The pasty white chest run

Average pace: 4:58/km

Location: Burnaby Lake, CCW
Distance: 11.03 km
Weather: Sunny, hazy sun, hot
Temp: 26-28ºC
Wind: light to none
Calories burned: 782
Total distance to date: 1534 km

Today it was summer for real, no foolin’. Temperatures started at 26ºC and peaked by the end of the run at 28ºC. There was little wind to offset the heat, though the sun was blunted slightly by a thin haze across the sky.

I decided to go counter-clockwise and just suffer through the exposed detour route at the end. I also skipped all three optional loops.

And it was very warm. I was sweating a little just on the walk to the lake. Once there it didn’t take long to feel like the energy was being sucked out of me, packaged up and shipped off elsewhere. I had to pause twice to catch a few seconds of rest, one time in particular because I felt like I was pushing too hard (somehow) and overheating. I did manage to finish with a pace of 4:58, though, so it seems that I have made enough of an adjustment to keep my times under 5 minutes even when it is Africa hot (for the Vancouver area).

I felt creaky at the start, with my right ankle feeling a little sore (I twisted it in a less-than-optimal way the other day) but after about the first km the kinks were worked out and both legs weren’t causing any notable problems — stamina was definitely the main barrier today.

The title of this post refers to the first time on a run this year that I’ve encountered multiple men with their shirts off and save for one they all looked like prime candidates for a nice burn given the very white skin they had exposed.

I also had two people ask me questions during the run. This has never happened before. The first question was from a possible fellow runner, though neither of us were running at the time (this was during my second brief pause). We were around the midway point of the detour and he wanted to know if the trail picked up again and I assured him it did. He seemed satisfied. But he kept walking. I resumed my run and a short time later a woman asked if I had seen a man with a beard wearing shorts. I said no and continued on, though I honestly didn’t know if I had seen such a person or not. I don’t pay close attention to the other people on the trail unless they a) get in my way b) do something unusual/stupid or c) are dressed so outrageously that they leave an image seared into your brain. If I did indeed pass by man in shirts with beard, he fit into none of these categories.

Note that some of the stats/splits are missing for this run because I am not attempting to upload any more runs until the one from Wednesday is restored. I did get through to Nike support and after a bit of back and forth have supplied all the info they need to manually add the run (or so I hope). I am a bit concerned because I was asked for my Nike+ user name as part of the info, did so and then was asked to supply it again in a later tweet. Which I did, again. It hadn’t changed in the meantime!

Since it looks to be warm for the next little while I may look into taking some water with me on the next bunch o’ runs. That should help a decent bit, I’d reckon.

Chart

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