I was somewhat lazy today, plus it was coming down in proverbial buckets outside and was unseasonably cool, to boot. By early evening I was once again faced with having to either get off my butt and hit the treadmill or fail to meet my daily activity goals.
As has happened more often of late, guilt won out and I did half an hour on the treadmill. Acting a bit in reverse, I finished stronger than I started, mostly, I think, to the music getting peppier toward the end. It was also a faster workout than on Monday, which is nice.
Stats:
Pace: 9:20/km (9:32 km/h)
Time: 30:06 (30:14)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 282 (266)
BPM: 135 (128)
I was a tad slower on the walk out, possibly because it was a bit chillier this afternoon. Once I got warmed up I was fine and even had that “could just keep on going” feeling during the running part. It was nice.
In the areas where there is still decent canopy there was a definite sense of deepening shadows as the days grow shorter. If I was still doing my usual afternoon commute it would already be getting dark too early to run outside after work.
Checking the sunsets that are coming up, it looks like the last day I’ll be able to do a one-hour outdoor workout and still be back before the sun goes down is October 31 when the sun sets at 5:50 p.m. That’s actually twenty minutes early, but we switch back to Standard Time (boo) on November 1, so the sunset suddenly jumps up by one hour to 4:49 p.m., which is only 19 minutes after I’d head out. This makes me sad and makes the yearly switch back to “Standard” time seem all the more dumb and unnecessary.
Also, October 31 is a Saturday, so the real last day would be Friday, October 30, just nine days from now. It’s funny, I had completely forgotten about the time change. Bleah.
Anyway, today’s workout was good and I shall cherish and delight in it.
Stats:
Walk 24Average pace: 7:40/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.85 km
Time: 60:16
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 10ºC
Humidity: 65%
Wind: light
BPM: 128
Weight: 170.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 184.76 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Do nothing, perhaps find some chocolate something to eat
I felt lazy (it is Monday after all), but not that lazy, so I ended up choosing the second option. I was fairly plodding for the first two km, perhaps because of the Mondayness of the situation, but picked it up a little to round out the exercise. Nothing special to report, save for sweating a whole lot less due to that pokiness (BPM was also accordingly down). I went back to listening to music as I couldn’t find an easy way to queue up YouTube videos to watch (also the YouTube app is kind of bad/janky). Maybe I should have watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (I ended up doing that over dinner).
Stats:
Pace: 9:32/km (9:22 km/h)
Time: 30:14 (30:11)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.22 km)
Calories burned: 266 (288)
BPM: 128 (135)
Eleven days later and the temperature went from 21ºC to 11ºC. That said, there was virtually no breeze, so it didn’t really feel like 11. It was also nice to be outside again after a week and a half, even with all the BDOs (Bad Dog Owners) on the trail.
I’m writing this a day later because I just plain forgot to write about the workout afterward, distracted by shiny objects and other things and it’s surprisingly difficult to remember particular details even a mere 24 hours later.
I felt pretty good throughout and had no issue on the run portion, posting a fairly zippy pace. The dog owners were somewhat annoying, but the dogs themselves stayed out of the way. Although it was the weekend, I was somewhat surprised by the number of people out, as the sky threatened rain (though it didn’t actually come).
Overall, a nice trip back into the outdoors before it gets too dark and cold to do it for another season.
Stats:
Walk 23Average pace: 7:29/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.87 km
Time: 58:51
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 11ºC
Humidity: 90%
Wind: light
BPM: 132
Weight: 170.2 pounds
Total distance to date: 176.91 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Maybe tomorrow! The forecast calls for light rain, which is just the sort of thing to keep people–and maybe even a few dog owners–off the trails. Not that I’m anti-people, I just like having lots of room to run. Yeah.
Tonight’s workout was slightly different in that I started out listening to music, then decided to watch YouTube videos instead, since I’m subbed to a thousand tech and creative channels and only watch any of them sporadically. It worked out well. I watched Snazzy Labs’ longer take on the recent Apple iPhone 12 event and I absolutely adore Quinn Nelson’s delivery. He does deadpan so well. After the video ended I listened to more music (I am still working through my entire song list alphabetically–I’m up to the E’s now) because trying to pull up additional videos while walking very fast on a steeply-inclined treadmill is…tricky. Maybe Siri can help. Or just start pulling up random stuff, which is almost as likely.
One other thing I’ll note is how delightful it was to have my AirPods seamlessly switch from the iPhone to the iPad Pro and back again. This is one of those little things Apple does so well. It’s inspired me to start a Good Design category on the blog to counter the negative of the Bad Design one.
Anyway, the workout itself was fine. I started slow, got very fast, the ended a bit slower, so apparently Snazzy Labs is very motivational for exercise. The stats are pretty similar to what I usually see, as you may observe below (the workout went on slightly longer because I got distracted by the music at the end, which is a pretty rare thing itself):
Pace: 9:22/km (9:27 km/h)
Time: 30:11 (30:06)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.18 km)
Calories burned: 288 (281)
BPM: 135 (133)
Tonight I tired to really focus away from the display–both on the treadmill and on the watch, allowing my mind to wander around instead of obsessively checking whatever my current pace was. It mostly worked!
My pace was a little better and my BPM was a little lower, both good things. Distracted walking works. Or at least it did, in a small way, tonight.
Stats:
Pace: 9:27/km (9:30 km/h)
Time: 30:06 (30:03)
Distance: 3.18 km (3.16 km)
Calories burned: 281 (296)
BPM: 133 (139)
I was slothful today and by evening I had to weigh the guilt of being lazy and failing to reach all but my stand goal vs. having to overcome the laziness and do a treadmill workout.
In the end I did the workout, though the last km I started to plod a little (and sweat a lot). But still, I did not surrender entirely to being lazy, so yay for me.
Stats:
Pace: 9:30/km (9:16 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (40:03)
Distance: 3.16 km (4.32 km)
Calories burned: 296 (358)
BPM: 139 (134)
With wind warnings in effect I opted to not go for a walk/run after work because I don’t have being clobbered up the side of the head by flying branches.
And because I had been somewhat slothful today, I worked out for 40 minutes instead of 30, hence the differences in the stats below (though pace was only a little off, really). It was a good workout, though. I wore a muscle shirt and felt macho.
Pace: 9:16/km (9:12 km/h)
Time: 40:03 (30:03)
Distance: 4.32 km (3.26 km)
Calories burned: 358 (297)
BPM: 134 (139)
I spent all day inside cleaning and organizing but alas, this was not quite enough to complete my rings, so I contemplated walking outside in the dark or hitting the treadmill and the treadmill won. Not that I’m afraid of walking in the dark, it’s just most of the streets here have poor lighting and I have poor night vision to go along with it.
I was surprisingly spry and for some reason decided to leave my shirt on (I usually take it off indoors where my shocking white flesh won’t blind innocent bystanders). While it did make for a slightly warmer run, the shirt actually kept a lot of the sweat from running all over, so I may have to go topmore (?) again.
As the stats below show, I was in the groove tonight, which kind of surprised me. But I’ll take it.
Pace: 9:12/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:06)
Distance: 3.26 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 297 (286)
BPM: 139 (136)
Early fall weather continues to be weird and summer-like as it was around 21 when I went out this afternoon. The crispness in the air was largely gone, too. It really could have been a day in mid-June.
I had a bit more pep in my stride and only one USI (Untied Shoelace Incident). The running part came in around an average of 5:40/km, which was nice. And every dog (well, the one I saw) was on leash. Yay.
After taking the day off yesterday it was good to get out and aboot again.
Stats:
Walk 22Average pace: 7:35/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.61 km
Time: 57:40
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 21ºC
Humidity: 67%
Wind: light
BPM: 129
Weight: 170.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 169.04 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Even though it was 18 degrees, it felt a lot cooler, with a bit of a breeze blowing and almost all of the river trail now in the shade. It wasn’t uncomfortable by any means, but the bite of fall air is definitely there.
Perhaps because I was feeling a bit cooler heading out (but not in the Fonzie way), my pace was slower on the walk segment and a tad slower on the running part, but still not bad overall. I’d call this workout pretty average, with BPM and other stats reflecting that. Not bad, just…fine.
Stats:
Walk 21Average pace: 7:44/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.65 km
Time: 59:07
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 67%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 122
Weight: 169.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 161.43 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Today the temperature was a bit cooler, but it was still higher than normal and sunny and warm, so it was nice for walking and running. I also started out in the morning to try to beat the crowds, which didn’t exactly work, but there were no dog incidents or crazed cyclists or anything.
My tiny bladder didn’t set off the alarm bells at the usual point, so I opted to do an extra leg into Burnaby Lake and use the Jiffy John there. I finished in a jiffy because those things are gross, stopped to take a few pics of the lake, then headed back, covering a little over 9 km. My running pace was not as blistering today, but that’s okay, it was still fine. It’s funny how quickly I get used to the improvements in pace and then shrug them off as no big thing when they are actually quite nice to see.
Anyway, Nic and I went bird watching at the lake later and I ended up covering over 26 km today, so I am possibly re-thinking my plan to do a full run tomorrow. We shall see.
Stats:
Walk 20Average pace: 7:35/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 9.13 km
Time: 1:09:15
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 77%
Wind: light
BPM: 127
Weight: 170.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 153.78 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
