Distance: 11.05 km
Weather: Overcast, light drizzle
Temp: 16ºC
Wind: light breeze
Calories burned: 772
Average pace: 5:06/km
Total distance to date: 889 km
I look forward to doing it again, though I suspect it will be awhile before I can beat my 5:10 pace.
As it turned out, ‘awhile’ ended up being three days later, as I repeated the Burnaby Lake loop under similar conditions (overcast, early evening) and ended up shaving another four seconds off my average pace, bringing it down to a spiffy 5:06/km. This is also the first time I’ve finished 6 km with a pace of under 5 minutes.
I successfully dodged another army of black slugs. Apparently they project some kind of field that repels feet because I have yet to see one that has been squashed.
The highlight of tonight’s run, apart from the general zippiness, is that I successfully avoided the wrong turns of the first run, meaning the only pavement I saw was the brief mandatory sprint across a small parking lot as you come around toward the long southern stretch of the trail. Toward the end a light drizzle began to fall but it was kind of nice run-wise, even if it served to remind me that summer has been off to a hobbling start around these parts.
Just before the 1 km mark I had a USI (Untied Lace Incident) and shortly after addressing that I had a SBI (Swallowed Bug Incident). I’m pretty sure I swallowed a bug. Maybe even a couple of them. For the next few km I tried clearing my throat, coughing and carrying on to dislodge whatever got lodged in my windpipe. Fortunately this was on the part of the trail that moves away from the bog so I did not ingest yet more bugs as I worked to remove the ones already inside.
I did not pass any other joggers running the same way this time, though I did pass by a number of others running clockwise, including a large group of young guys that reminded me of those junior high P.E. runs where you had the few hardcore up front, a large middle group and a few stragglers usually walking far at the back with that ‘What, me exercise?’ attitude happening. The part that bugs me is even the guys in the latter group have incredibly toned bodies. No fair, I say.
Chart (blue indicates the run was done clockwise):
| km | Jul 14 | Jul 11 | Jul 9 | Jul 6 | Jul 4 | Jul 1 | Jun 28 | Jun 26 | Jun 21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 km | 4:45 | 4:54 | 4:58 | 5:08 | 4:58 | 5:04 | 4:58 | 4:59 | 5:00 |
| 2 km | 4:47 | 4:56 | 4:58 | 5:11 | 5:02 | 5:06 | 5:03 | 5:05 | 5:04 |
| 3 km | 4:51 | 4:58 | 5:03 | 5:14 | 5:08 | 5:07 | 5:05 | 5:10 | 5:07 |
| 4 km | 4:54 | 5:01 | 5:07 | 5:17 | 5:12 | 5:09 | 5:08 | 5:13 | 5:11 |
| 5 km | 4:54 | 5:03 | 5:10 | 5:20 | 5:14 | 5:11 | 5:11 | 5:15 | 5:14 |
| 6 km | 4:59 | 5:03 | 5:12 | 5:22 | 5:15 | 5:12 | 5:13 | 5:19 | 5:15 |
| 7 km | 5:00 | 5:04 | 5:15 | 5:25 | 5:17 | 5:14 | 5:15 | 5:21 | 5:17 |
| 8 km | 5:02 | 5:06 | 5:17 | 5:27 | 5:19 | 5:16 | 5:16 | 5:23 | 5:19 |
| 9 km | 5:04 | 5:08 | 5:19 | 5:30 | 5:21 | 5:17 | 5:18 | 5:25 | 5:20 |
| 10 km | 5:06 | 5:10 | 5:20 | 5:31 | 5:21 | 5:17 | 5:19 | 5:27 | 5:21 |
| 11 km | 5:01 | 4:59 | — | — | — | 5:19 |