Today I got carried away with stuff in the morning and pondered putting off my usual Friday run. Instead, I opted to head out later than usual–at 1:30. This meant that it was already 27°C when I got to the lake.
Undaunted, and reasonably well-hydrated, I set off clockwise along the largely exposed Avalon Trail, knowing it would eventually lead me to the much more shady Southshore Trail with its pine trees and squirrels and such. My first km pace was 5:54/km–pretty slow, but fine, because:
I’m still out of shape from lack of running
I am not 100% recovered from my summer cold (lung capacity is reduced)
It was much warmer than what I am used to
Then, partway through the second km, I got a text message. It was strata stuff. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. I paused to note I was on a run and to hold off on further notices. But the damage was done. I could no longer focus on the run, and the heat wasn’t helping, either. I stopped at 1.31 km total, with an average pace of 5:53/km. :sadtrombone:
However, I still got a Training Status of Productive after the short run. Yay! But then after the 4K walk back, it switched to Overreaching again. Whoops.
Anyway, I’m including the usual stats below, but I’ve opted not to count the run part in the total distance, because it would drive my OCD batty to have the total distance end in 1.31.
Post-run shot taken west of Cariboo Dam.
Run 870 Average pace: 5:53/km Training status: Productive (after run), Overreaching (after 4 km walk home) Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 2:21 p.m. Distance: 1.31 km Time: 7:41 Weather: Sunny Temp: 27°C Humidity: 47% Wind: light BPM: 148 Weight: 168.1 Total distance to date: 6,215 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (355/685/1,044 km)
Yes, in an amazing turn of events, I have run not once, but twice in the same week. Woo!
Today I opted to run the easier river trail, as a way of easing back into a semi-regular run routine. I was hoping for two things: lower BPM and a faster pace. And I got both. Also woo!
My BPM was 153 overall and my pace was 6:01/km, down seven seconds from Monday. I am slightly disappointed I didn’t break six minutes, but the first km pace was oddly the same as Monday–5:50–when I would have expected it to be faster. I can only assume I was subconsciously running slower to help conserve energy. Still, I’m pleased with the results.
Conditions were very similar to Monday, but the slightly cooler temperature and stronger breeze made it feel a bit more comfy, which was nice in the way a Jamaican patty is nice. And they are nice.
Also nice was the relative lack of other people, as it was just a regular weekday.
Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. We’ll see how Friday goes, as it is looking to be Africa hot.
It is getting increasingly tricky to shoot the river over the incredibly lush vegetation.
Stats:
Run 869 Average pace: 6:01/km Training status: Overreaching (whoops) Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 10:56 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 30:13 Weather: Sunny Temp: 18-19°C Humidity: 68-67% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 153 Weight: 167.9 Total distance to date: 6,215 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (355/685/1,040 km)
It has been 18 days since my first 5K in two months. This was not my intention.
But after running on June 13th, I came down with a summer cold, curiously around the same time one struck last year. And so it was I had to wait until I was mostly recovered before officially tackling a 5K again. I knew that the combo of not running much plus not being 100% would affect my pace, and it did. I turned in my first 6+ minute pace in quite some time, coming in at 6:08/km.
Which wasn’t so bad vs. how I felt, because by the end that 5 km was feeling more like 500.
On the plus side, I am suffering no ill effects post-run, and didn’t have any issues while running, other than feeling very slow and tired. I completed the first km with a pace of 5:50, but could feel myself slowing in the second, where I dropped to 6:08. I dropped to 6:18 on the third and decided to cheat just a little.
At the 3K marker (the actual marker, I had already passed 3 km total), I paused the run, then walked to Phillips Point, which, according to Google Maps, is about a 168 m round-trip. There were a couple of people fishing there, which was a bit weird, so I only paused for a moment before heading back to the 3K marker and resuming the run. This allowed my heart rate to drop from 158 to 141, which definitely helped on the last two km, which had paces of 6:13 and 6:10.
After finishing the run, I made a beeline across the field to the drinking fountain at the playground and supped on it like a very thirsty runner.
Another plus: My training status went from Recovery to Productive. Woo!
Although humidity was high, my lips felt a bit dry, though I didn’t experience any notable dry mouth. I hate dry mouth.
And as it was Canada Day, the trail was more crowded than usual, but all dogs were leashed and people were attentive, even considerate! Hooray for polite Canadians.
Oh, and the title refers to the numerous potholes along the trail that have recently been patched. Some sections could still use a full resurfacing, but no signs of it yet. And speaking of resurfacing, of a sort, the first boardwalk as you go clockwise is canting at even more diverse angles than before. It is over two years since the signs there went up noting that “repairs are planned.” Hopefully they will happen before the boardwalk sinks into the marsh.
Overall, it was good to get back out, good to prove I could still do 5K, and hopefully the next run will be a bit easier and happen in a few days and not a few weeks.
A lake of lily pads, post-run.
Stats:
Run 868 Average pace: 6:08/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 11:29 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 30:51 Weather: Sunny Temp: 20°C Humidity: 68-66% Wind: light BPM: 155 Weight: 169.0 Total distance to date: 6,210 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (350/681/1031 km)
…is the title of a Rick Beato video on YouTube. You can watch it below.
Rick attributes the current state of pop music (bad) to two things:
Music is really easy to make now, thanks to various software and hardware tools
Music is really easy to listen to now, thanks to streaming services
I think he’s right. In the video he lays out how much work went into recording a typical rock band, with drums alone requiring multiple mics (and a good drummer), where today it’s…a drum machine. Vocalists needed to sing on pitch, and the opportunity to fix mistakes originally meant having to re-record. Then came autotune, pitch correction software and the equivalent for instruments. Now anyone could sing, and the voice could be processed any way you like. When something hit, it was easy to reproduce…and was, by everyone looking to score a hit. The sheer volume of music increased as it became easier to make. And this is before you even consider the horror of AI-generated music.
As he notes, over 100,000 songs were added to streaming services over the last year, a rate of about one per second. This isn’t a stream, it’s a torrent1See what I did there?.
Then he explains how music in the olden times (my time) was something to be sought, acquired and savoured. Sure, it feels a bit “I had to walk both ways uphill in the snow” but again, he’s right. I remember saving for an album, having to go to the record store to buy it, take it home, then listen to it. If I liked it, I might loan it to a friend. Buying an album was a thing. Today, for $10.99 a month (about what one of those albums used to cost), you get a virtually endless supply of music on demand. You don’t have to seek it out, it’s just there, in an app. Combined with the sheer volume (heh heh) of the music output, it cultivates a feeling, especially in those who are growing up with streaming services, that music is nothing special–it’s just background noise. Don’t like a song? Just skip to the next random track. Let the software build a playlist for you. You don’t need to do anything, just listen. There is no investment, no value. It’s product.
And everything kind of sounds the same.
As I’m typing this, I’m listening to Boney M’s Nightflight to Venus, a 1978 album that gleefully celebrates its disco roots. It’s silly, bonkers, but also super catchy, with terrific harmonized vocals. It even covers a nice variety of styles, not just disco. I mean, it has a cover of “King of the Road.”
Today, an equivalent album would likely be composed on a computer, probably feature hyper-processed autotuned vocals, a drum machine and probably no actual guitars. It would be musical sludge, a pile of muck in a larger pile of indistinguishable muck. But hey, there’s a million other songs on tap, so just skip to something else if you don’t like it. The pool is big.
Anyway, the video is worth a watch, and helps explain why I spend more time listening to my ripped CD collection in Windows Media Player than I do listening to the nigh-endless selection of songs on Apple Music2Consider that I started buying my own music around 1977, which is 38 years before Apple Music existed.
I had early success in June, dropping to 168.4 pounds after starting the month at 169, but then started to seesaw through most of the rest of the month. On June 23 I somehow managed to gain 1.7 pounds overnight, ballooning to 171.5 pounds.
However, the next seven days I lost weight every day, save for one, where I maintained. I ended up dropping 3.4 pounds during this week, which is kind of crazy. I didn’t skip meals or anything, I just didn’t snack much and walked about a billion steps.
I also spent several weeks enduring a summer cold (or what I assume was a summer cold), however this did not affect my appetite, though I did refrain from running.
I will maintain the low-impact snacks and walking (and soon, running) and hopefully the downward trend will continue in July as I approach my proper slim ‘n sexy weight.
Weight: January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds Current: 168.1 pounds Year to date: Down 4.2 pounds
June 1: 169.0 pounds June 30: 168.1 pounds (down 0.9 pounds)
Body fat: June 1: 26.0% June 30: 25.8% (down 0.2%)
Skeletal muscle mass: June 1: 30.0% June 30: 29.9% (down 0.1%)
Serene and bird-free pond. (Technically, there were a few birds.)
For the first time since we began visiting Reifel, we got stopped as the bridge to Westham Island was rotated to allow a sailboat to pass through. It was kind of neat for the first few seconds, then it was just mostly waiting for it to swing back so we could actually get to the birds.
Once there, I noticed the gusting wind of the last few visits was mostly being absent. It cleared up earlier than perhaps expected, and I slapped on sunblock midway through. I only got a little bit of a burn where the camera strap tugs near the top of my t-shirt. I blame a lack of mirror during application.
The wood ducks have vacated the sanctuary again, though I have no idea where they go, because they always come back at some point. This meant most areas were dominated by mallards. The geese seemed to have claimed the main pond by the west dyke and were disturbingly quiet, most of them spending their time napping, like they’re conserving energy for an invasion or something. I don’t think I heard a single honk. Eerie!
There were cowbirds on hand, and they were acting weird–something we would see again at Piper Spit, as the guys were showing off to each other and the women. None seemed particularly impressed. But they persevered, puffing up their feathers, arching their heads back and making lots of weird little peeps and calls.
The freaky catfish have returned to the London Slough, affording us some delightfully hideous shots of them, as they congregate near the surface and directly below the railing overlooking the slough.
We did not see any marsh wrens this time, but Nic managed a few photos of a Bewick’s wren. There were a few chickadees around, but only a few, and I could only get butt shots. But they were nicely detailed butt shots.
They couldn’t touch the robin butt shot that Nic got. That one was truly spectacular, hall of fame material.
The other highlights:
A juvenile killdeer! Cute! But a little too far away to get great shots.
Ducklings! Several groups, one quite close to us, still fairly young, so very fuzzy and adorable. We also saw some juveniles, which look more like mini adult ducks now. Strangely, we did not see any goslings.
Several small groups of greater yellowlegs hanging out in the main pond by the outer dyke. There’s been a bit of a paucity of shorebirds lately, so this was nice.
We saw a mysterious sooty-coloured bird sitting up in a tree between two of the inner ponds. It looks like an all-black swallow. Merlin suggested a Northern rough-winged swallow, which is a clear miss, and even a brown-headed cowbird, also a million miles off. It’s rare to stump Merlin when you have pretty clear shots of the bird in question, but we did! We debated whether it might be a purple martin, but to me the beak did not have quite the right shape. I declare it Sooty Swallow.
The sandhill crane couple that is nesting on a small island in an inner pond has had babbies! Only about a week old, there are two of them, and we went to the viewing area (the central trail is temporarily closed to keep pesky humans away), where the “maximum 6 people” rule was, shall we say, loosely enforced. To everyone’s credit, people were quiet and letting them just do their thing. In the case of the babies, this was mostly just sitting, occasionally lifting a head up, or walking a very short distance before repeating the first two. Nic got a shot of a worm-feeding. Who doesn’t like a fresh yummy worm hand beak-delivered?
I had some issues with my camera that prompted me to use my new PACK1Portable Awesome Cleaning Kit, which consists of a repurposed earbuds case filled with cotton swabs and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, but troubles persisted, as you will see.
Centennial Beach
The usual very low tide at Boundary Bay.
Centennial Beach was fairly busy for a Friday afternoon. It was the last day of school, and I’m guessing they still do the half day thing, so the kids were taking advantage of the sunny weather. The pond had a few mallards, but we got some great shots of assorted dragonflies, including a couple that were…coupling. I’m not going to judge by saying the way dragonflies reproduce is freaky and terrifying, but.
We unlocked the Savannah sparrow achievement. Centennial is a pretty reliable place for seeing them, you just have to hope one lands close enough to get some good shots. In this case, we had one perch atop a sign post, which was very considerate on his part.
There were a lot of crows around, for some reason. We saw one cooling off on the ground by spreading its wings and “panting”, a few others bully some starlings out of the topmost branches of a tree, and another harassing a Northern harrier who probably got too close to some hideously rotten something-or-other the crow had down on the mudflat waiting for him.
We also saw two bunnies, the first of which gave us several excellent cute bunny poses and didn’t seem overly fussed by our presence. We aren’t raptors, so I guess that checks out.
I used the “level” feature in my iPhone’s camera app to see if it would help with my often-titled scenery shots–and it did!
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Looking east from the pier, toward the towers around Lougheed.
We ended at Piper Spit, where the wood ducks were not at all absent, though the males in particular are looking quite scruffy in some cases. The geese here were also very eerily quiet, and the cowbirds were just as weird as at Reifel. Blackbirds were more plentiful, and a bunch of rock pigeons were hanging out. The regular rains of June meant the land mass is completely submerged, and the overall higher water level also meant no shorebirds here. :sadtrombone:
It seemed to be nap time, so many of the ducks and others were napping, nestled in the shaded areas filled with comfy grass. Like Reifel, we saw no goslings here. Maybe they were over in the fields. Or gathering for the invasion I mentioned above.
Piper Spit has such a different vibe in the summer. It’s utterly pleasant and pretty, but strangely quiet compared to the height of migratory seasons in the spring and fall (roughly speaking). Still, we did get some nice shots of a chunky gray squirrel doing that classic cute squirrel pose. And we didn’t get stuck waiting behind a train.
Overall, a fine morning and afternoon of birding.
The Shots
Bumblebee on a flower.
Barn swallow hanging out.
A butterfly of species "I'm too lazy to look up."
Cowbird on a rail.
A week old Sandhill crane baby, looking fuzzy and adorable.
Ducklings.
Ducklings on the move.
A baby duck.
A great blue heron flies low over a slough.
Dragonfly on wood.
Bee on a wildflower.
A red soldier beetle getting its pollen on.
A song sparrow looking contemplative.
Song sparrow state.
A song sparrow sings.
A house sparrow having a dirt bath.
A mysterious sooty-coloured swallow.
A gathering of greater yellowlegs at one of Reifel's larger outer ponds.
A bunny praying for carrots, perhaps.
Bunny in the grass. It seemed relatively unperturbed by our presence.
Look back and caw.
A crow beating the heat.
Dragonfly on dirt.
A killdeer exploring along the shoreline.
Cowbird shining in the sun.
A blackbird ponders.
What lurks in the mind of a Canada goose?
A Canada goose extreme grooming.
A mallard resting in the grass.
A mallard gliding off Piper Spit.
A pigeon observes activities from above.
The lighting and scenery almost make this squirrel shot look like a diorama.
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The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American goldfinch
American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Barn swallow
Bewick’s wren
Black-capped chickadees
Brown-headed cowbird
Cedar waxwing
House sparrow
Mysterious dark swallow
Red-winged blackbird
Rufous hummingbird
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
Tree swallow
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Greater yellowlegs
Killdeer
Mallard
Northern pintail (one!)
Sandhill crane
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
European starling
Seagull
Raptors:
Bald eagle
Northern harrier
Non-birds:
A chunky squirrel
Catfish (probably brown bullhead, though I am not a fishologist)
