Run 622 Average pace: 5:42/km Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 11:02 am Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:39 Weather: Sunny, veiled cloud Temp: 23ºC Humidity: 57% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 159 Weight: 166.3 pounds Total distance to date: 4690 km Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8 Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (45 km)
When I got to the lake this morning, I was planning another counter-clockwise run, but knowing I’d have to skip the first two side trails, I planned to start on the other side of the dam, near the 0K marker, for that all-important psychological boost of finishing the 5K at or before the 5K marker. Then I thought, “Why stop there?” and opted to start at the 10K marker, giving myself an extra 300 meters to play with.
But as I walked to my start point, I thought about the noise and stink of the work around the dam, and the torn-up main trail that I would have to navigate right at the start, then decided to run clockwise, so I made my way back to the fountain near the dam (still ahead of the 5K marker, but not by as much) and set off.
Conditions were nearly as humid as Monday and it was a little warmer, so I was sweating even before the run started. Then I sweated a whole lot more. I didn’t push hard at the start, but I also didn’t hold back or try to set a steady pace, I just ran at whatever speed I felt comfortable with, then slowed down after.
As it turned out, my first km was a relatively blazing 5:14/km–this is the closest I’ve come to breaking the 5:00/km mark in a long time (and is something I doubt I will break, unless I specifically set out to do so). I’m not sure why I was so zippy, but that first km is why I ended up with an overall improvement of five seconds on my average pace, because every other km ranged between 5:41 and up to 5:58. My slowest km was the third and to be fair, I did improve in the following two km, so after burning hard and fast to start, I found some reserves to pick the pace up a bit for the back half of the run.
There were no issues otherwise, and the trail was relatively quiet, just a few other joggers and walkers, not even many people out walking their dogs. I managed to run a good bit after, even beating my average walk pace (8:02 vs. 8:28) vs. Monday.
I did actually rest after the run on the bed for about 20 minutes or so, because did I mention it was humid? I felt a little more tuckered, as a result, though I am up and aboot now.
I’ll probably run clockwise again on Friday, but we’ll see. They are predicting light rain, so that would be a relative novelty for a summer run. It might be refreshing, or horrible. Hard to say.
