The first day of fall run plus BUGS FROM HELL

Average pace: 4:38/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CCW
Distance: 11.36 km
Weather: Low cloud
Temp: 14-15ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 771
Total distance to date: 1897 km

Ran Piper Mill trail, Conifer and Spruce Loops.

Ah, the first day of fall. Temperatures were appropriately cooler and the sun was tucked away behind some low cloud. Conditions were actually quite nice for running.

And in terms of the actual running part, today’s run was fine. I expected to be a bit slower than Wednesday’s zippy pace and was but finished a respectable 4:38/km. I had a much slower start (off by seven seconds) as my body clearly preferred the idea of sleeping in on Saturday morning over getting up and jogging.

If you read the previous entry you may note I had complained about the proliferation of flies. Today was like that multiplied fivefold. I already complained about this at length on Broken Forum so I’ll just repeat it here in slightly modified form:

Have you ever wished for the extermination of an entire species? I haven’t — until now!

The last few runs at Burnaby Lake have been a bit buggy, with the occasional cloud of those itty-bitty black flies hovering in place across the trail in such a way that they are impossible to avoid. Except today the clouds were mega-clouds and instead of occasional they were omnipresent. At times I felt like I was jogging through a driving rain and the rain was flies. At one point I looked down to my right arm and more than a dozen flies had glued themselves to its sweaty surface. Every time I wiped at the sweat on my forehead my finger came back with the corpse of a fly stuck to it. I lost track of how many landed on my glasses, dancing around in front of my eyes in Blur-O-Vision. I ingested more than I’d like to have.

I audibly gagged. I thought of abandoning the run, finding the quickest escape route from the lake. But I pressed on.

Once I got out of the infested area and into the last few km where it was just pleasant woods and not some insect-flavored take on Hitchcock, I began to relax a little and focus back on the run. That’s when the left lens of my glasses popped out. The tiny screw holding the frame together simply decided it was not going to work anymore. The lens fell onto a section of trail that consists of mixed gravel and leaves, the perfect camouflage for concealing anything. I retraced my steps and to my surprise, I actually found the lens in less than thirty seconds. The screw remained lost so one can legitimately claim that I now have a screw loose.

I pocketed the errant (and undamaged) lens and continued for the last km of the run. I walked home sans music as the mood did not lend itself to such entertainment. I wanted to stew in silence.

I am quietly dreading the next run. My only hope is that the flies really hate late afternoon and early evening.

Sinnick over on Broken Forum found the perfect animated summation of my run, courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada. I present it below.

UPDATE: A kind fellow at Visions Optical at Lougheed Town Centre fixed my glasses for free. Nice! They have decent prices so I may look there for a new pair of glasses soon and pay it forward.

Chart (records are in pink)