Outdoor runs

Couch to 5K: The Sequel, Part 5

Today’s run ramped up to 90 second running segments and conditions were pretty lousy for late April. It was raining, which in itself is not too unusual, but it was also unseasonably cool — only 6ºC. We donned our jogging jackets and set off for the muddy mire of China Creek Park.

I actually found myself not exactly struggling but definitely feeling the short distances more than I should have. I chalk it up to my energy level still being lower than normal after recovering from the flu bug yesterday. Jeff managed to keep up a decent pace and for some parts was able to keep ahead of me. My competitive side rose up just enough for me to not let him get ahead for long. He still beats me on the walking segments, though. He cheats by having longer legs.

And at long last I finally took a picture of the COYOTE ALERT sign (click image to enlarge). I cheated because the photo was taken with my phone when I was not actually running. Since mentioning the sign about two years ago the Parks Board has since added a no-smoking sign below it. On our run we did encounter one smoker — an older man with a large belly who stood out of the rain under the shelter of a pine tree just on the park’s edge. He knows how many cigarettes that $250 fine would buy (six or seven, I think)!

Bad dog

 

As you can see, years of weather or possibly coyote sabotage have left the alert sign largely unreadable. Since the photo has been sized down a bit, I can confirm that the instructions regarding coyote interaction include:

  • Shout in a deep and loud voice
  • Throw objects at the coyote
  • Do not maintain eye contact
  • Something else unintelligible but hopefully not critical to know, like ‘spraying a coyote with water will enlarge it to 5x normal size’

There’s also a short bit on how they moved into Vancouver in the late 1980s, no doubt as part of the big post-Expo boom. They’re probably living in condos on False Creek now.

I did actually see a coyote once, in an alley somewhere around West 10th Avenue, not too far from City Hall, now that I think about it. Maybe they came to lobby as official mascots for the city, trying to displace whatever it is we have now (an orca? black squirrel? Inukshuk?)

Anyhoo, back to running. Week 2 wraps up on Friday. Here’s hoping for the return of spring!

Couch to 5K: The Sequel, Part 4

This one is a quick update because I didn’t run. Woo!

I didn’t run because yesterday I came down with some kind of 24 hour flu bug that left me alternating between feeling like a furnace and an ice cube. Good times.

Jeff did run — his first in the rain and first along the river trail out near his place in New Westminster. He reports the jacket was needed as it was rather chilly and running on the gravel path was harder on his knees than the mulch used at China Creek.

I shall be partaking in Part 5 (of 27) on Wednesday.

Couch to 5K: The Sequel, Part 3

Conditions were once again very mild for the run/walk today, with a weaker breeze and occasional sun. T-shirts and shorts were fine for the 10ºC or so.

The run was unremarkable. I jogged a bit ahead a few times on the 60 second running segments (which ramp up to 90 seconds next week), as the pace felt almost too slow for my comfort zone. Weird, I know.

This completes Week 1 of 9 for the Couch to 5K program. Jeff is progressing well, already moving from the initial “Oh god my lungs are on fire!” phase to “This feels pretty good.” We’ll see how things go on Monday!

Couch to 5K: The Sequel, Part 2

The second workout went well, with Jeff looking snazzy in his new running shoes and running faster through a combination of new shoes, music and endorphins. I also picked up the pace a bit on the running segments, falling more into my normal pace. No stupid injuries to report yet.

And today marked the first baseball practice taking place, as the clink of metal bat on ball was oft-heard while we jogged around the path. I have already begun watching the batters after the several close calls of the last two baseball seasons.

Weather-wise it was mostly overcast and a bit breezy but mild, otherwise. The fountain is working again and as usual has been stuffed so it isn’t draining properly. I may fix that if no one else does. Finally, I’m hoping the Parks Board puts some new mulch on the path as the past winter has been especially brutal on it, stripping it right down to the clay in some spots and exposing numerous tree roots (tripping hazards for joggers and walkers alike).  We shall see.

Onward to workout #3 on Friday!

Couch to 5K: The Sequel, Part 1

In which I join my partner as he goes from the couch to…5K.

Today was the first of the planned 27 outings and all went well at my old familiar haunt of China Creek Park. There were no bees in the fountain, no dogs getting under my feet and tripping me, no meteors suddenly crashing down from the sky. It was, in fact, sunny and mild (around 10ºC), if a bit breezy. We both lost something during the run. At the very start Jeff’s iPhone spontaneously detached itself and went tumbling to the ground. Fortunately he has it inside a plastic case designed to withstand the impact of a nuclear bomb, so it came out unscathed. The aforementioned wind whisked the cap off my head, forcing me to retreat to pick it up. Luckily it didn’t turn into one of those tragicomic episodes where the cap keeps getting rolled along the ground by the wind until it eventually ends up in traffic and smooshed by a series of 18 wheelers passing over it.

No official times/distances to report yet. This week’s workouts consist of alternating 90 seconds of jogging with 60 seconds of walking for 20 minutes. Here’s hoping I manage to avoid yet another injury while getting back up to speed.

The long (and short) road back

Today was my first run on a workday. Woo!

It was also a very brief run, only 2.5 km after a three week layoff. It was about 7ºC, overcast with some light rain. I wore a jacket and long-sleeve t-shirt and may have been okay with just the t-shirt as the wind died down just prior to the run.

Some notes:

• I was recovering from the effects of some bug (felt kind of like the flu, sucked all my energy away for a couple days like some kind of sparkly vampire in germ form)
• the conditions were the worst I’ve ever seen. Many stretches of the trail were little more than mire and multiple times I felt my foot twisting on the uneven surface. A lot of exposed roots, too, as the continued heavy rains strip away the surface.
• annoying jogger duo. A pair of women were jogging ahead of me and stopped at the playground. They were apparently doing a start-stop thing. A little ways after passing them they resumed running and kept pace a modest distance behind me. No big deal. Except one of them would not stop yakking.It made me crazy. On the one hand, if you can carry on an (incessant) conversation while jogging, you aren’t trying hard enough. On the other hand, if I was in better condition I could have easily outpaced them and gotten out of hearing range, so I also suck. I am hoping to remedy this by running again on Friday with a ‘run as far as I feel comfortable’ plan (up to 10K). We’ll see how it goes.

No official™ chart for this run because it was such a quickie but here are the relevant stats:

1km = 5:10
2 km = 5:23 (yuck)

Total average pace: 5.28.

Return to the Valley of the Jogger: The Sequel

And unlike many sequels, this one is actually better than the first!

Conditions for my second run after the long layoff were decent. The temperature was 7ºC with little wind and an overcast sky. I wore a long-sleeved t-shirt and shorts and probably would have been fine with a regular t-shirt. My hands did not feel like frozen blocks of ice this time.

There was a hard, steady rain yesterday and the trail at the park showed the effects — several large puddles to be dodged, the southern stretch particularly boggy in several places and more exposed roots poking through than I’ve ever seen. I did a walk around first to size things up before the run proper.

By the second km I was feeling a cramp but this time in my stomach. I maintained my pace and within another km or so it eased up, allowing me to better hold my pace. I was faster at each stage of the run than a week ago and finished by shaving seven seconds off last week’s run, bringing my pace down from 5:44 to 5:37. Not bad!

I could feel my left knee a bit during the run but it never hurt and didn’t slow me down. For a few moments there was a twinge around my ankle/lower left shin and that spooked me but it went away quickly and did not return.

Although my performance was better, the improved pace meant that by the time I hit 5K I was happy to stop and recover rather than feeling all, “Haha, whee! Let’s keep going!” That’s okay. In time my stamina will be back where it once was and I shall run not unlike the wind. Or at least a strong breeze.

Chart:

km Jan. 25 Jan 18
1 km 5:04 5:07
2 km 5:20 5:26
3 km 5:31 5:36
4 km 5:36 5:42
5 km 5:37 5:44

Return to the Valley of the Jogger

Four months later and I have finally completed another jog. Woo!

My plan was to complete 5K.

Conditions were favorable for the time of year, with the temperature ranging 3-4ºC, only a slight breeze at the start and partly cloudy skies, with the sun actually poking out a few times. I walked a circuit at China Creek Park first to check out the path and while there were no puddles the trail was rather mushy in spots, about what I expected given the recent rain.

I dressed in shorts since my manly tree trunk* legs don’t feel the cold much, wore a t-shirt with my jogging jacket and eschewed gloves, remembering all the times I’ve overdressed on previous runs. After the first km my hands still felt like blocks of ice so I was wondering if I’d made the right call but they warmed up a short time later and were fine the rest of the way.

By the second km I was beginning to feel some cramping in my chest and my legs suddenly gained roughly 300 pounds each. At this point the only other jogger out sailed past me. He was something like four feet taller than me so I figured he was fast due to his huge, hill giant-like stride. It couldn’t be because I had lost every trace of my conditioning!

As it turned out, I only lost most of my conditioning. My first km came in at a perfectly respectable 5:07/km but the rest of the run fell off the cliff, with my time plunging to 5:26 by the second km and continuing lemming-like for the next two km before leveling off as I finally hit my stride in the last stretch. By that point I was fully warmed up, the cramping had diminished and the legs, though still heavy, didn’t feel quite as burdensome.

Afterward, I felt fine and recovered quickly. My knee did not bother me at all and my legs are otherwise fine. I think my left shoe is a bit wonky up front so I will probably look for a new pair soon. I’ve put in probably over 700 km on these ones, so they’ve served me well.

Chart:

km Jan 18
1 km 5:07
2 km 5:26
3 km 5:36
4 km 5:42
5 km 5:44

* haha, no

Here be puddles and sore legs (run)

An early afternoon run today with the temperature rising from 15C-17C, breezy and about an equal mix of sun and cloud. It had showered hard in the morning so this was the first run in a long time where I had to navigate around puddles.

It was not a very good run, alas, plagued by a number of issues:

  • rust from five days off
  • when the sun came out it felt very humid and muggy
  • my left leg was clearly bothering me partway through
  • a persistent cramp in my stomach in the second half of the run

That said, I finished at a pace midway between my two previous runs, clocking in at 5:27/km with a total time of 55:03. I ran a little farther than intended because the glare on my iPod was so bright at the end I could not read the display. It also seemed that clicking the menu button did not, in fact, present me with a menu the first few times I tried it. I suspect Apple wants me to upgrade to the shiny new nano that just came out. Total distance ended up being 10.08 km.

The midway point of the run was ‘highlighted’ by a muscle car revving its engine as it went down nearby Glen, causing a car alarm (apparently on the ‘go off if songbirds are present’ setting) to start wailing and it was that car alarm. You know the one, the worst car alarm ever, the one that has four different alarms, each one annoying in its own way. Fortunately the owner turned it off in short order. Or maybe it was an act of God. Either way I was glad.

There was not much else noteworthy on the run. I found a burst of speed for the 7-8 km stretch but the cramps and general soreness prevented me from maintaining that to the finish. I iced the left calf for about 50 minutes afterward and will see how it feels in a few days. The way things have been going I suspect I will be taking another forced break from running. I may look into some kind of cheap physiotherapy, if such a thing exists.

Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):

km Sept 20 Sept 15 Sept 13 Sept 6 Sept 2
1 km 5:02 5:05 5:00 4:56 4:54
2 km 5:07 5:08 5:05 5:03 4:58
3 km 5:11 5:12 5:09 5:07 5:03
4 km 5:15 5:15 5:14 5:11 5:08
5 km 5:18 5:17 5:18 5:14 5:13
6 km 5:21 5:18 5:21 5:16 5:16
7 km 5:23 5:19 5:24 5:18 5:19
8 km 5:24 5:21 5:26 5:20 5:23
9 km 5:26 5:23 5:28 5:21 5:26
10 km 5:27 5:23 5:29 5:21 5:27

The tire(d) run

Today was the first time in awhile that I attempted a run with only a day off in-between.

Fortunately, it was a success!

The temperature was 19ºC but dropped a degree or two over the course — not that I noticed, because despite the sky being overcast, it still felt a bit warm. It began spitting partway through but didn’t turn to light rain until the run was over and I was heading back. The spitting did clear out most of the park by about the 6 km point, though.

The only discomfort I felt was some light cramps on my right side but they didn’t affect my pace.

After another slowish start (5:05) I again finished with a strong back half, though I could clearly feel the effect of only having a day off. The second half of the run left me feeling pretty tired, even as I worked to maintain my pace, but my consistency from 5 km to 10 km was probably the best ever — I only dropped my average pace by 7 seconds in that span (compared to 12 in the first half). I finished with an overall time of 54:03 — a full minute faster than Monday and an average of 5:23, my third best pace to date.

The titular tire (say that three times fast):

The top of the photo is the gravel of the kids play area, the bottom is the path I run on. I continue to be baffled at how things like this end up where they do. What is the story behind someone rolling a tire, complete with rim, into a public park? People are weird.

Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):

km Sept 15 Sept 13 Sept 6 Sept 2
1 km 5:05 5:00 4:56 4:54
2 km 5:08 5:05 5:03 4:58
3 km 5:12 5:09 5:07 5:03
4 km 5:15 5:14 5:11 5:08
5 km 5:17 5:18 5:14 5:13
6 km 5:18 5:21 5:16 5:16
7 km 5:19 5:24 5:18 5:19
8 km 5:21 5:26 5:20 5:23
9 km 5:23 5:28 5:21 5:26
10 km 5:23 5:29 5:21 5:27

The slog run

After a week off to rest my tender left shin, I opted for a morning run under overcast skies, with the temperature ranging from 15-17ºC. There was almost no wind at all, which is unusual. The sun poked out briefly a few times and made me feel like I was wearing a warm, damp blanket when it did, but was otherwise not a factor.

Given that it had been a week, I expected my time to be slower and it was. The shin was not a problem though by about the 8 km mark I could feel it. It didn’t hurt enough to affect me, I was just aware of it. I was both tentative and sluggish, starting out right at the five minute mark but dropping off noticeably each km in the first half. My average pace was saved by a stronger second half again and that much is reassuring.

I didn’t experience any particular problems during the run. The trail was damp but only had one easily avoided puddle. The lack of any breeze made me feel warmer than I would have otherwise but it was still manageable. Overall, a rather dull affair. Total time was 55:03, about a minute and a half slower than my previous zippy pace.

I iced my left shin for 45 minutes afterward and am going to try to run again in two days. We’ll see how that goes!

Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):

km Sept 13 Sept 6 Sept 2
1 km 5:00 4:56 4:54
2 km 5:05 5:03 4:58
3 km 5:09 5:07 5:03
4 km 5:14 5:11 5:08
5 km 5:18 5:14 5:13
6 km 5:21 5:16 5:16
7 km 5:24 5:18 5:19
8 km 5:26 5:20 5:23
9 km 5:28 5:21 5:26
10 km 5:29 5:21 5:27

A fairly zippy run

In a taste of things to come, today’s run was in light rain, with the temperature a cool-for-the-season 12ºC. Despite the inclement weather and it being a stat holiday a fair number of people were at the park, either jogging or walking their accursed dogs.

My body definitely seems  to prefer cooler days when it comes to running. I had another good start (4:56) but slumped surprisingly in the 2nd km (5:03 — still a decent time). I had an excellent and very consistent second half, however, and finished with my second best time ever — 5:21, only one second off my fastest run back on February 26th.

Unlike many recent runs, there were no cramps or other bits of discomfort to slow me down. My left leg seems to be holding up fine. I think I got a bit of a mental boost from the other runners, as they were all jogging at a much more casual pace than me. I lapped several of them and you can’t help but feel a little fast when you do that, even if they’re not exactly tearing up the place themselves.

Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):

km Sept 6 Sept 2 Aug 29 Aug 22 Aug 19 Aug 11 Aug 7 Aug 4
1 km 4:56 4:54 4:54 4:59 5:02 5:07 5:04 5:02
2 km 5:03 4:58 5:03 5:03 5:04 5:09 5:08 5:08
3 km 5:07 5:03 5:09 5:08 5:08 5:13 5:12 5:15
4 km 5:11 5:08 5:13 5:13 5:12 5:16 5:16 5:19
5 km 5:14 5:13 5:17 5:16 5:15 5:18 5:19 5:23
6 km 5:16 5:16 5:21 5:20 5:18 5:20 5:21 5:26
7 km 5:18 5:19 5:23 5:24 5:21 5:22 5:23 5:29
8 km 5:20 5:23 5:26 5:27 5:23 5:24 5:26 5:32
9 km 5:21 5:26 5:28 5:30 5:24 5:26 5:27 5:35
10 km 5:21 5:27 5:29 5:33 5:23 5:26 5:27 5:37