Run 744: Giants and torrents

Soggy view from Cariboo Dam, post-run. Time 9:49 a.m.

I dressed for rain (rain jacket) and that came in handy, as after some intermittent showers for the first four km, The Rains descended, and it poured for the rest of the run, and rained on the walk home. It’s raining now as I type this. But it was also super mild at 10C, which is well above normal.

Today I had only one goal. Well, two goals:

  • Avoid big puddles
  • Run at a slower pace, trying to stick closer to 150 BPM

On the first part, this became trickier as the run progressed and when I got to the athletic fields I cut a wide berth around the floody parts of the trail, successfully keeping my feet relatively dry.

On the latter, I came pretty close, with a pace of 152 BPM. I did go a bit faster in the latter half and again in the last km, but there were other times when I let my pace drop as low as 147.

The shins again felt a little tender to start, but held up fine. I think as long as I avoid excessive turbo mode, I’ll be good. Plus, I now have at least two days of recovery (one day less than my Garmin Forerunner recommends).

As for the giants, there was one. At about 3 km remaining, I suddenly had someone whiz by me, a man dressed in black shorts, short and cap. Not the ghost of Johnny Cash, but a runner probably less than half my age and probably about 12 feet tall. He was moving pretty good on those freakishly long legs. I thought of playing catch-up, but there was no way it was going to happen unless I magically transferred into my 30-year-old body and let’s face it, 30-year-old me was actually in worse shape than the current version of me. I ended up having him pass me again, but in the opposite direction–on the river trail. I’m going to imagine he just ran full speed for the entire day, doing a few dozen loops around the lake and general area.

And then it happened again! A young couple with good hips passed me on the final km, on the Conifer Loop. They didn’t seem as fast as the hill giant, so I did make an attempt to keep pace, but a few things occurred to me:

  • This was not keeping my BPM down. In fact, it climbed to 160.
  • I was nearly at the end of a 10K run. I’m pretty sure they were not.
  • We’ll see if they’re still doing this when they’re 58!

So as much as it pains me to have other, faster runners go by me, I let them go. I still ended with a pace of 5:57/km, which is fine for what I was setting out to do, and conditions were not great, so overall I’m pretty satisfied with the results.

Also, a lot more people than expected were out walking in pretty awful weather, including a pair of women who each had a pair of walking sticks and remained unmoved when I called out, “Behind you!” as I approached them. I ended up running off the trail to get around them. I have no idea how they could not have heard me. Maybe I am being deafist, though. Perhaps they literally could not hear! I still shot them a dirty look from further up, as I rounded a corner. I’ll assume their eyesight is as good as their hearing.

Also of note, this was my earliest run in a long time, perhaps ever! I headed out early for a coupler of reasons:

  • Vain hope to beat the rain. This only semi-worked.
  • I was up early due to noisy neighbours, so why not turn lemon into lemonade? Or something like that.

I was back by 10:30, which is earlier than I head out on some days. I actually was outside before the sun was even up (if you could have seen the sun). It was kind of neat!

Stats:

Run 744
Average pace: 5:57/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 8:44 a.m.
Distance: 10.04 km
Time: 59:43
Weather: Rain
Temp: 10ºC
Humidity: 94%
Wind: low
BPM: 152
Weight: 163.4
Total distance to date: 5510 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (182 km)

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