Run 584: 22 days off and I can still run, hooray

Run 584
Average pace: 6:12/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:21 am
Distance: 5:04 km
Time: 31:18
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 24-28ºC
Humidity: 50%
Wind: light
BPM: 167
Weight: 162.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 4500 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone 8

I hit a new milestone today, or, I suppose, a kilometerstone, passing 4,500 km officially run. It’s actually more than that, but I wasn’t really tracking much (or at all) in the early days. 4,500 km is enough to pretty much go from the west coast of Canada to the east coast, depending on where exactly you start and stop. It did take me nine years to reach this, so jogging may not be the most practical way (for me) to cross the country.

My last run was 22 days ago, on June 22, and with the return of warm, sunny weather, my goal today was to simply finish and not feel horrible after. Mission accomplished!

While the pace of 6:12/km is certainly not blazingly fast, it *is* ten seconds better than my previous run at the lake, which is kind of impressive given that happened 27 days ago. I actually did not feel bad and managed to pick up the pace in the last km, too. I did feel the knees, but they were no better or worse than the last half dozen runs or so. I was surprised my stamina held up as the temperature climbed from 24ºC to 28ºC during the run. Equally surprising was the minimal sweating, perhaps due to the humidity hovering around 50%, coupled with a light and refreshing breeze. For an Africa hot run, it was pretty tolerable.

Also, a few new things on the trail since my last run. The UH OH BEARS sign is out again for the season, and the stretch of trail from the western boardwalk to the area resurfaced last year has also been resurfaced, with one small section still waiting its top coat of compressed gravel/dirt. This was a pleasant surprise, though it did mean the one unique corner on a hill was smoothed out. It was also fun to cut in short when going counter-clockwise, but now it’s just a regular corner.

The Cottonwood Trail remains as rooty as ever, but they are running out of sections to resurface, so it may get done in the next year or so, if they stick to the same rough schedule.

Overall, this was a pleasant return and went much better than it might have, given the conditions and the time between runs. Now to build on this without my knees collapsing.

The best part actually came after I finished the run. There was a woman jogging ahead of me, but her pace was what one might describe as languid, so languid that I actually caught up and passed her–while walking. That’s definitely a first. Shortly after passing her I turned a corner and saw the poopmonsters were again cluttering up the trail at the north end of the sports fields. I eased up to let the “jogger” go first and draw their fire. It turned out that not much of anything happened. You can see one goose in particular still flapping its wings in umbrage in this shot as she passes by, but the rest just went about with their usual goose-standing, goose-grooming and, of course, goose-stepping:

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