Run 522: Cloudy with a chance of cyclists

Run 522
Average pace: 5:33/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:32 pm
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 55:44
Weather: Mainly cloudy
Temp: 19-21ºC
Humidity: 51%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 162
Weight: 157.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 4063 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

I spent the morning contemplating whether I would do my regular Monday run or consider Sunday’s run in lieu and just resume again on Wednesday, but as the time ticked on by in its usual way I feared LMS (Lazy Monday Syndrome) might kick in, so I headed off shortly before noon, planing on not quite putting the proverbial pedal to the metal today, given only 24 hours of rest.

I arrived to conditions very similar to yesterday, but perhaps a little more cloudy–a good thing for running. When I got to the lake I felt the need to visit the Jiffy John®, which at this point is hardly unexpected. At least I didn’t feel the need to visit it at the 5K mark. As I approached yonder potty I noticed a red truck parked right in front of it? Who parks right in front of an outdoor potty? They’re generally thought of as stinky ans yucky.

Someone who is using it, it turns out. Using it very thoroughly. While a woman walked a dog back and forth along an adjacent bush, I waited–almost ten minutes. And it was already occupied when I got there. The only way I would spend ten minutes or more in a Jiffy John® is if I was forced to at gunpoint or something.

Anyway, the guy finally finished, they got into the red truck, and left. The potty had a Devil’s Tower of toilet paper covering up the business. I hate when people do that. The rolls they put in are not intended for Devil’s Tower emulation. It’s wasteful and silly. It’s a toilet. It’s going to have poo in it. Hiding it under ten pounds of toilet paper is fooling no one–but it is insuring someone is going to need to use the loo and find all the toilet paper is already stuffed into a great heap inside the potty.

Unlike yesterday I did not start the run by nearly plowing into someone. Instead, the theme of the day was the old favorite dogs unleashed/cyclists. The cyclists were paired off and the second pair came along at an especially inconvenient time. They were heading toward me, but I was also just about to pass a slow-moving couple on the right. Would I defer to the cyclists and let them go by first? I would not! Instead I moved left to pass the couple and forced the cyclists to nearly ride completely off the trail (which would technically have made their presence within the boundaries of the bylaw, I suppose). As always, I hope these jerks got flat tires, chased by rabid geese or some combination thereof.

Despite not intending to run as hard as yesterday I ended up with a similar pace–5:33/km vs. yesterday’s 5:31/km. I slowed through the 7-9 km stretch but put a little zing in for the final km.

There were more people out than I expected, possibly because I was running right around noon.

The main trail where it splits with Spruce Loop was still closed but I saw a small clue on what the issue might be, as a little putt-putt gravel truck trundled past me later on, heading in that direction. Possibly some repair work or shoring up around one of the footbridges. Still odd that the detour is there without any explanation, though.

The only complication during the run was a bit of discomfort along the right edge of my right foot, but I think this was caused by twisting the foot inward on a tree root before starting the run. It seems to be fine now.

Overall, this run was a solid follow-up to yesterday’s return-to-form. I might be a tiny bit sore tomorrow but as compensation my legs will look like tree stumps! Yes.

Run 521: Unplanned and with real weather

Run 521
Average pace: 5:31/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 1:47 pm
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 55:27
Weather: Partly cloudy
Temp: 19-21ºC
Humidity: 57%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 156
Weight: 158.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 4053 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

Today is not a run day but I whimsically ran anyway, for two reasons:

  1. After doing some tidying up of the junk in the living room, I feared I would be hit by LSS (Lazy Sunday Syndrome) and spend the rest of the afternoon sitting on my butt and doing very little of anything besides fulfilling basic bodily functions (more on those later).
  2. With an actual shower last night and cooler temperatures today it was a chance to run in Real Weather™ and I just couldn’t resist.

So off I went in early afternoon (wholly inadvisable during the heatwave), first thinking I’d do a 5K on the river, then a 5K at the lake and finally what evolved into a full 10K at the lake.

My start was much stronger than the last few runs, though I almost collided at the first corner thanks to a shirtless jogger ignoring the “run/walk on the right” rule. I had to get out of his way. I saw him later and he was on the right side of the trail, so he may be one of those joggers who cuts in to take a corner, which is actually more dumb than just running on the left side of the trail. Also, being topless did not make him sexy.

Not long after that I encountered a dope on a bike (I now reflexively tell these people, “Bikes aren’t allowed on the trail” as I run by. I expect it to have no effect, but even if it makes them feel a tiny bit bad, it’s worth it). At this point I’m thinking maybe running on an “off” day was not a great idea. And indeed I encounter still more cyclists later. I chalk this mostly up to it being a Sunday. I haven’t run Sundays for awhile and today provided some guidance on why I would not miss doing so.

My improved pace did mean I was pushing hard, with a slightly higher BPM, and by the last few km I was slowing down, but my overall pace was still 5:31/km, not only besting my previous 10K by ten seconds, but also making it my best 10K of the year. All I had to do was wait for the terrible weather to end!

Speaking of weather, it was still fairly humid but it was a clean humidity, for lack of a better word. I sweated but not nearly as much as I have been, and the only effects I felt were those from simply putting in a good effort. The sun poked out from time to time but it was mostly cloudy, which was nice, and there was often a good and slightly cool breeze blowing, which was just as nice. It was a doubleplus nice run, a great day for an Orwellian jog. Or something.

Something strange happened after I began walking back, though. Almost immediately I was hit with cramps all through my lower abdomen, all weird and gassy and rumbly and unpleasant. I had no idea why it was happening, but glad it happened after I’d finished the run. By the time I got onto the river trail it became clear–my bowel was at it again. Somehow my bowel has tuned itself so that running = pooping. This is not a good combination. Today it was off, which allowed me to finish the run without the runs (ho ho), but instead I suddenly found I had to go RIGHT NOW and without a restroom in sight. Just trees and such. You know, nature. Desperate, I channeled my inner bear, spotted a path leading down to the creek under the bridge and shambled down as quickly yet carefully as I could.

I picked my way through branches, careful not to go into the drink (it wasn’t deep, but why soak your feet if you don’t need to?) and found a spot that was sufficiently out of view from the bridge (I had spotted someone in the distance approaching from the other direction and felt no need to give them a full viewing). I barely (bearly?) had time to yoink down my shorts before a full scale evacuation commenced. In retrospect I may have eaten something that disagreed with me because the word “diarrhea” occurred to me later. Running + diarrhea is also not a good combination. I also realized that the spot I picked did in fact have an unobstructed view back to the bridge. Oops. I guess I could have pretended I was doing squats. No one saw, fortunately.

I felt much better after that but I admit I’m getting a little paranoid now. This is almost becoming a pattern now. I don’t want my body to associate running with relieving myself. I want the two to remain separate, as nature intended. I will have a stern talk with my butt and see how it goes. Or if it goes.

Still, this run was a nice return to seasonal conditions. Now I need to decide if I take a day off tomorrow in lieu or head out again and stick to my normal schedule.

New bike! New injury! (Not a coincidence)

To be fair, the injury is nothing more than some abrasions on my left arm.

It seems I have developed a weird and unwelcome tradition where each summer I find some way to hurt myself. In 2015 I hurt my hip on the first run of vacation. In 2016 I snagged a foot on a tree root and went down hard on a gravel path, with appropriate lacerations and cuts down the right side of my body.

And today I kind of tipped over on my new bike and fell off a ramp into some bramble. I got a long but shallow scratch on my otherwise sexy left calf and about a 10 cm swath of abrasions on my lower left arm. On the plus side, my new gloves kept my hands in pristine condition!

But let me back up a bit.

For awhile I’ve been thinking about getting a bike again–my last was stolen from Tim’s garage by a safety-conscious thief (he took the helmet, too). I rode that one to work and really, it was okay for urban riding but even going over a curb made it feel like the frame would bend like a pretzel. After a suggestion from Jeff, I perused the selection of bikes at MEC and settled on a Ghost Kato, which sounds cool, of nothing else. There was a choice between 26 and 27.5″ tires but it became obvious quickly that 26″ is passe–you know, “Grandpa tires,” while 27.5″ is sexy and happening.

I’ll include a picture of my bike soon but here’s a generic shot for now:

Ghost Kato 27.5"

I picked up a bunch of other things to take advantage of the 10%-off-with-purchase-of-bike deal:

  • stylish black helmet which I look dorky in, anyway
  • fingerless gloves
  • padded undies because I’ve been on bikes without padding for my butt and my butt was very cross with me after
  • water bottle and holder
  • a small kit bag for holding repair doodads (it goes behind and under the seat)

After a few adjustments and a couple loops around the guest parking at the condo, we headed out and up SFU, then rode down two trails. The first was wide but very much a downhill thing. I used the brakes a lot and found out they worked well. I only had one brief moment near the beginning where I hot a patch of loose gravel and felt the tires start to slide, but I maintained control.

Then we moved onto the second trail, which Jeff described as not as steep but more narrow. This seemed like a fair trade-off to me, so we ventured onto Dead Moped.

I almost immediately ran into trouble because although not steep, it was still downhill and very twisty and turny, requiring a degree of coordination that only existed in my imagination. I tried to channel my imagination into reality but the bike was firmly on the side of reality. I muddled along and then got to a point where somehow I was in the lead (I’m still not sure how that happened) and was navigating one of those narrow plank bridges, which are sometimes directly on the ground and other times elevated about a foot or so off of it. They look like this (this is actually taken from Dead Moped):

I went to the handy trailforks.com website, which has several nice photos and videos of the trail. I found one video and managed to grab a blurry still which you may gander at below:

Just past that tree on the left, where the bridge turns to the right…I turned to the left. I didn’t plan it that way, but somehow my combination of speed, balance (and lack thereof), and inexperience combined to where I could not correct quite enough. I very nearly stayed on the bridge, but in the end my balance shifted a little too much to the left and gravity took over. I had a moment to consider if I could put out my left leg to somehow brace myself but this bridge is elevated and my legs are not freakishly long, so I just toppled over onto my side.

A guy came up, seemingly out of nowhere and asked if I was okay. He offered a hand to help me up. I thanked him and said I was okay (except for proving what a noob I am when it comes to two-wheeled transportation). While it may be true that you never forget how to ride a bike, I can verify that it is quite possible to forget how to ride a bike well.

And here’s the damage, nothing a little Polysporin can’t fix:

Pretty minor, especially compared to actually embedding gravel into my hand last summer.

I walked my bike the rest of the way out of the trail (it wasn’t that far), not willing to risk finding another way to separate myself unexpectedly from the bike.

The ride along the rest of the route home (a little under 7 km) went without incident.

Overall, it was actually pretty fun, if terrifying from time to time. I’m flattered that Jeff (who rides these trails with the ease that most people would walk them) thought I could manage it. I later learned that Dead Moped is rated Blue–intermediate difficulty. At this point I’m probably best to stick to whatever color they use for “can barely stay upright on a bicycle.” But I’ll improve.

And maybe wear more padding.

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The sky is blue, hooray!

Today the sky was blue. This may seem like no big thing in the middle of August, even in Vancouver where the weather is known to be a bit on the soggy side.

What makes today’s blue sky so amazing and wonderful is that it’s the first time in about two weeks that the sky has been anything but a dull, yellow-tinged gray, thanks to the interminable smoke haze from forest fires a-far. The combination of a very strong high pressure ridge and smoke finally broke today with some southwesterly (re: normal) marine wind moving in. The haze isn’t 100% gone yet but it’s very minimal–the North Shore mountains are visible again. It’s like coming out of The Mist to discover the world is still there, which also happens to be an ending that is a thousand times better than the movie version.

With the promise of overnight showers, the rest of that stupid fine particulate matter should hopefully settle to the ground, which means the run on Monday should be much more pleasant–even if it’s raining!

Run 520: Kind of tired of fine particulate matter

Run 520
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:02 am
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 58:03
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 23-25ºC
Humidity: 51%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 150
Weight: 158.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 4043 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

Once again conditions were very similar to previous runs this week, though the sun seemed a bit brighter. With a more substantial breeze at times I’m wondering if we’re seeing the first tenuous change in the weather. If so, it hasn’t done much with my new favorite nemesis, fine particulate matter. In fact, today’s run was worse in terms of my eyes–and for the first time, my sinuses–being irritated. I started out slower for some reason and as a result was off Wednesday’s pace, coming in at 5:47/km.

On a positive note, the South Shore trail resurfacing is now complete, with the entire trail from the entrance to the Avalon trail to the first boardwalk covered in sparkly fresh gravel. They still have the, uh, “gravel buffer” out but the gravel itself is at least flat now and now piled into mounds down the center of the trail.

Work on the Avalon trail appears to be mostly pending, though, so I’m expecting gravel mounds to start popping up there soon.

Also on the positive side I managed to go potty both before heading out and upon arrival at the lake (I did not go potty in the lake, I used the loo, which is actually named Jiffy John, not Johnny Potty, though the latter is way more awesome). This meant that while the run felt a bit like a slog at times I did not face the complication of “Hey, really really need to use the bathroom right now!”

The main trail was still closed off where it forks with the Spruce Loop. I still have no idea why. Did a tree fall? Giant sinkhole appear? It is a mystery.

Other than sweating a lot and the irritation of yet more FPM, I didn’t encounter any issues otherwise (though I did sweat a lot). Here’s hoping that the next run on Monday will be cooler and cleaner. Who knew I’d be yearning for rain on vacation?

As seen on the ground near a train

As I waited for a train to trundle by at the crossing at Government Street in Burnaby, I snapped a picture of this bit of wisdom someone had spray-painted onto the sidewalk (the train isn’t invisible, it’s on the second track which is not visible in my photo):

Sidewalk wisdom

Is it a coincidence that this was put down at a train crossing? But not only a train crossing, one with double tracks and at an intersection, which is a perfect combo for some sort of horrible accident–er, I mean a place where something might be observed to be “coming apart.” Also of note, a short distance down the road is where a 150+ car train derailed a few years ago.

Or maybe it’s an observation about people, like “I really understood Uncle Festus after that day he totally came unglued.” Or maybe it just means “take lots of pictures when you dismantle the engine on your lawn mower, otherwise you’ll end up putting it back together, then find six vital engine pieces sitting behind you.”

Siri loses her mind (all the time)

One day I’ll write up a full review of my Series 2 Apple Watch (which I am generally pretty happy with) but something that has always bugged me is that Siri is only available when you have an internet connection, even for things that should easily work without a connection like “Hey Siri, start a 5-minute timer” or “Hey Siri, shuffle my music.”

Siri also has a tough time parsing certain (seemingly random) things. I will never get Siri to play The Alan Parsons Project’s album Pyramid because Siri is incapable of understanding the word “pyramid”:

“Hey Siri, play the album Pyramid.”
I’m sorry, I can’t find the album Pure Mind

“Hey Siri, play the album Pyramid.” (Being very careful to pronounce the word clearly and concisely.)
I’m sorry, I can’t find the album Pier Mind

“Hey Siri, play the third Alan Parsons Project album.”
begins playing random track from The Turn of a Friendly Card, the fourth APP album

Best of all, even when I issue a command (usually related to playing music, like the aforementioned “Hey Siri, shuffle my music”) the watch will insist something went wrong with Siri…shortly after executing the command correctly:

I mean, as long as it works I don’t mind, but it’s a bit unsettling.

At least I’m totally set if I ever get an album called Pier Mind.

Knowing when not to jump: a dream in half an act

Another night, another weird dream I can recall bits of.

I am in a skyscraper that may or may not be the World Trade Center (the original). The dream has nothing to do with terrorist attacks.

Instead I find myself drawn to climb out onto some kind of spout structure on one of the corners of the building that paradoxically curves upward at the end. This isn’t at the top of the skyscraper but it’s at a decent height. After looking around for a bit I decided I’ve seen enough and go back. Except that, due to dream logic, it is impossible to climb back up the spout. The only way off the spout is down. I look down and am comforted to find there is a large grass lawn below me, verdant green and welcoming.

I then notice that I’m perhaps up a little too high, probably at least a hundred feet, and landing on grass from a hundred feet up will likely result in serious injury, death, or both. I consider my options.

Using one arm to hold onto the curved portion of the spout, I use my free hand to pull out a flip-phone (maybe this is 2001 or earlier, after all) and calmly call 911, requesting rescue. I then wait.

A little while later I am rescued and though I don’t remember exactly what happened, I think I was helped into the bucket of a fire truck and then deposited on the nearest floor of the building, rather than being brought safely to the ground for a good scolding about climbing one-way spouts on skyscrapers. When I am safely inside I look down through a window/balcony/deck and think, “It wasn’t that far. Pfft.” The ironic part here is that I am a big-time acrophobic under the right (or more accurately, wrong) circumstances. If I was grasping onto a spout a hundred feet in the air, off the side of a skyscraper, I would not be calm, I would be in a state of shock or pooping my pants, or pooping my pants while in a state of shock. Like the previous night’s bear-chase dream, I find myself in a situation that should be terrifying and act with utter nonchalance, like this stuff happens all the time.

I kind of like it. I’m not sure what it means. I’m not sure I want to know. But maybe I do.

Run 519: Smoke, construction, heat, humidity and poop

Run 519
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:14 am
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 57:18
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 23-25ºC
Humidity: 58%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 159.0 pounds
Total distance to date: 4033 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

The run conditions were almost identical to Monday’s yet I definitely felt I had more spring in my step for the first km, as evidenced by my 5:11/km pace. That ended quickly, as further evidenced by the second km pace being 5:42/km. The last three km felt much like a slog and while my eyes didn’t burn quite the same as they did two days ago, by the time I approached the 9K mark I was ready for the run to be over.

Let me back up and set up another complication that made the desire to stop running even stronger.

Before leaving I went to the bathroom. I mean, I physically went into the bathroom, but nothing happened. My bowels remained silent and unmoved. Fine. I’d have one more chance when I got to the lake. I got to the lake and contemplated the Johnny Potty or whatever it’s called. I looked at the name but all I can recall now is the word Johnny. I like to think it is really called Johnny Potty and is named after someone who is legally known as Johnny Potty.

This time the bowel stirred, slightly. It may have been the heat. The temperature on the walk to the lake shot up from 19ºC to 23ºC and then up to 25ºC during the run. But again, no action in the ol’ “gotta go” department so I headed off and again, it was fine.

As I passed the 9K mark (meaning I had a little over five minutes to go) it suddenly became very much not fine. I had to go like I had never gone before. The urge was more than that, it was a command, a command delivered with great authority, a command you could not ignore. But I had to finish the run. Running, as I mentioned before on this blog, is about the worst thing you can do if you want to quiet a nascent bowel movement. Because you are agitating all your innards, see?

In the end (ho ho) I made it but it was an extremely close thing. Also, the Johnny Potty was a literal sweatbox. But at least there was toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The day was so humid the sanitizer would not dry on my hands until I had nearly exited the park.

Oh, and I did a 10K run, too.

After the speedy start I settled into a pace close to my overall average of 5:41/km for most of the run and it wasn’t too bad. I still sweated buckets and never exactly tore up the trail, but it was no worse than other recent runs.

Speaking of torn-up trails, today was the first weekday run that wasn’t also a holiday so I figured the crews would be out resurfacing the trail and they were. The shovel and little tractor/hopper that was getting filled with gravel were in the parking lot, so I knew I wouldn’t encounter them on the trail. I did come across a putt-putt car that took up most of the width of the trail not far into the South Shore segment. Ahead of it a guy was using one of those vibrating devices that has a belt that magically flattens and compresses the fresh gravel. I had to actually stop running to navigate around. Before I encountered him I came across several hundred meters of fresh gravel piled high along the middle of the trail. This stuff is basically impossible to run on, so you stick to the edges, but the edges are mushy and uneven so the whole thing is a bit of a trial. I nearly twisted a foot but I got through without face-planting.

The road construction crew at the rowing pavilion parking lot were out but no heavy equipment was in operation so I skittered across without having to worry about being crushed under a steamroller. One of the road workers even nodded to me as I ran by. He was kind of cute. He was probably nodding as if to say, “You can do it, just a little farther before you poop your shorts!”

The athletic fields were again covered in geese, all of them standing around or pecking at the grass. All except one, which was sitting there, in defiance of the others. When I looked straight at this one goose it immediately stood and started pecking the ground, as if I had caught it slacking off. “That’s right, poopmonster, get busy!” I pretended to shout at it.

Near the 3K signpost I passed a group of about six police and at least one park worker, all of them standing in a circle and discussing something. It seemed like a peculiar place for a discussion so there must have been shenanigans at play. This was possibly corroborated when I emerged from the Spruce Loop and noticed a sawhorse across the main trail with a “Trail Closed – Detour” sign on it.

I still don’t know what actually happened. But something!

It was not long after this that The Bowel Incident occurred. The bowel km was also the slowest, for reasons I hope are obvious.

When I got home all sweaty and stinky I wanted nothing more than to have a nice shower or a bath with invigorating Epsom salts. But thanks to a power outage last night we had no hot water. I ended up soaking in the hot tub at the Canada Games Pool with Jeff and having a shower there, which turned out to be perfectly decent. I always feel a little naughty dunking the Apple Watch into the water but the reality is it probably needed a good cleaning.

Overall I’m pleased that I turned in a decent pace given the ongoing terrible conditions (current forecast says the weather will change by the weekend) and basically everything else about the run other than the pace also being terrible.

McDonald’s and the bear: a dream in one act

Last night I had a myriad of dreams, most of them the usual dream sort-of nonsense, though a few too many were work-related. They weren’t bad dreams but I’d rather not have dreams about work when I’m, you know, on vacation.

I woke up from one and found it so dumb I had to record it before I forgot, so I padded into the bathroom, my eyes scrunched up tight from the bright light, and tapped out the dream on my iPad, using the Drafts app. Technology is grand.

In the dream I was walking west along Trunk Road, one of the longer roads in my hometown of Duncan. For reasons I never determined my hands were spackled with moist dirt, as if I’d been planting a garden. Perhaps that was the previous dream.

I strode up the street with my dirt-covered hands and headed toward the McDonald’s near the intersection of Trunk Road and the Island Highway (no such place exists in reality, though there is a McDonald’s further down the highway). As I got close I suddenly realized I’d forgotten my uniform. Yes, apparently I worked there, it was my first shift and I’d forgotten to wear my uniform. I turned around and headed back to get it. And possibly to wash my hands.

A short distance ahead of me I spotted what appeared to be a medium-sized black bear. In comparison to me this was still gigantic. It was snuffling through some overgrown bushes in a yard. I began to back up, hoping the bear would not see me before I could get somewhere bear-proof. Alas, the bear did see me so I picked up the pace, hoping my head-start would serve me well and also hoping bears couldn’t run faster than people. As I ran some guy off to the side yelled out that if I had [something] I could use it to distract the bear. I can’t remember what it was–food seems a likely choice, though given dream logic, it could have been anything. Whatever it was, I didn’t have it so I kept running.

I came upon a parked car and ran around it to the front, leaping onto the hood, which was to serve as my refuge. The bear immediately jumped onto the hood behind me, my refuge lasting about a tenth of a second. I then curled into a ball to at least make it more difficult to gut me and waited for whatever would happen next. I wasn’t scared because I was confident the guy who yelled about distracting the bear with [something] would somehow distract the bear.

I woke up at this point, so I’m not sure how it turned out. I’d like to think I didn’t get eaten.

Also, why I was going to work at McDonald’s in Duncan is a question I won’t even try to answer.

A later dream found me talking with people at work about something (or maybe [something]) and suddenly I couldn’t breathe properly. I began snorting and struggling and woke up to find I was snorting and struggling because my sinuses had completely blocked with the position I was laying in and I couldn’t breathe. It’s a bit freaky when dreams work that way.

Run 518: The smoke haze BC Day run

Run 518
Average pace: 5:51/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:59 am
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 58:49
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 23-25ºC
Humidity: 57%
Wind: light
BPM: 148
Weight: 159.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 4023 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

Conditions were very similar to Saturday’s run, although by running in the morning the temperature was a wee bit cooler. This was enough to shave four seconds off my average pace in comparison, so I came in at 5:51/km, which is still very pokey.

The one anomaly was my BPM, which was an unusually low 148. I have no real explanation for this. It certainly didn’t feel like I was taking it easy, what with the thick smoky soup currently masquerading as the atmosphere making every step feel like it was taken on a gas giant.

It also smelled of gas, especially near the dam.

I sweated buckets and my eyes again were a little irritated by the end but once more I managed to get through the full 10K. It didn’t seem quite as horrible as Saturday, though the sun appeared to shine a little brighter, apparently due to a very mild influx of marine wind that isn’t enough to change the overall weather pattern.

Also, today is BC Day–a stat holiday–and unlike Saturday, there were a lot of people out. I passed by about eight other joggers at least and lots of pedestrians. People don’t mind fine particulate matter if it occurs on a paid day off, it seems.

Other than the terrible conditions, the run went decently. My left knee had a few moments where it threatened to bother me, but the moments passed and it was fine. The right heel was a bit sore starting out but as the run progressed it felt better and was not an issue.

It looks like the resurfacing gnomes were busy as work on the South Shore trail has been extended closer to the first boardwalk, which I’m assuming will be the end point. They also extended some of the work on the Avalon trail, which is being kept with a similar, if slightly coarser, surface material.

Speaking of the Avalon trail, I was coming down it, just about finished my run, and along came a woman slowly pedaling her bike. I told her bikes were not allowed on the trail (she was only a dozen meters or so past one of the many signs saying this). She acknowledged that I had said words to her, some possible form of communication, then kept riding. I hope she got knocked into a creek by an off-leash dog.

On Wednesday it looks like conditions will be much the same (boo) but with the bonus if having construction equipment coming and going around the rowing pavilion parking lot (they’ve torn up the road leading to it and will be resurfacing it soon), as well as likely having workers on the trail spreading huge piles of gravel that will be difficult to navigate.

But at least it won’t be cold.

Run 517: The fine particulate matter 10K

Run 517
Average pace: 5:55/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW), including Piper Mill trail and Spruce Loop
Start: 1:19 pm
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 59:28
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 25ºC
Humidity: 53%
Wind: light
BPM: 153
Weight: 158.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 4013 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

The good news is the work to replace the foot bridge on the Cottonwood trail took less time than the signs indicated (as I suspected it would–they weren’t exactly replacing the Golden Gate here), so while I had planned on the possibility of running to Still Creek then turning and running back to complete 10K, I was able to keep going and behold the splendor of the new foot bridge, which looks remarkably like the old one.

Meanwhile, the bridge at Deer Lake Brook, unless my eyes are deceiving me, appears to be sagging very slightly in the middle. I’m wondering if the footings are starting to sink. I blame climate change.

Speaking of climate change, the worst part of the run was the weather. 25ºC is not hot, it’s just warm but not uncomfortably so. However, we are still in the middle of what would be a heat wave that has ironically seen lower-than-expected temperatures because the smoke haze from forest fires is so thick now that the sun can barely get through it. It’s also very humid and the fine particulate matter is not fine at all, it’s becoming noticeable enough that my eyes felt very slightly irritated by the end of the run.

Here’s the thing, though. I started out slow–5:44 for the first km (and that is very slow) and didn’t improve. By the last few km I was plodding along at a pace of over 6:00/km. This is not fun.

I saw very few people out on what would have otherwise been a spectacular Saturday afternoon. I didn’t see anyone else running because everyone else was smarter than me.

But I got through it. In a way the re-opening of the Cottonwood trail ruined my plan. As the run wore on I thought about getting to what would have been the barricade at Still Creek, turning around and completing 6K (which would not have meant much more running at that point) and then walking the rest of the way. When I saw the way was clear to complete a full loop I kept going because I figured I was already past the halfway-point, anyway.

The 10-day forecast doesn’t show any break in the sunny weather so the smoke haze is going to persist until a) the high pressure ridge finally breaks or b) all the forest fires magically go out.

I did make things worse by not going out in the morning when it would have at least been cooler. I’ll try to do that on Monday when I switch to my vacation running schedule of M-W-F.

In the end this was one of those “glad it’s over” runs. Here’s to eventual smoke haze-free jogging!