After feeling incredibly unmotivated and laying on the bed staring at the ceiling, content to do absolutely as little as possible, I finally got up, changed and went out for some sort of exercise.
I settled on a walk, but ended up running quite a bit, enough that I lopped almost a full minute off the pace of my previous walk and over seven minutes in total time. I felt pretty good!
After a few drops at the start, the threat of rain ended, and it actually got sunny–and a tad muggy–in the latter half of the outing. I experienced no issues, but did notice my BPM getting to 163 during the second km of the running part, so I cooled the proverbial jets and brought it back down. The two full km of running saw paces of 5:57 and 5:40/km. Even the last km came in at 6:34/km, so generally zippy.
As I climbed the hills in Lower Hume Park and Fader Street, I no longer silently cried out for a giant friendly owl to gently pick me up and drop me off at the top. Instead, I got to the tops of the hills and just kept running. Crazy. I think my stamina is finally starting to notch up a little after its long pandemic slumber.
Stats:
Walk 72Average pace: 7:38/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 8.03 km
Time: 61:20
Weather: Sun and cloud
Temp: 16ºC
Humidity: 64%
Wind: light
BPM: 130
Weight: 170.1 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 540.57 km
Today isn’t a workout day, but I did want to go for a pleasant afternoon walk to hit my exercise goal. As I prepared to don m walkin’ shoes, I noticed that it looked wet outside. Rain!
This is pretty normal for June, actually, so instead of waiting for the shower to pass, I jumped on the treadmill for a half hour of hands-free walking. It went fine, though I felt a bit wobbly at the start, having forgotten just how much leg power is needed to stay on the treadmill when you don’t cheat by hanging on with your hands.
The workout went fine otherwise, with stats very similar to the last workout, save for the expectedly lower BPM and calorie burn. I’ll celebrate with a giant tub of ice cream*!
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 681Average 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!
Still Creek. The trail is just to the left and was goose-free today. At this point, at least.
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:
Note that this part will food even when they run the sprinklers, just not as extensively. Also, the guy farther up was apparently fishing, or just really liked sitting around with big nets.
Stats:
Run 680Average 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)
The weather forecast today contained the words “atmospheric river” and that meant it was time to hit the treadmill!
I did a 5K “hands-free” workout and performance was very similar to the previous workout. I was slightly worse in most respects, and I blame that on being somewhat more enthralled with the videos I was watching on the iPad.
Other than that, it was fine, and I’m glad to have worked out, even if I would have preferred being out in the sun. Maybe in July, ho ho! Seriously, though, the 10-day forecast has some kind of rain listed every day except for one random Wednesday. Not that I’m asking for another heat dome, mind you!
After wearing myself out yesterday, I mulled what to do for exercise today and decided to walk to the end of the river trail and back, which would provide a nice mild workout and not cause my legs to scream/cry in protest.
But as a bonus, I actually did run off and on during the return part of the trek and turned in a decent average pace of 8:36/km. My legs did not scream or cry.
I am still wearing my Brooks Caldera 5 shoes and even after all this time I am still annoyed at how strangely long the laces are and the way they tie up, which is just slightly different from pretty much any other running shoe with laces I’ve ever had. I have begun covetously eyeing the Hoka One One Speedgoat 5s. My last Speedgoats were great (other than the color-bleeding) and I’d like to have some nice cushy running shoes again.
Tomorrow, unless we are experiencing some combo of torrential rain/lightning/hail, I will attempt a 5K on the river trail and see how my legs hold up. Or if they will still hold me up.
Stats:
Walk 71Average pace: 8:36/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 8.01 km
Time: 68:55
Weather: Sun and cloud
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 61%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 117
Weight: 172.2 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 532.54 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 679Average 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)
Today is a run day. It also happens to be pouring like crazy out there, so hard the rain was banging like a drum off gutters and things.
I opted to stay inside and do a 5K workout on the treadmill using my new hands-free “real workout” technique!
Because it’s been warm and wet, it’s also been a tad humid and for security reasons, I don’t work out on the treadmill with the deck door of the living room opened, so I ended up sweating a lot. Like, a whole lot. Copious amounts. Almost excessively. I can also vouch that doing a full 5K hands-free definitely feels like a bigger effort than hands-on.
That said, it all went well, and my pace improved over the previous outing, too. I also burned more than a few calories, which puddled around my feet.
It’s that time of the year and the cottonwood dander is flying again. Fortunately, I didn’t ingest any on today’s outing.
I decided to just do today’s walk/run in one big lump instead of dividing the walking and running bits, but my pace on the running section was strangely zippy–the first km came in at 5:36/km, by far my best pace so far this year.
The other thing of note was the temperature–a downright balmy 22C–balmy, at least compared to what we’ve been getting. It was cloudy and a bit humid, so I did not suffer any dry mouth, which was nice.
This was originally meant to be a full 5K run, but I started late. I ran around 3 km or so in total, so still not a bad effort. I’ll try doing a full run again on Friday. Overall, I am pleased with today’s results.
Stats:
Walk 70Average pace: 7:46/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.59 km
Time: 58:59
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 48%
Wind: light
BPM: 131
Weight: 172.6 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 524.53 km
After reading that holding onto the hand grips during a treadmill walkout is a Bad Thing (because it takes a lot of work off your legs) and while also feeling lazy today about going out for a run, I decided to try a treadmill workout hands-free. Good news: I didn’t fall off!
I set the speed to the usual 6.5 (pace of 9:13/km) but set the incline to 3 instead of 5 to see how that would go. It definitely felt weird to not be holding on, but in the end it turned out I really didn’t need to. I’ve been needlessly wimping out this entire time! I went for 30 minutes rather than the usual 45ish, so next time I will go longer and may bump the incline back up to 5 to see how that goes, then I’ll be able to see a true direct comparison between holding out/easy mode and testing just how coordinated I really am on top of moving objects.
No issues during the workout. Note the increased BPM. It’s like I really was working harder! The pace was slower because I could not count on the steely grip of my hands saving me from going splat.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5
Incline: 3 (down from 5)
Pace: 9:01/km (8:43/km)
Time: 30:03 (44:09)
Distance: 3.33 km (5.06 km)
Calories burned: 252 (332)
BPM: 126 (121)
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.
Coyote? Dog? Chupacabra?
Run 678Average 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)
Why is this slightly silly? Mainly because when people shop at a place like Costco, they are buying enough stuff to fill a skid and this requires some form of motorized transport to get home. Walking will only allow you to carry a couple of 10 kg jars of pickles, tops.
Still, I made the four km journey on foot, did my shopping, then filled my backpack and two grocery bags (no pickles), putting the heaviest stuff in the backpack. Then I did something that was also slightly sillier still.
I walked back home carrying all this stuff. At about the halfway point I stopped to adjust the straps on my backpack, because the weight of the items felt like it was trying to pull my shoulders off. Adjusting it so the backpack sat higher fixed this nicely. I’ll admit that trekking up the multiple flights of stairs in Hume Park was interesting, but I have enough stamina now to do these things without stopping. I did stop again, though, to rest my hands. The bag handles were digging into my flesh. I think this is because they don’t really expect you to normally carry heavy bags on 45-minute walks.
Also, I totally beat the rain. It was cloudy but warm when I went, and a few hours later our unfun soggy spring resumed its unfun soggy spring ways.
Stats, split in two for double the fun:
Walk 69, Part 1Average pace: 9:42/km
Location: Brunette River trail and beyond
Distance: 4.13 km
Time: 40:06
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 16ºC
Humidity: 60%
Wind: light
BPM: 106
Weight: 173.8 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 512.77 km
And the exact same route, in reverse, but with a thousand kilograms of bulk products from Costco along for the walk. Note the pace, calorie burn and BPM have risen accordingly.
Walk 69, Part 2Average pace: 10:50/km
Location: Brunette River trail and beyond
Distance: 4.17 km
Time: 45:13
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 50%
Wind: light
BPM: 111
Weight: 173.8 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 516.94 km
