Run 516: 4,000 km! Also: super hot and yucky

Run 516
Average pace: 5:30/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 6:45 pm
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 27:39
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 29ºC
Humidity: 40%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 159.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 4003 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

While walking to the river trail for tonight’s run I made the call to do a shorter 5K run because:

  1. it felt even hotter than on Tuesday
  2. the air quality was worse
  3. there was little in the way of a breeze
  4. the air quality was worse–did I mention that? It was bad. The fine particulate matter they keep talking about was a lot more tangible.

So I ran 5K and turned in an average pace of 5:30/km, which is not that zippy for 5K but pretty decent given the conditions. The air was thick, soupy and slightly stinky. It felt warmer even though officially it was 29ºC again. I sweated profusely.

Other than a moment or two when a cramp threatened but didn’t materialize, I experienced no complications. It was just kind of a gross, unpleasant experience. I saw no other runners, so apparently some other joggers have had enough of this weather.

We’re in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave and it’s hot enough that they’ve doubled the number of fire warning signs on the trail (the bonus sign is on the bottom):

fire danger and more fire danger
Fire danger plus more fire danger

I did not see any briquette barbecues during my run. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen anyone smoking, though. Fire bans is usually when the smokers show up.

Oh, and I hit a major milestone–or is it kilometerstone?–tonight, passing the 4,000 km mark in total distance. I’ve been running for eight years now, so it averages out to about 500 km per year. Not too shabby. My best year was significantly higher than that–980 km–but I don’t think that will happen again. In 2012 I was on fire instead of all the forests.

This was the last run before I start my vacation so I now have the luxury of doing each run in the morning when it will be mercifully cooler, if still hazy and yucky. Cooler and yucky is still better than hotter and yucky, so I’ll take it.

Save

Stop smoking

Specifically, I’d like the air to stop smoking. Yesterday was weird with an orange haze and the air having a thick, soupy quality thanks to that good old fine particulate matter blowing in from forest fires in the Interior.

Today the haze descended to ground level so it not only blotted out the blue sky, it created a thin, fog-like layer everywhere you looked. And unlike yesterday the smell of the smoke has become tangible. It’s like being on the periphery of a magic campfire where no matter where you move, the campfire is always the same distance away.

Anyway, it’s gross and unlikely to change soon due to a very strong ridge of high pressure. It’s also bad because, well, lots of forest on fire.

But there is no mistaking it’s definitely summer.

Run 515: Orange haze

Run 515
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Brunette River trail and Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 6:18 pm
Distance: 8.02 km
Time: 45:36
Weather: Smoke haze, sun
Temp: 29ºC
Humidity: 46%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 154
Weight: 159.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 3998 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone

The change in the weather not only brought much warmer temperatures, it also brought–thanks to a switch in the winds–a high haze of smoke carried in from the forest fires burning in the interior. The entire day was cast under a hazy sun, with the light an eerie orange.

This made running feel a bit like being on an alien world. Also the fact that the air had the quality of soupy smoke and it was hot as heck. The sweating returned in abundance, though the humidity meant I kind of self-hydrated through the run, unlike Saturday’s cooler but drier run that left my mouth parched.

I was a bit concerned starting out due to this combination of unpleasant conditions and planned a conservative run. Indeed, save for the first and last km, which were faster, my pace was remarkably steady. Weirdly, though, it didn’t feel nearly as bad as I’d expected.

It was hot, but the haze kept the sun from beating directly down. There was an intermittent breeze. The heavy humidity kept me from drying out. And while the air was filled with “fine particulate matter” (fancypants talk for bits of stuff from the smoke), I couldn’t specifically detect it. I didn’t come out smelling like a campfire, anyway.

I was surprised by the number of other jogging fools out with me. We are all masochists.

In the end I actually beat Saturday’s pace by three seconds (albeit over a shorter distance) and felt a lot better doing it.

Two other things I’ll mention. Somewhere between the 5 and 6K mark I heard the scissoring of legs behind me and to my left. A moment later a runner zipped by me. He was really trucking, which seemed silly to me, given the conditions. I thought of goosing my pace a bit to keep him in sight and see how long he could maintain his torrid pace but he was out of sight in nearly an instant, a phantom on the trail.

A short distance before the increasingly rickety Deer Creek Brook bridge and I saw him coming back, having short-turned before the bridge. As he went by I noticed that his mouth formed a perfect O. His face had the same look one might observe of a fish that’s been out of water just a tad longer than it would like. Given this heart-attack-imminent look, I didn’t feel so bad about being left in his dust.

Speaking of heart attacks, I had my music set to shuffle play and They Might Be Giants’ song(let) “I’m Having a Heart Attack” came on. I felt a bit uneasy at this possibly providing unintentional narrative to my run so skipped to the next track, which was The Cure’s “Hot Hot Hot.” It’s like the music knew.

Overall, this turned out to be a surprisingly decent run. Here’s hoping the trend continues, as the next two runs are likely to be under similar conditions.

All the big plans for August 2017

In no order:

  • get my learner’s license
  • get my prescription updated for my glasses; get new glasses or at least new lenses
  • clean up the junk in the living room
  • visit over on Vancouver Island
  • go camping for a few days somewhere that isn’t on fire
  • run 10K at least three times a week (starting in the second week)
  • write fiction for one hour each day
  • achieve world peace

I’ve probably left a few out and some goals may be easier than others. For example, world peace may be more within reach than writing an hour of fiction every day. But who knows?

I will report back in a month with the exciting results.

July 2017 summary: Nearly pantsless

The weather has been pretty nice in July and this week promises an actual heatwave, with temperatures climbing up over 30ºC on multiple days. Not great for all the forest fires out there burning across the province, but nice for getting a tan.

I went the entire month–save one day–without wearing pants. And I kind of regretted wearing pants the day I did.

As an aside, it seems harder than it should be to find a pair of shorts that look decent* and aren’t festooned with pockets. I only need to carry a phone, wallet and keys, not two weeks of camping supplies.

 

* what I consider decent may vary from the popular definition. It’s like art, I know it when I see it. At least when it comes to shorts.

Seasons in the Sun, now with more bees

What if the Terry Jacks classic song had been about bees and dying, instead of love and dying?

Bee-sons in the Sun

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We’ve known each other since we were nine or ten.
Together we’ve climbed hills and trees.
Learned of love and ABC’s,
skinned our hearts, got stung by bees.

Goodbye my friend, it’s hard to die,
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the spring is in the air.
Killer bees are everywhere.
Think of me and I’ll bee there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we ran from hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
were just beehives out of time.

Goodbye, Papa, please pray for me,
I brought the bees back to the family.
You tried to teach me right from wrong.
Too much wine and too much song,
and the bees all stinging strong.

Goodbye, Papa, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
Children screaming everywhere.
When you see them I’ll be there.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the wine and the song,
like the bees, have all gone.

Had no joy, and got stung, we fought hornets in the sun.
But the honey and the bong,
like the bees, have all gone.

Goodbye, Michelle, my little one.
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
And every time that I was down
you would always come around
until the bees put me in the ground.

Goodbye, Michelle, it’s hard to die
when all the bees are buzzing in the sky,
Now that the bees are in the air.
With the flowers they don’t care.
Just to sting us here and there.

Had no joy, and got stung, ran from wasps in the sun.
But the houses we could reach
were just wall to wall with bees

All our lives we would run, we faced hornets in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed
Were just beehives out of time….

Okay, that’s pretty bad, but I somehow feel better having written it. Also, I tried to rhyme “reach” and “bees”, which illustrates my mastery of poetry and songwriting.

If I do this…

If I wear my over-ear headphones and then rub a finger on my upper-lip stubble (it’s not quite grand enough to really call a mustache) the sound is strangely reminiscent of sawing wood.

This has been my random thought of the day.

Also, I dreamed the other night that a taxi driver or bus driver said dividing something up fairly would be “fifty, fifty, fifty” and I frantically tried to find some way to permanently record this wisdom for all time. In reality I have an app called Drafts that I can summon on my Apple Watch and with a tap of the mic icon, I tell it what I want to record and it’s done. It’s simple yet always strikes me as such a spiffy, hi-tech way to record random thoughts and ideas.

In the dream I couldn’t get the app to work. I’m not sure why. The watch probably adopted spontaneous non-Euclidean geometry that made it impossible to operate.

This has been my second random thought of the day. About random thoughts.

Best YouTube comment ever

This is admittedly a very low bar to clear. It’s actually rolling around on the ground.

Still, in a comment for America’s “You Can Do Magic” video (their last notable hit, released in 1982), this is offered:

Love this video. It’s like a bunch of dads from the neighborhood got together to write a killer tune the last Sunday before football started.

Now watch the video and tell me if you disagree. You can’t, because it’s totally true. Or should be.

(Fixed link to direct to official video. Enjoy!)

July 2017 weight loss report: Down 2.6 pounds

For the month of July:

July 1: 163.1 pounds
July 30: 160.5 pounds

This continues the downward trend that started in May and has picked up a wee bit of momentum. Three times in the past week I dipped below 160 pounds, once tipping the scale at 158.6 pounds.

For the year to date I have gone from 165.9 to 160.5 pounds, a total weight loss of 5.4 pounds. Not super-dramatic but I am getting close enough to my goal that I no longer despair and feel the urge to give up and switch to an all-donuts diet.

And body fat for the first half of the year:

January 1: 19.1% (31.7 pounds of fat)
July 30: 16.6% (26.8 pounds of fat)

Down 2.5%/4.9 pounds of fat. Again, not numbers to make your socks roll up and down but a continued improvement over previous months. Onward and downward, I say!

I am now collecting obsolete Apple devices

A few days ago Apple quietly pulled the iPod nano and iPod shuffle from their online store and confirmed the devices were being discontinued. The only iPod left is the iPod Touch, which is really just an iPhone with the phone bits removed. The Touch itself hasn’t been updated since 2015, though Apple did double the storage without changing the price while killing the nano and shuffle, so it’s at least a better value now. Its days are still likely to be numbered. I predict no more hardware refreshes, maybe another round of new colors (next year) and then bye-bye it goes.

I bought the 7th generation nano shortly after it came out to replace the 6th generation model I had before it. The biggest change was going from a click wheel interface to a touchscreen that aped the look and feel of the iPhone. While the click wheel had the advantage in allowing you to use it by simply clicking without looking, I found it reacted very badly when it got the slightest bit damp when I was using it on runs. And I used mine pretty much exclusively when running (using the built-in Nike+ app). The touchscreen version could also be a bit finicky when wet but not to the same degree. I once extended a run by nearly half a km when I couldn’t get the click wheel to work during a light rain. (The nano had a bizarre history with Apple radically changing the device over its lifespan. The sixth generation model had a video camera included, something that seems completely silly looking back.)

Both of my nanos still work. In fact, I used my saucy green model just this year. I always wanted Apple to make a 32GB version of it so it could hold all of my music and I wouldn’t have to choose what to leave off. But alas.

Perhaps the best thing about the nano was its size, specifically how small it was. I could slip it into a pocket on a run and not even notice it there. There is no smartphone–iPhone or otherwise–that comes remotely close to that kind of portability.

Of course, it had its disadvantages. It didn’t connect to anything. That meant I couldn’t use Siri to set music or change tracks (I do that a lot, especially on runs). It could only sync through iTunes, which is a major downside these days, given how generally awful iTunes is (especially with syncing). And the aforementioned 16GB of storage ultimately proved limiting.

I guess if I had a wish list for the nano-that-will-never-be, it would look something like this:

  • full integration with iOS (ie. a real iOS device)
  • support for Siri
  • 32 and 64GB storage options
  • wireless syncing

Basically it would be a tiny version of the iPod Touch.

Except the only way that will happen is if this timeline splits off into a bizarro world where a lot of people in 2017 still use dedicated music devices. And even then it probably wouldn’t happen. Which means my two nanos now join my 80GB iPod Classic in the dustbin of technology, products that helped Apple become the giant it is today and just a decade later are obsolete, like my 8-track player and Zip drive. (I’d have a tough time deciding which of those two was the worst because, brother, they weren’t no nanos).