Run 336
Average pace: 5:27/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce Loop, Conifer Loop (2) and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Sunny and very muggy
Temp: 27ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 387
Total distance to date: 2814
It was 27ºC when I headed out on tonight’s run. Warmer than I’d like but not as warm as some previous runs. I was hoping it would be semi-tolerable. I wore my New Balance MT110 minimalist shoes for the first time in a long time, to see if the extra room helped my accursed left foot.
The good news is I finished the run without fainting, throwing up or spontaneously exploding.
The other good news is the MT110s were fine. My foot started to feel a little sore after the run but only a little. I remember why I like minimalist shoes. They’re light, flexible and provide a firmer, more natural grip on the trail. I’ll keep wearing them for now.
The best news of all: the laces never came untied!
The bad news: this was the most uncomfortable run I’ve had all year. It was very warm but worse, very muggy. This is in part due to the time of day–between 5 and 6 p.m. the sun is low and the earth is fully baked, yet to to cool off for the evening. The wind also tends to die down late afternoon. I was sweating like crazy, my mouth was parched, my stamina was sucked away over the course of the 5 km like I had a vampire hanging off my neck the entire time. While km to km my time didn’t drop drastically (in the usual 2-3% range) I started out slow (5:14 for the first km) and added 4-8 seconds each km, ending with a dismal pace of 5:27/km.
This time it definitely wasn’t the equipment, it was all me. I almost packed it in at the 3K mark but pressed on, even as I felt queasy from the heat. I even managed a minor uptick in speed for the last 400 m.
If conditions are the same on Thursday I am taking water with me, even if I’m forced to wear one of those giant foam hats with the beer cans on the sides. Except using beer would probably not be a good idea.
On a scale of one to five collapsed joggers, I rate tonight’s jog four out of five collapsed joggers.
Run 335
Average pace: 5:20/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 6.03 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 26-29ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 464
Total distance to date: 2809
We are back to Official Summer Weather™ again and it was already warm when I headed out late in the morning and got noticeably warmer during the run. The first km was fine, the second I began to flag but not significantly more than normal. At this point my left shoelace came untied for the billionth time.
I ran with it untied for about 2 km, stopping at a bench on the second boardwalk to re-tie it. I carefully paused the workout on the iPod. I made sure the screen didn’t turn off while I re-tied the lace. I carefully touched the Resume button onscreen when I started running again. Satisfied that I had done everything correctly, I pressed the power button on the iPod (this turns the screen off, to prevent unwanted tapping) and put it back in my shorts pocket.
All seemed well until a few seconds later when Nike Lady piped up to say “workout stopped”. This seemed ominous but slightly less ominous than “workout ended”. I kept running and a moment or so later she said “Workout resumed”. She kept quiet except to count out the km for the remainder. Why this happened I have no idea.
After tying my shoelace back up I found I could not get my pace back. I felt parched and overheated–the main reason I don’t like stopping during a run in warm weather–but I wanted to do better than 5K and managed to hit 6K and a turgid overall pace of 5:20/km before stopping (for real). The last two km definitely felt like a slog but 5:20 still seemed a little slow. Here’s how the splits broke down:
Everything seems normal until the 4K mark when the pace drops to a strangely sluggish 5:48/km. It picks up again after that and though still slower than normal is probably a better reflection of how I was running for the last two km.
Here’s the split in graph form:
This is something that never happens during a run. You can tell I really mean it because I have used italics! I’m trying to think if something happened that made me stop or move especially slow and there was a few moments where I had to nearly stop when a clump of people, well, clumped up and blocked the way, but that happened right at the start of the run and had no real effect on my pace (the first km was still under 5:00/km). The only thing I can think is that I slowed as I neared the bench to tie my shoe and the sensor got confused or something and thought I went from jogging to crawling on my hands and knees.
In any case, it probably dragged my overall pace down by ten seconds or something. That’s just a guess because I’m not a mathologist.
As for the run, though I couldn’t muster the stamina to keep going past 6K, my feet and legs held up. The left foot started to hurt on the walk to the lake entrance and by the time I got to the dam was hurting quite nicely. I took a long drink from the faucet near the dam (it’s the best thing ever after a hot run) then sat down at a picnic table, took off my left shoe and thoroughly massaged my stinky and troublesome left foot. It did not hurt to do this and in fact it felt noticeably better after. It continued to feel pretty good until about a block before home.
When I got in I massaged it again and once more it felt much better. This foot is weird. It was kind of nice not riding the SkyTrain back for a change, though. It probably broke down again, anyway.
The other interesting things that happened technically occurred after the run but while i was still on the trail:
an adorable fuzzy golden caterpillar made its way across the trail in front of me, looking like a tiny hairy accordion. Or something. It probably got eaten by a robin.
an adorable fuzzy little chipmunk made its way across the trail in front of me. It was very tiny but crashed into the brush like it weighed a hundred pounds. Odd chipmunk. Probably not eaten by a robin.
At around the 7K mark I was walking along with my earphones still in but the music turned off. I heard something behind me, that telltale sound of rubber rolling over gravel. A moment later a guy on a bike rode past. I gave him the evil eye, as usual. He was followed by two young daughters on their own bikes. They looked to be about six and nine years old. The three of them disappeared around a corner.
I come around the corner and the younger girl is lying in the “ditch” tangled around her bike. Dad is coming over and chuckling about how she can’t ride a bike or something. He starts to pull the bike off and she yells “Ow ow ow!” but really didn’t appear to be hurt in any way*. I continue to walk by and a short distance ahead is a sign where the path splits. Every time there is a split there are signs. I look back to good ol’ dad and then point to the “No cycling” sign then continue on. I do not see them again.
I don’t know if they went back the way they came, started walking the bikes or got airlifted out by chopper. But it felt like karma had finally come to the Burnaby Lake loop.
Here’s hoping for less heat, fewer bikes and a better pace for the next run.
* I don’t blame the girls for being there and really hope the one who crashed was fine. She appeared more put out than actually injured but I’m not a doctor, nor do I even play one on TV.
Run 334
Average pace: 4:58/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.04 km
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temp: 20ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 387
Total distance to date: 2803
After the strangely dismal performance of the previous run I was not looking forward to tonight’s.
Conditions were similar, with the temperature mild but instead of the expected precipitation the sky started to clear up, and while I had plenty o’ puddles to skirt around from an earlier shower, it never rained. This was nice.
My plan was to do the tight counter-clockwise loop: run the three optional trails then loop back along the main trail, coming back to the entrance to Burnaby Lake Park. Given the soggy weather earlier I encountered very few others out and aboot.
All of my body parts started out the run cooperating and remained cooperative throughout. I began with a crisp pace, pushed harder and longer (heh heh) than I normally would, determined to not repeat the terrible time of the last run and by the end I was quite literally gasping for breath.
I waited for the nice Nike lady to make the announcement of my pace and let out a (gasping) sigh of relief when she confirmed my time was 25:02 minutes, with a brisk average pace of 4:58/km. I’m still not sure if the previous run was a weird glitch with the Nike+ sensor or a weird glitch with my body but either way I was happy to see a normal pace again, especially with conditions being so close to the previous sloggy run.
On Sunday I will once again try for a full loop around the lake. It’s supposed to be sunny and 27ºC, which is warm but not unbearably so.
Run 333
Average pace: 5:26/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.04 km
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 20ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 388
Total distance to date: 2798
Halfway to the Number of the Beast and this run was certainly devilishly bad, time-wise.
On the plus side my left foot was not hurting before the run and even though I could feel it about halfway through it was minor and I don’t feel it affected my pace. Likewise the hip did not seem to affect my start or the run in general and is very close to what I would consider fully healed. From whatever happened to it.
The first km felt good, I had a strong finish and overall it felt like my pace was at least equal to Sunday, if not better. Then the nice Nike lady announced my pace at the end of the run and it was a very not-nice result: 5:26/km. My first km was even worse than the average at 5:28/km and my last km was significantly faster at 5:18/km. Where I normally droop at the 2K mark, today I was allegedly picking up speed, hitting 5:14/km.
All in all, a truly baffling result that makes me think the sensor may be going or has gone haywire.
If you ignore the actual time it was a much better run than Sunday. The temperature was mild and the sky overcast, so it was comfortable running weather. I never developed any weird cramps or stitches, apart from a few brief moments when the upper thigh muscle on my left leg felt a little sore, probably due to the relative lack of runs recently.
I’m pondering what to do for Thursday’s run. I may even get wacky and try the Brooks shoes of doom again or buy a new Nike+ sensor. Or both! Or neither! Who knows!
Run 332
Average pace: 5:06/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 5.06 km
Weather: Light showers, cloudy
Temp: 15-17ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 389
Total distance to date: 2793
With my regular Thursday run cancelled due to a major SkyTrain malfunction (see previous post) I decided to just wait until my regular Sunday run to continue, thinking that my hip might benefit from the extra days off, even if my pace wouldn’t.
As it turned out my pace did improve over the previous run by seven seconds, coming in at 5:06/km. This is still kind of poopy for a 5K but there were a few extenuating circumstances, one being a six day gap between runs is just enough to start losing a bit of the edge and this year has been a bit of a struggle to find any edge to begin with. The other was my left foot. It was hurting even before I headed out and about 3 km in I knew I would not be able to run a full loop around the lake. I did walk the rest of the way (around 10 km in total, plus the run) and the foot remained sore for a good while after.
I am resolved to get it looked at by a footologist because something just ain’t right with it and as it stands (ho ho) now, it’s the major impediment to improving my runs. The hip actually felt pretty good, both at the start of the run and on the walk home after the SkyTrain ride, where it usually stiffens up. It’s essentially a non-factor now, allowing me to better-focus all my rage on that stupid foot.
The run itself was about as opposite as the last run could get: it was literally half the temperature (15ºC vs. 30ºC), with a mix of light showers and clouds. It was kind of nice, actually. Had my foot not acted up I’d have had no issue doing the full loop. It was weird to hardly sweat on a run in the middle of July.
I don’t think people running beach concessions were as pleased with the weather.
A surprising number of people were out, apparently due to some big rowing shindig, as the rowing pavilion parking lot was replete with boats and people and traffic cones, with more people clogging up the trails with their dogs not on leashes.
This was the second run where the FIRE DANGER signs were out. These signs also inform you that there is NO SMOKING. Two men sitting at the bench on the second boardwalk were both smoking as I jogged by. Granted with the rain they were unlikely to start a giant brush fire with a careless toss of a butt, I just knew that once the signs went up it wouldn’t be long before I saw people smoking. It’s like the signs actually make them smoke.
People are weird.
The next run will hopefully see my left foot better-behaved, with a corresponding better time to go with it.
Run 331
Average pace: 5:13/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Sunny, humid
Temp: 30ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 387
Total distance to date: 2788
In which I run under mostly similar conditions with a three day break and manage to add six seconds to my average pace.
It was 30ºC for tonight’s delayed run and while the temperature was the same, it was much more humid. This was good news for my mouth and throat, which were not left feeling desert dry like Thursday’s run. On the other hand it was apparently bad for the run overall as my pace lagged enough to come in at a relatively slovenly pace of 5:13/km.
Apart from a few odd twinges from my left knee, nothing particularly stood out on the run. I slogged along at what I thought was a decent pace for the first few km but in fact the first km was a full ten seconds off compared to the previous run. I guess it really is the humidity.
The weather promises to be a few degrees cooler by the next run so hopefully I will find the eye of the tiger or some other important tiger-related organ by then.
Run 330
Average pace: 5:07/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.04 km
Weather: Sunny, hot
Temp: 30ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 388
Total distance to date: 2783
Tonight’s run was basically a repeat of Tuesday, with the pace being an entire second faster at 5:07/km. The differences:
I ran counter-clockwise, so no stinky skunk cabbage. This was GOOD.
It was several degrees warmer at 30ºC. This was BAD.
It was less humid, which meant my throat and mouth were parched less than 1 KM in. This was BAD.
I felt less creaky starting out. This was GOOD.
The right shoelace came untied at .65 km in. This was VERY ANNOYING.
Overall I can say I was glad to get this one over with. At least if it’s still hot on the weekend I have a chance to choose a time when it is slightly less hot to run.
The Returned is Jason Mott’s debut novel and as a first novel it’s pretty decent. As a novel, period, I found it less effective, with a number of flaws and unrealized potential.
The premise is high concept and simple: without explanation, the dead return to life, unchanged from the time just before their deaths (ie. murder victims don’t show up with knives stuck in their backs). As the story progresses the number of ‘returned’ grows significantly and things take a turn for the ugly as governments grapple to deal with all of the freshly warm bodies.
The novel pays lip service to the wider effects of the dead coming back to life, mostly by having people observe news reports on TV or in brief interstitials between chapters that recount the return of various individuals across the globe. The bulk of the story focuses on the elderly couple of Harold and Lucille Hargrave, who have their eight year old son returned to them fifty years after he drowned in a local river, and how their small southern town of Arcadia handles the newly not-dead (hint: not very well at all).
The characters are broadly drawn–Lucille is deeply religious, her husband is a cantankerous atheist, there is the decent but powerless government man and the colonel in charge of the eventual operation in Arcadia is revealed to be all but psychotic. The latter, Colonel Willis (I couldn’t help but imagine Bruce Willis as the character, as it is essentially a copy of the character of Major General William Devereaux that Willis played in The Siege), is set up to be a major player but actually has a fairly small role.
I had two main problems with the story, the first being that the premise is never explored in any detail. The dead come back to life, their numbers create a problem for the “true living” and that’s it. There are a few vague hints about the why and the how of why they have returned, but these are nothing more than traces. It’s an interesting concept but in the end it feels like a plot device to hang the story on.
I was fine with the story focusing on the small scale of the Hargraves and their boy, along with some of the town’s neighbors and a few other sundry characters that get drawn in, but here again the story is curiously one-sided, with the author staying almost entirely out of the heads of the returned, and this was my other major problem with it. I often felt like half of the story was being withheld. The boy Jacob is little more than a polite cipher, a wind-up toy in the shape of an eight year old. While everyone frets and threatens and talks about the returned, the returned themselves are little more than wallpaper in the background.
The writing sometimes tries a little too hard to wax lyrical but I admit I may be the wrong audience for this style of writing. It comes off sounding corny to me. “It was bitterly cold, like a hard winter where the ground is frozen and cruel.” I just made that up, but it conveys Mott’s style of metaphor. There’s also a little too much of characters confessing how little they know about particular subjects “other than what I see on TV” that feels like the author trying to cover for his own lack of knowledge on various topics.
The Returned is not a bad book, though. The prose is clean and direct and the story never meanders. There are some amusing exchanges between characters. By the end, though, the whole thing felt a bit disjointed, with character arcs that play out to no real effect, action scenes that don’t quite ring true (there should be a moratorium on people shooting someone in an extremity) and a conclusion that wraps things up but left me thinking, “Well, okay. I guess the story’s done now.”
Run 329
Average pace: 5:08/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Sunny, humid, stinky
Temp: 29-27ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 388
Total distance to date: 2778
And creaky, too!
This is our first week of genuine summer weather and even though I headed out tonight after dinner it was still a positively balmy 29ºC.
I started the run by not choosing wisely…on the router to take. I went clockwise and this put the sun at an awkward angle for much of the run, where it was coming in from the side, making it hard to avoid (it was lower in the sky, so beaming straight toward my face). The usual counter-clockwise route would have been more shielded from the sun. Alas.
The start of the run my whole lower body felt weirdly creaky, like my legs needed to be oiled or something. Even my usually solid knees were feeling rusty. It sorted itself after the first km but it was not an encouraging start.
I maintained pace as best I could and though it was not a blazing pace, it stayed fairly steady. I even managed to hit my peak (4:50/km) right at the end. I was probably hallucinating a giant lake of cool water ahead of me. My average was 5:08/km, slow for a 5K but not too bad for the conditions.
The conditions were as follows: very war, very humid (the not-dry mouth is always a good indicator) and very stinky. It seems the rains of not-too-long ago, combined with the heat ‘n humidity, brought out the full piquant aroma of the skunk cabbage along the trail. And there is a lot of it. The second boardwalk (as you move clockwise) is pretty much lined with it on both sides and the stink was almost enough to induce a gag reflex. A plant that truly lives up to its name.
This was the first run using fancy Dr. Scholl’s inserts, which offer bonus gel cushioning on the heel ad ball of the feet. The inserts felt fine but when my left foot started feeling sore shortly after the run they didn’t seem to make much difference. A longer run may be a better test, though I think the issue is the gel does not come up close enough to adequately cover the affected part of my stupid dumb foot.
Overall, not a horrible run, not a terrible run, just kind of blah. One bonus is the hip didn’t seem to factor in at all. Yay.
Run 328
Average pace: 5:13/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 10.03 km
Weather: Partly sunny, humid
Temp: 20-22ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 772
Total distance to date: 2773
Last July we officially went the entire month without any precipitation. This year we have gone several days without any actual sunshine.
Today was looking to be another one of those days and I held off on my run, waiting for the showers to stop. While I’m fine with getting caught in the rain mid-jog, it’s still difficult to motivate myself to get started when I know I’ll be soaked before I even start my run.
Around 2 p.m. I decided to head out regardless of the weather and it had mercy on me, as the showers stopped and remained stopped for the rest of the day. It was even occasionally sunny at the lake, not to mention humid as all get-out. To give an idea of how humidity affects you, I was sweating more today with the temperature ranging from 20-22ºC than I did when the temperature was 28-33ºC.
I had probably slept funny and could feel my right hip a bit before heading out and my left foot, though not actually hurting, was also there, so to speak. These things did not fill me with confidence. Indeed, the first km my whole body felt janky and I thought I’d run only 5K. I pressed on and found my pace and decided I’d at least match the 6K of my previous effort.
In the end I managed to get in 10K, not quite a full loop around the lake. My left foot started hurting at the 10K mark and the shoelace on my right shoe came untied at the same time. It seemed as close to a sign to stop as I was going to get. I credit the lace for coming loose but not actually coming fully untied for two entire kilometers, at least.
My overall pace was slower primarily due to the humidity but I’m mostly fine with it, as it’s miles ahead of my last 10K+ run (average pace 5:35/km on a 10K run on June 25) and about the same as my last more reasonable 10K+ effort (5:12/km on an 11K run on June 15; it was also much cooler on that run).
I should have fancy new inserts ready for my shoes by my next run. We’ll see if they make me run not unlike greased lightning, should greased lightning suddenly acquire feet and legs and anything else that might be needed to allow it to run.
Run 327
Average pace: 4:57/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 6.03 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 21-23ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 464
Total distance to date: 2763
Just kidding about the sexier part.
My plan tonight was to run clockwise to Still Creek, about 6 km in total and to beat the pace of my previous Africa hot run.
And I succeeded!
In a strange way I think I almost felt warmer on this run than the previous because the sun was lower but it was quite tolerable and not at all humid.
In fact, the most remarkable thing about the run was how unremarkable it was. Everything felt decent and my pace was very steady. As expected with the cooler temperature, my time improved and even though I stretched a little to 6 km, I still posted a 4:57/km average, my second best run of the year.
Although I’m only two runs in, July is looking pretty decent so far. Here’s to it continuing to remain so.
Run 326
Average pace: 5:03/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Spruce and Conifer Loops and Piper Mill Trail
Distance: 5.05 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 28-33ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 388
Total distance to date: 2757
I kept expecting the forecast to change for today but it never did. It turned out to be hot, just as predicted, with the temperature at 28ºC at the start of the run and rising to 33ºC by the end. Africa hot indeed.
I wore my Adidas Energy Boost shoes again and with my feet and other body parts all feeling fine heading out it would be a good test to see if the new shoes really were the, uh, smoking gun responsible for my two terribad runs in June.
Despite the high temperature it was not too humid so the heat was merely hot and not actually oppressive. I didn’t even sweat that much.
I ran counter-clockwise as that route offers more shade and felt quite decent to start. By the end I was definitely feeling the heat (ho ho) but I still managed to pick the pace up a touch to finish at 5K. I prepared for a possible 10K but suspected I would cut it short to be on the safe side.
My average pace was a perfectly cromulent 5:03/km, so the hot weather did have an effect but not a dramatic one. The left foot behaved almost identically to the previous run, feeling fine for the running part and getting sore after about 3 km of walking afterward. A five minute rest “recharged” it for the remaining walk to the SkyTrain station.
Overall I’m pleased at how the run went. The Brooks shoes are looking more like the culprit behind my slow runs so I will stick to the Adidas for now. Eventually I hope to go back to my nearly-new minimalist shoes again. The light weight is nice (though the Adidas are fairly lightweight for a “regular” shoe).
Now I just need to figure out how to make my left foot behave itself for a longer run and I’ll be set.
