One natural:
One not natural:
Run 963: Almost Omega Man
I did not pass by another person on my run until about 4.75 km in, and the guy was the only person I passed before completing the run. For most of the time I was on the trail by myself and on a cloudy day, it felt almost a little spooky. But also nice. Nice and spooky.
My Garmin Forerunner 255 had a plan for today: Rest Day.
I defied it and headed to the lake. When I chose to start the run, it implored me to rest but if I insisted, to keep it short and lower intensity, due to fatigue. I did not keep it short, as I still ran 5K, but I did a short loop, which cut out 5 km of walking afterward. As for intensity, I eased up a bit (slowing to 6:00/km for the second lap, even), but kind of forgot toward the end and finished with a final lap of 5:37/km.
Partway through, I did actually feel a bit tired. It never felt like a slog, but it was very humid again. Fortunately, the sweatiness was the only real issue and the overall pace of 5:52/km is perfectly cromulent for a more relaxed start to the week.
Stats:
Run 963
Average pace: 5:52/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop)
Start: 9:30 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:28
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 17-18°C
Humidity: 91-88%
Wind: light
BPM: 148
Weight: 164.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,645 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (240/536/776)
Music: Parallel Lines, Blondie
Some local photos, September 9, 2025
What the title says.
Run 962: Jekyll and Hyde
Today’s run promised to be mostly cloudy, and it was. Yay! It was even more humid than before at 88%, but the cooler temperatures meant I sweated less than on Friday.
I also got in one of my earliest starts, beginning the actual run at 9:05 a.m. It was quieter on the trail, too, which was nice.
I was curious how my pace would be after the first km and was mildly alarmed when the watch reported 5:51/km, as this seemed kind of slow. The second km improved by a second, which may not seem like much, but is actually significant, because I normally slow on the second lap. From there I transformed from the slower Dr. Jekyll to the zippy Mr. Hyde. I’m probably not using the right metaphor here, but the point is I got faster as the run progressed, getting all the way down to 5:24/km for the final lap and an overall pace of 5:41/km. I even managed a lower BPM, at only 148.
With no issues, other than a slowish start, this was a good run to start the week.
Stats:
Run 962
Average pace: 5:41/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 9:05 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:35
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 17-18°C
Humidity: 88-85%
Wind: light
BPM: 148
Weight: 164.8
Total distance to date: 6,640 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (235/528/763)
Music: Beauty and the Beat, The Go-Go's
Birding, September 5, 2025: I heard you like herons
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Richmond Nature House, Terra Nova (Richmond), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Hazy sun, 19-23°C
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
For the second visit in a row, the gate was open at Reifel, meaning bookings were so low they opened the sanctuary to walk-ins. Er, drive-ins, I guess.
For the first half it was very quiet, apart from hardcore birders and their immense lenses, but more people filtered in later. As for birds, we did not see any coots here, or any other new migrants. Boo. But soon™.
We did a few more shovellers, so they are slowly coming out from wherever they hide in the off-season. The geese were plentiful, but were generally in an odd state of serenity, some of them looking downright relaxed, or even content. Very un-goose. Down on the bill was the fashion accessory of note.
Sadly absent were the Sandhill cranes. Hopefully we just missed them and they haven’t just flow off.
In place of the cranes were herons. Herons on the ground. Herons in the water. Herons in the air. Herons in trees. Herons on logs. Everywhere you looked, there was a heron.
The visibility of songbirds is increasing as we move close to the fall, and chickadees in particular are making themselves more known, though they continue to be manic and hard to photograph. We also saw some bushtits (heh heh), which we don’t spot too often here.
Everything is still looking lush and summer-like, but some of the leaves are coming down in a distinctly fall-like manner, and this may be one of our last t-shirt visits for the year. Still, it was perfectly pleasant, as always.
Richmond Nature House
Nic wanted to gamble on the Nature House, but other than the hummingbird feeders, the others are still bereft of seed, so birds were scarce. We did see a hummingbird, though! Then we walked the Bog Trail and Time Trail, but I observed neither a bog nor experienced any time travel. Disappointing!
Terra Nova
Other than pollinators and fixed-wing birds, we didn’t see much avian action here, other than some waterfowl way off on the shoreline and a grebe hanging out in the pond, which is their usual haunt (and also too far away to get shots without an arm-breakingly huge lens). The views are always worth checking, though. And we were encouraged to go walking and exploring to get away from an ice cream truck that had “Happy Birthday” playing on a loop near the entrance.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
The weather rapidly began turning after we got to Piper Spit and by the time we left, the sky was quite dark for late afternoon as fat shower clouds rolled in. Several groups of Bad People were again feeding the birds. Boo and hiss. I opted not to shoot any of the birds gorging themselves on the illicit seed. They don’t know, but I do!
Apart from that, the land mass is now quite gigantic and is encroaching farther toward the pier. The increasingly shallow water meant some yellowlegs were poking about a bit closer than usual, which was fun. Multiple wood ducks are now in their full breeding colours and demonstrating that they are the prettiest boys around, with male mallards not too far behind in getting their iridescent green back.
We did see a green-winged teal, so the slow arrival of migrants continues. The one coot was still present, swimming about drama-free for now.
Shortly after leaving, the sky opened up, and we got a big, if brief, dump of rain. The day of birding remained dry and with mild temperatures, however, and the sporadic arrival of migrants bodes well for more sightings in the near-future.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A few shots:
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American bushtit
- Anna’s hummingbird
- Black-capped chickadee
- Dark-eyed junco (says Nic)
- House sparrow
- Red-winged blackbird
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American coot (One! Possibly the same one.)
- American wigeon (one!)
- Canada goose
- Double-crested cormorant
- Great blue heron
- Greater yellowlegs
- Green-winged teal
- Hooded merganser
- Long-billed dowitcher
- Mallard
- Northern pintail
- Northern shoveller
- Pied-billed grebe
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Rock pigeon
- Various gulls
Raptors:
- None. Maybe?
Non-birds:
- Copious pollinators
- One black squirrel, one gray squirrel
Run 961: Humid, hazy, high-speed (relatively)
With smoke haze blotting out most of the sun, I set out for my first run since Monday (I missed Wednesday due to a morning appointment and other errands) under conditions that were remarkably similar in terms of temperature and humidity.
The haze may have actually helped, because it kept the sun veiled, but was high enough that the air down at jogging level wasn’t smoky and awful.
I decided to start by the drinking fountain, after getting a drink, instead of at the 0K marker, which saved me having to start the run by going up a big hill. This may have put some extra pep in my step, as the first km was 5:38/km, quite speedy for me. I only dropped a little in the second km and maintained a zippy pace overall for an average 5:39/km, the first time I’ve hit under 5:40 in a good while. My BPM was up to 152, but given the higher humidity and effort, this was not surprising.
I experienced a few moments when the right shin said hello, but it was fleeting and other than that, no issues at all.
In all, a good way to end the week, despite the presence of the smoke haze.
Stats:
Run 961
Average pace: 5:39/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 9:39 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:27
Weather: Sun, smoke haze
Temp: 19-20°C
Humidity: 87-84%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 164.6
Total distance to date: 6,635 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (230/515/745)
Music: Eye in the Sky, The Alan Parsons Project
Another view of the Brunette River
The air quality today was not poison, hooray.
While the river is still low, I’m continuing to poke around to get views that are not normally accessible without getting very wet. Here’s another one of them.
I’ll post something of more substance soon, promise!
Air quality: We don’t need no stinkin’ air quality
Or to be more precise, the air quality currently stinks, due to smoke.
This morning, the Air Quality Index (AQI) was 3, which is a bit higher than normal. It is now 9, and shows thusly on my iPhone:
High Health Risk! Yikes. Also, it was very warm and muggy, which is probably contributing. The AQ map looks very angry:
I went for a walk and it smelled just like that map:
The smoke is coming from wildfires, so in a way, we’re lucky that it didn’t get here until relatively late in the season. It’s likely to persist until we see a significant change in the weather (showers, etc.) All part of the magic of climate change!
Some flowers, September 3, 2025
A whole bed:
And a single wildflower:
Also, a rose:
Two unofficial signs that summer has ended
- The arrival of the pumpkin spice scourge:
2. The pool at Hume Park with no one in it on a gorgeous, warm summer day, because it’s now closed for the season but hasn’t been drained yet:
Birding, August 30, 2025: Merry Cootmas!
Where: Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver), Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 21-24°C
Maplewood Flats
It was birding all over the place today. The only thing missing was the birbs. We heard a few and eventually saw a few, but it was mostly waterfowl and the like as songbirds seemed to prefer hiding away on what was a very humid day.
We began at Maplewood Flats and saw and heard a few chickadees, spotted some cormorants offshore, and a few gulls, but a promised sandpiper remained elusive. The scenery is always nice here, though.
Blakeburn Lagoons Park
We went to Blakeburn Lagoons to search for the elusive green heron. It remained elusive. We did see several great blue herons as compensation.
Otherwise, it was ducks and plenty of them, along with a solitary Canada goose, the only one we saw today (I think).
Tlahutum Regional Park
There were ducks in the main pond at Tlahutum and a couple of bald eagles flapping high overhead, but very few other birds were making themselves visible, so we made do with shooting flowers and the many pollinators tending to them.
Piper Spit
The land mass at Piper Spit is not only back, but fairly massive. A few small shorebirds were darting about on it, but most birds preferred the water. In the water, we saw the usual mix of mallards and wood ducks, along with a pair of hooded mergansers, but no geese. And lo, there was the first coot of the season, swimming about by itself and looking glorious and weird. It’s as much a sign of fall coming as the proliferation of pumpkin spice in everything from muffins to school supplies (probably).
Several people were stupidly feeding the birds again. Having recently seen bears up close and personal here, I feel comfortable in calling their actions stupid.
But we also saw a song sparrow. Just one, but it stopped hopping just long enough to let us get some decent shots. A few wood duck males were also back to near-full, resplendent mullets.
In all, a fine day of birding, even with the scarcity of birbs.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A few shots:
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
- Black-capped chickadee
- Purple martin
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee (heard, not seen)
- White-crowned sparrow (heard, not seen)
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American coot (one!)
- Canada goose
- Common merganser
- Double-crested cormorant
- Great blue heron
- Hooded merganser
- Long-billed dowitcher
- Mallard
- Northern pintail
- Pied-billed grebe
- Western sandpiper
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Rock pigeon
- Various gulls
Raptors:
- Red-tailed hawk
Non-birds:
- Copious pollinators
- Raccoons (actually after birding, and in my neighbourhood. I think they were having a meeting over lunch)
Run 960: Lovely Labour Day clouds
Today was a good run day.
Normally, I would have been a wee bit concerned about traffic on the trail, given that today is a statutory holiday–Labour Day. But thanks probably largely to cloudy skies, the crowds were smaller than they might have been. One small dog off-leash did smoosh its cold snout into my calf post-run, though.
I opted to go clockwise and got a strong start–and just kept going. The second km dip was small, then I improved each lap after, for an overall pace of 5:42/km, my best in a few weeks, and a BPM of 147, reflecting the more favourable conditions. Even the humidity, which started at an absurdly high 85%, didn’t slow me down, though sweating was constant and ongoing.
The right shin was almost back to normal, and I didn’t experience any other issues.
Overall, a very nice start to the week.
Stats:
Run 960
Average pace: 5:42/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:53 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:40
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 19-20°C
Humidity: 85-82%
Wind: light
BPM: 147
Weight: 165.5
Total distance to date: 6,630 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (225/502/727)
Music: Lifes Rich Pageant (R.E.M.)