I didn’t run for the past week, but I have reasons!
- Last Wednesday I was dealing with condo nonsense and had no time.
- Last Friday I went birding because the weather was good. And I also walked over 28,000 steps, so it’s not like I was lazing on the couch eating Ding Dongs.
Regardless, as I headed out this morning, my training status had sunk to Detraining. Ouch.
By the time I had walked to the lake I had already lifted myself back up to Recovery mode and at the conclusion of the run I was back to Maintaining. Yay.
For a week off, the run went quite well. I had no issues, felt fine and while my pace was slower at 5:49/km, it’s still perfectly respectable, especially given the conditions. While it was sunny, it was also cool–only 4C–and unusually windy, with gusts up to 25 km/h. It definitely made the walk to the lake a little chillier than normal. The run itself wasn’t too bad, though.
The trail was surprisingly busy for a Monday morning, but I suspect the nice weather drew out more people than normal.
There was one odd moment during the run. I was on the main trail and ahead of me was a song sparrow, pecking around on the trail, as they do. Normally as I approach birds on the trail, they scatter as I get near, because I am a lumbering giant moving at a higher-than-normal speed. The song sparrow did not move. I entered what I considered its personal birb space, and it still didn’t move. At the last second, I cut sharp to the left, because if I hadn’t, there seemed a good chance that my right foot would have come down either on top of the song sparrow or very close to it. Just as I did this, it finally flew off.
I cannot remember ever having to alter my course to get around any kind of songbird. It happens regularly with Canada geese, because they own the place and you want to avoid the geese, not the other way around, but little bitty sparrows? Never!
Until this morning.
Anyway, it was a good run to start the week, even with the wind and the near-smooshing of an innocent song sparrow.
Run 853 Average pace: 5:49/km Training status: Maintaining Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 10:20 a.m. Distance: 5:04 km Time: 29:18 Weather: Sunny Temp: 4ºC Humidity: 70-66% Wind: moderate, gusts up to 25 km/h (!) BPM: 157 Weight: 170/9 Total distance to date: 6155 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (290/538/828 km)
