Average pace: 5:06/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.1 km
Weather: Sun
Temp: 32-30ºC
Wind: nil
Calories burned: 372
Total distance to date: 2255 km
Average pace: 5:16/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW), Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.02 km
Weather: Sun
Temp: 30-28ºC
Wind: nil
Calories burned: 363
Total distance to date: 2260 km
Today I deliberately planned to only run 5K, following the same route as yesterday. There were two changes. The first was starting time. I didn’t head out until about 6:50 p.m. and didn’t start the run until 7:24 p.m., hoping to avoid the sun and the worst of the day’s heat (despite it being even hotter than yesterday). The second was applying a liberal spraying of Off to my legs to avoid adding to my modest bug bite collection.
The change in time seemed to work, slightly. The run still felt more difficult than normal but I did finish with a better pace of 5:06/km, two seconds better than yesterday. I even saw a few other nutty types running. Given that it was 32ºC it actually didn’t feel as bad, again due to the higher than normal humidity.
The run otherwise was a match for yesterday and my feet held up nicely. I began walking back and along the way those same fee started getting itchy. I didn’t want to walk all the way back but neither did I want to cheese out by taking the SkyTrain when I exited the park. So after walking 2 km I set up another 5K run and took off again, running the rest of the lake trail, across Cariboo Road and back onto the Brunette River trail. I got maybe a third of the way up that when I hit 5K and then settled into a brisk walk for the rest of the way back.
The 2 km of walking between the runs didn’t really serve as a proper rest, as I kept moving at a good pace but it did allow me to catch my breath, cool down and settle my heart rate. I expected my time to be worse and it was, coming in at 5:16/km. On the other hand, I’m certain it would have been even worse if I had run the full 10K uninterrupted.
The forecast keeps changing hourly (“It’s going to be even hotter tomorrow! No, it’s not. Wait, yes it is! No, it’s going to be cooler. Wait, we were kidding. Hotter, definitely. Hahaha.”) so I have no idea what to expect come Tuesday but I suspect it will be about the same as it was yesterday–hotter than normal and probably too much to handle a full 10K. But we shall see.
Surprisingly, splitting today’s 10K in two seemed to work for the feet, with both still feeling fine afterward. The right tendon only twinged slightly on the second run while the left foot pretty much behaved itself.
I also managed to break 100 km for the month of June, which was nice and somewhat unexpected, given the number of shorter runs I’ve done. My stats:
103.94 km
5:06/km average pace
Compared to June 2012 when my feet were in much better shape:
140.54 km
4:54/km average pace
