pleasantly mild, mostly cloudy and humid enough to prevent runner’s mouth but not so humid that I was drinking the air.

A surprising number of other runners were out today, apparently thinking it was also a fine day for a jog.

I started out slow, choosing once again to focus on being deliberate and not all speedy and such. The first two km, my pace was 6:13/km. It dipped again for the typical third km sag to 6:18/km, then I figured if I had the energy I may as well use it, so wrapped up with paces of 6:09/km and 6:00/km even.

Near the end, some geese were sitting on the trail–and on the grass next to it. And they had babies. This would present an interesting challenge, I thought to myself as I approached. I picked a path and weaved my way through. Surprisingly, the geese didn’t budge. Maybe the sun was making them lazy.

The walk out from the lake saw a fair bit of running as well, but I didn’t quite feel up to extending past 5K just yet. Still, it was another solid effort with no issues. I like no-issue runs.

Stats:

Run 682
Average pace: 6:12/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:51 p.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 31:06
Weather: Sun and cloud
Temp: 19ºC
Humidity: 59%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 170.6
Total distance to date: 5010 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (125 km)

Today I was feeling lazy and almost didn’t go out. Bad!

But I did go out and opted to run the river trail after first walking to the far end of the trail. It was cloudy and actually felt a bit cool starting out, despite being 17C. Once more I deliberately chose a deliberate pace for the run, and my first km came in at 6:08/km. I stayed within a few seconds of this through the next three km and felt I had enough in me to push a bit for the last km. It went like this:

• First third: This is going well. Vroom vroom!
• Second third: Am I starting to feel tired? Do I keep looking at my watch?
• Third, uh, third: Second wind achieved! Sailing to the end

That fifth km came in at a pace of 5:28/km, which is a lot faster than expected and almost brought my overall pace below the six-minute mark. Kind of fun!

The run otherwise went well. No cramps, issues or the need to use the loo at any point (I used the loo before and after, though).

I’ll likely return to the lake for the next run, but today was a nice, satisfying outing.

Stats:

Run 681
Average pace: 6:01/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 2:03 p.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 30:16
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 59%
Wind: light
BPM: 155
Weight: 170.8
Total distance to date: 5005 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (120 km)

Today, I completed a 5K and officially reached 5,000 total km since I started running back in the olden days of 2009. That works out to about 384 km per year, which sounds less impressive. So forgot I just wrote that.

Instead, I will note that I didn’t track distance in the early days of running and have definitely missed a few here and there, so I probably hit 5,000 km awhile back. Still, it’s a nice milestone. And the fact that I am still running 13 years later shows that I must like this running stuff or something.

For today’s run, I returned to the lake after two days off and ran clockwise, improving my pace by four seconds and reducing my BPM by 5. Nice! I didn’t bring the water bottle with me, but it was so humid that I felt I could just open my mouth and drink the air.

In terms of pace, it was a long, steady decline. I tried to hold back form the start, but still turned in an opening km of 6:01/km. by the fourth km the pace had drooped (plunged?) to 6:36/km. Yikes. I mean, the humidity was wearing me out and I’ve been exercising a lot this week. Now, normally I don’t look at my splits while running, partly because I don’t want them to influence my performance in unhealthy ways, but because the Apple Watch is so gentle with its haptic feedback that it feels like it’s afraid to interrupt me when I hot a km, so it sends this faint, barely detectable feedback that is totally lost when your arms are swinging and your feet are pounding the ground.

Today, though, I played music directly from the Watch and doing this also transfers the notifications from the Watch to the AirPods. The AirPods will even lower the volume of music when they pop up, meaning you are guaranteed to never missed them. Clearly, this is Apple’s plot to drive AirPods sales.

But it also meant that I could easily check my splits live, and I did. When I saw the fourth km come in at 6:36/km, I decided that would not do, and put on the gas to finish–or at least as much gas as I could spare. My final km was at a pace of 6:04/km–almost as good as the start. Not bad!

I then made a beeline to the nearest water fountain and supped. When I got home I was pretty pooped, but now, some hours later, I actually don’t feel that bad, though I am going to be a tad stiff in the morning.

Overall, it was a good outing and I’m glad I went whole hog™ and did the lake loop again. It’s the best way to improve my stamina, plus it’s just so pretty this time of year.

Look, pretty!

While I’m always happy to see them resurfacing parts of the Burnaby Lake Loop, I wish Metro Vancouver Parks would prioritize the trail next to the athletic fields. This is what I faced today, after yesterday’s monsoon-like rainfall:

Stats:

Run 680
Average pace: 6:14/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 2:16 p.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 31:23
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 21ºC
Humidity: 60%
Wind: light
BPM: 155
Weight: 172.5
Total distance to date: 5000 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (115 km)

It was sunny and warm today, so I decided to take advantage and do a run at the lake. To my surprise, when I got there they had part of the trail closed off for resurfacing. The resurfacing itself is not surprising, but the section–going from the dam and ending where the Conifer Loop connects to the main trail–is, because this was resurfaced a few years ago. I suspect it was not done as well as it might have, because the storms of last fall and winter caused a lot of heaving and collapse along the edges.

Still, I’d really like to see them tackle the area by the athletic fields. As I finished my run, the rain from a few days ago meant the right half of the trail was still submerged, due to the field having weird drainage that just dumps all water onto the trail.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Since I always take the side trails, the detour had no effect on my route. I headed off, clutching my new SPI-belt water bottle in my hand (I elected to try it first without the clip, since it’s fairly small). I found as my hand got sweaty I would naturally switch the bottle to the other hand. It didn’t seem to affect my running in any way, and it was easy enough to grab a sip on the go. Ironically, I didn’t really need it today, since it was humid enough that dry mouth™ was not an issue.

What was an issue was my initial pace. I think I got a little over enthused being out in the nice weather (and listening to R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant) and started out too fast. It took me a fair bit to adjust my pace and I continued to adjust and moderate it through the run. I won’t say that I was itching to hit that 5K mark and have the run be over with, but I definitely felt my stamina getting tapped out. My slowest km was the last, but possibly because I didn’t realize I was so close to finishing (I started on the other side of the dam, since I had to use the loo beforehand).

I did have one issue–a stitch in my lower left side that started around the 4K mark and lasted a few minutes. I was already going at a fairly slow pace, so I didn’t want to slow down even more. I figured if I kept steady it would work itself out, and it did.

Still, I did manage to find enough energy to do some running on the way out from the lake, plus I saw a heron at a trail-side pond (see below). It looked very chill.

I was very pooped by the time I got home. After a quick soak in the tub, I laid on the bed and used the massage thinger and felt like staying there for about seven hundred years.

Overall, it was nice to get back to the lake. I look forward to eventually finding the 5K runs “easy” again. Thinking back, it was 10 years ago that I did my summer of 10Ks at Burnaby Lake, three runs per week, and just under 1,000 km for the year (2012). I ain’t gonna do that this year, but some regular running will do just fine.

Stats:

Run 679
Average pace: 6:18/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:59 p.m.
Distance: 5:04 km
Time: 31:46
Weather: Sun and high cloud
Temp: 21ºC
Humidity: 50%
Wind: light
BPM: 160
Weight: 172.6
Total distance to date: 4995 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (110 km)

I decided to do a run in the morning to try to beat predicted showers in the afternoon. It almost worked!

I headed out around 10 a.m. and did a Classic™ Brunette River trail run, starting as soon as I got there. I did mix it up slightly by opting to just run out the last km instead of going partway up the trail and turning back to try to end where I started. This meant a longer walk back at the end, which is no biggie.

Overall I think the run went well. I managed a pace of 6:05/km, which is perfectly decent considering I’m still deliberately keeping things going at a more measured pace until I get more runs in. I didn’t experience any cramps or other issues, nor did I have that “OH MY GOD WHEN IS THIS GOING TO END?!” feeling at any point. It was fine. And my BPM was still nicely low, only slightly higher than the 2K run, woo.

Given the showers yesterday, there were a generous number of slugs that required dodging and my plan to avoid rain today worked for the first 3.5 km, at which point the sky opened up and it poured…for about five minutes. Then it stopped and the sun came out. Even this was fine. It’s just nice to be outside running again.

The coyote I saw in Lower Hume Park. It was trotting along pretty casually across the field and toward the parking lot (which was empty due to the weather). The casualness is probably not a good thing. I took a photo but since I wasn’t that close, it looks like one of those typically terrible photos of Bigfoot. Or a chupacabra, which several of the guys in Discord claimed it must be.

Run 678
Average pace: 6:05/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 10:20 a.m.
Distance: 5:05 km
Time: 30:45
Weather: Cloudy, showers
Temp: 12ºC
Humidity: 68%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 174.5
Total distance to date: 4990 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (105 km)

This was a short 2K run sandwiched between two walks. I was originally going to do a 5K today but my legs advised against it, so I said, “Okay, legs, you win this time!” Then I ran 2K on the river trail because it was nice out, and I figured 2K is short enough to not make the legs go, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I SAID NO RUNNING!”

I actually tried pulling back a bit around the midway point, then thought it’s only 2 km, do I really need to rein myself in? So I did, but only a little. The run was fine, no issues. As it was the river trail and a fair bit less than 5K, I managed to break the 6:00/km barrier. It’s still nice to do that, even with caveats.

Stats:

Run 677
Average pace: 5:56/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 2:01 p.m.
Distance: 2:04 km
Time: 12:06
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 15ºC
Humidity: 68%
Wind: light
BPM: 148
Weight: 173.5
Total distance to date: 4985 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (100 km)

I normally never run on Sundays, but today the weather was very nice again and I was feeling wacky, so off I went to Burnaby Lake.

This time I chose to run clockwise and headed out under rare sunny skies. I knew after running Friday and doing a run/walk yesterday that I would want to dial it back a bit, so I adopted a more leisurely pace. I think it also helped that I was starting to feel genuinely a bit pooped from all the recent activity.

I experienced no issues and while the pace was a sloggy 6:27/km, I’m fine with that, as I was tired, it was warmer (up to 22C!) and my BPM reflected the gentler effort.

I’m not going to run tomorrow, though. For one, it’s a holiday and the trails always get really crowded. For another, I expect my legs to revolt if I dare to try.

But I’m glad I did today.

Also, another snake!

Stats:

Run 676
Average pace: 6:27/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CW
Start: 3:05 p.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 32.25
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 41%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 175.1
Total distance to date: 4983 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (98 km)

It’s been more than three weeks since I last did a 5K run, so I once again opted to go slow ‘n steady. I suppose all the other walking and workouts in the meantime helped, as while my pace was slow (6:16/km), it was a fair bit peppier than the run on April 24, which followed the same route.

I did stop only a few hundred meters in, because there was a snake on the trail and I absolutely had to take a picture of it. Behold, snake:

The first km of the run (post-snake) was perhaps faster than intended at 5:54/km. This often happens, as you start with boundless energy. By the second km I was deliberately holding back, and maybe went too far the other way, dropping to a sluggish 6:26/km. My pace held steady near the average for the last 3 km. I experienced no cramps or other issues, save for my left elbow being a bit sore. Why it was sore I don’t know. It didn’t seem to be from running, it’s just the swinging motion while running accentuated that it was sore. Maybe I slept on it.

As it was a weekday afternoon–and the weather was delightfully normal, which it hasn’t been for most of May–the trail was not crowded. I saw a few other runs, including a guy who was maybe around 20 and was running without a shirt to show off his ridiculously flat stomach. He didn’t have killer abs or anything, his mid-section was just utterly flat. It looked unnatural. I was jealous. He passed me a second time, still looking like the jog wasn’t causing him to expend any energy at all. This also made me jealous.

The geese were on the sports field, with gaggles of goslings in a variety of sizes. I didn’t see anything else other than a few squirrels and a pair of forlorn male wood ducks.

In all, it was nice to get out for another run, and the better pace was a pleasant bonus. I shall do this again soon. Not soon™, actual soon!

I am thinking of looking into new running shoes, though. The Calderas are fine, but I’m not crazy with the way they lace up. Also, the laces are weirdly super-long. I might check out reviews of the latest Speedgoats. I loved those things, other than how they dyed my socks new and interesting colors.

Stats:

Run 675
Average pace: 6:16/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CCW
Start: 1:06 p.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 31.33
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 51%
Wind: light
BPM: 157
Weight: 173.2
Total distance to date: 4978 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (98 km)

Today was my first run since recovering from everyone’s favorite global pandemic virus, COVID-19.

It showered the entire time, which was not great, but it did give me a chance to try my new Outdoor Research jacket. I give it a solid B+:

• The pockets kept my phone and AirPods case nice and dry
• My torso remained pretty dry, with only the top of my chest getting a bit damp, since I did not zip all the way up
• The sleeves appear to have not held up as well, as my arms did get slightly damp (but not thoroughly soaked)

I think the jacket will also work well as a windbreaker for when it’s cold, though I shouldn’t need it for that until the fall.

This was also the first real rain in which I was using the third gen AirPods, and they worked fine, so thank you, Apple, for your still overpriced tech!

For the run, I opted to walk to the end of the river trail, run the 2 km back to the North Road entrance, then figure out if I wanted to call it there or continue. I opted to call it there because it was my first run in about three weeks, only my second run of the year, my first one after recovering from COVID, and also it was pouring rain.

Still, I didn’t experience any issues for those 2 km, so I am encouraged by the result. My BPM was a tad high, but not too high. My pace of 6:03/km is about what I’d expect for the amount of running I’ve done so far this year.

Stats:

Run 674
Average pace: 6:28/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CCW
Start: 1:12 p.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 32:27
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 41%
Wind: light
BPM: 155
Weight: 173.5
Total distance to date: 4973 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (93 km)