I headed out more than two hours earlier compared to Friday’s run, as I attempt to get full back into my morning run routine. As a result, it was a bit chillier at 5C, but two layers was still fine, especially with the sun.
I opted to go clockwise and unlike recent runs, I got off to a strong start, which ended up matching my overall pace of 5:38/km, my fastest run in a while. The final km was my first lap under 5:30 in some time, too, at 5:27/km. My BPM is still coming in lower, though, which is nice, with today’s being 146.
I didn’t encounter any issues except a weird bit of creakiness in my right foot that pooped up around the 3K mark. I’d compare it to one of those random twitchy muscle things where it pops up, unbidden, then just as quickly disappears. It didn’t have any effect on the overall run.
There were no topless runners today.
There was one dog off-leash, but he was a good boy.
The double double bows came about because I always tie my left shoelace in a double bow and today the right lace came untied about a km in, then started coming untied about half a km later, so I gave it a double bow, too. It’s double bows all the way down.
I should start looking for new shoes soon.
Overall, though, a fine start to the week. Wednesday is looking damp, but maybe if I do a chicken dance or something I can scare the rain away. Or the neighbours.
Still Creek reflective, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,022 Average pace: 5:38/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 10:23 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:20 Weather: Sunny Temp: 5-6°C Humidity: 69-67% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 146 Weight: 171.5 pounds Total distance to date: 6,935 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (205/321/526)
Where: Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Como Lake (Coquitlam) Weather: Partly sunny, 7-8°C
NOTE: I am posting this a week late, but I had the write-up ready to go, I just hadn't gotten any photos ready. I've included a few but will have a proper gallery soon--for reals!
Also, the first birding of Spring!
Burnaby Lake
The lake looking more ripply than usual.
Nic suggested we do the full loop around Burnaby Lake, which is around 10.3 km or “You will achieve your 10,000-step goal no problem.”
We started at the Avalon parking lot, then went counter-clockwise, stopping at Cariboo Dam, Piper Spit, the Butterfly Garden by the Nature House, Philips Point, the rowing pavilion, the bridge on Deer Lake Brook, and anywhere we saw or heard birds.
Piper Spit was replete with people feeding the birds. We also saw multiple cyclists and dogs walking about off-leash. It was basically “Rules for thee, not for me” day. Note: the dogs and cyclists were not at Piper Spit, so there are still some limits in place.
The pier gave us our first look at newly-arrived migrants–the Brown-headed Cowbird. I did not get any decent shots, but we’ll have more chances over the spring and summer. Tree and Violet-Green Swallows were also diving around all over the lake here. Nic and I both documented this with a collection of artisanal blurry photos. There was also a red-eyed pigeon here, looking like it had just finished a sermon at the Pigeon Church of Satan.
And the only remnant of the land mas near the pier was once again occupied by gulls, whose golf ball collection is now up to three.
After this, we checked out the scenery from the viewing platform just west of the pier, then headed to Philips Point, where we saw more scenery and a Song Sparrow.
The long stretch of Cottonwood Trail yielded more Song Sparrows, then the bridge over Still Creek let us glimpse a Pied-billed Grebe. It dove a few times and the last time it never came back into view, possibly returning to the pocket dimension grebes hail from. A flock of Cackling Geese circled the sportsball field a few times, then came in for a landing, allowing us to get some shots of them grazing. A few crows in the background were taking delight in some kind of baked good one had acquired.
Around the south shore of the lake we apparently entered woodpecker country, seeing both a Pileated Woodpecker and a pair of Red-breasted Sapsuckers, the only downside being that they were in the “crane your neck” part of the trees.
We also heard, but never saw, several frogs.
We did see some water strider bugs in a stand of water adjacent to the trial, including a pair that were busy trying to make more striders, if you know what I mean. It’s that time of year for everyone.
Como Lake
A serene-looking Como Lake.
After Burnaby Lake, we elected to tackle a smaller body of water with Como Lake, whose loop is about 10% that of Burnaby Lake. The scenery was nice enough, and we saw a lot of geese pairing off. There was also a pair of male Mallards that also seemed paired off, or maybe they were just good friends.
We ended by observing a robin on the grass yoinking large, juicy worms out of the grounsd and eating them with relish. Not actual relish, just zeal.
At this point we both had nearly 20,000 steps and opted to call it a day instead of walking even further. Between yesterday’s run at the lake and the birding, I’d covered around 55,000 steps in the two days. That’s good enough for me!
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A coot cooting.All hail Satan Pigeon.Have another close-up, this time an American Robin.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Cloudy, but clearing, and nicely mild.
Today’s run was remarkably similar to Wednesday’s, except it was drier and milder, both of which were nice.
But like the previous run, I got off to a sluggish start and slowly improved and finished with a middling overall pace of 5:49/km, but also another fairly low BPM of 145. Conditions were generally fine as we’ve only had some light rain in the past few days, though there was one spot on the trail that someone had improvised a bridge on:
Keep your feet dry and test your balance, together at last.
The downside is no one knows where to go to park anymore.
There was one dog off-leash and while he was not entirely a good boy (he trundled over to my side of the trail), he didn’t directly interfere. I still had unkind thoughts toward the owner.
But overall, today’s run was fine. There was another topless jogger, though at 10C, I can kind of see it. I dressed in two layers and one might have sufficed, but I kept the hoodie on. With the sun mostly tucked away, it didn’t really feel warm, as such.
And good news–I did three runs this week. Hooray for consistency.
As for the men interfering, on the river trail a crew had the trail blocked off about midway up because they were messing with a tree that had fallen in the river. If you really want to close off the trail, the signs should go at the start of the trail, not a meter from the work being done. I went through, it seemed safe. On the way back they were gone and I can’t say the work they did looks any better than what was there before, but I am not a treeologist.
The next men also blocking a path were right near Cariboo Dam–exactly where I start my run. They had the area roped off and were pounding stakes into the ground near the river edge, behind an existing fence, for reasons. This time I didn’t attempt to go through and went around via the Avalon entrance. They were also gone when I finished my run, but their stakes remained, doing…something or other.
And the cranes were a pair of Sandhill Cranes, which I haven’t seen in a long time, looking for food at the sports field and probably planning on having babbies soon. Spring is truly here.
Be still, creek.
Stats:
Run 1,021 Average pace: 5:49/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 12:50 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 29:10 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 10°C Humidity: 61-59% Wind: light BPM: 145 Weight: 169.7 pounds Total distance to date: 6,930 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (200/308/508)
Thanks to YouTube’s sometimes erratic algorithm, I was offered a video of the 1968 Hockey Night in Canada theme. Back in Duncan and growing up in the 1970s, HNIC was a Saturday night staple in our home, with the living room TV always tuned to the game. I’ve heard the theme song probably hundred of times, but the last time I heard it may have been the last time I watched HNIC, which was probably the mid 80s.
Until tonight. And hearing it again, I not only felt that intoxicating pull of nostalgia you get from childhood music, but it also struck me what a damn good theme it is. The brass section just blasts the thing. No wonder so many think of it as Canada’s unofficial second anthem.
Brunette River, pre-run: A little showery, a bit breezy.
Sorry, I couldn’t think of a better title. 😛
I did my best to wait out the rain, but it was not to be, so I had an early afternoon run in light rain. It was cooler than normal at only 5C and felt closer to freezing because there were some wind gusts. Not my favourite running conditions!
The suggested workout was recovery, so I took that to heart and adopted a more leisurely pace. By the second km my pace had dipped to 6:03/km, which was a bit too leisurely, so I picked it up and finished with an average of 5:51/km. My BPM was quite low, at 142, reflecting the more casual stride.
I only saw two people on the trail: a guy wearing just a t-shirt (well, and also pants) despite the rain. He was walking a dog on-leash. Good boy (the dog owner)! The other was another jogger, who I passed twice as we were both looping the river trail. He wore a very bright red cap (the nice thing in Canada is a red cap is just a red cap) and pink running shoes. He’s not the first guy I’ve seen wearing pink running shoes recently, so this may be the year when pink is the hot colour for runners. Hot pink, one might say.
I should start looking for new shoes soon, myself. The Peregrine 15s have almost 500 km on them of combined running/walking.
A few other random notes:
The third song to come up in shuffle mode was “Echoes”, which kept playing until about a minute after my run ended. I’m not sure if it’s good jogging music, but I couldn’t bring myself to skip forward.
The rain stopped almost immediately after my run. I’m glad it stopped, but sometimes I wonder if Mother Nature is really Nelson Muntz.
It is impossible to take a photo of this pond and have it look level. Also, bonus ducks.
Stats:
Run 1,020 Average pace: 5:51/km Training status: Productive Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 1:29 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 29:23 Weather: Light rain and drizzle Temp: 5°C (felt like 0°C) Humidity: 82% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 142 Weight: 170.5 pounds Total distance to date: 6,925 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (195/295/490)
Music: Shuffle mode, but mostly "Echoes" by Pink Floyd
Last night I decided to try installing Kubuntu again. I first deleted the EFI partition that had weirdly been created on my backup HDD that I mainly use for bird photographs. The creation of this partition is osmething that I missed before during a previous attempt.
I then ran the Kubuntu installer, selected my secondary SSD and it correctly created an EFI partition on that. When I restarted, the (somewhat ugly) Grub menu appeared, allowing me to select Kubuntu or Windows. Woo.
But now I think I’d like to try Mint again, I think I prefer Cinammon over KDE. I am never satisfied. 😛
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Work was being done in the area, hence the Metro Vancouver vehicles.
Today was the third time in the past three days I’ve completed the loop at Burnaby Lake, though I wasn’t carrying my camera with me this time.
Instead, it was the start of my weekly set of runs and once again, it was partly sunny, though a bit cooler than Friday, so the two layers stayed on for the duration. Shortly after I ended my 5K I had a guy pass me who was obviously not as sensitive to the temperature, as he was going topless.
There are two kinds of guys that run without a shirt:
Guys who want to show off their six-pack
Guys who look like they’ve had a few too many six-packs
There is nothing in-between. Average guys seem topless-averse.
Today’s run was clockwise, and very similar to Friday, with only a one-second difference in the average pace and a one beat difference in BPM (both were a bit faster/better today). I didn’t experience any issues, the trail was relatively dry after a few blissful days of not-rain and only one dog was off-leash.
In all, a good start to the week.
Still Creek, post-run: Back to the stillness.
Stats:
Run 1,019 Average pace: 5:44/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 11:15 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:50 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 7-8°C Humidity: 62% Wind: light BPM: 148 Weight: 172.1 pounds Total distance to date: 6,920 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (190/291/481)
I thought my new PC would be well-prepared for Linux–it has an AMD CPU and an AMD GPU, just like Linux distros love.
And in reality, I have installed a few distros with some success:
Linux Mint, my old standby
Kubuntu (Ubuntu, but with the KDE environment)
KDE Neon (for when you want the very latest KDE)
Pop_OS (to try out the Cosmic DE1Desktop Environment)
The problem in each case was a variation of one of the following:
The distro would not see my Windows 11 install and thus not create a proper dual-boot setup.
The distro WOULD see Windows 11, but would still not create a dual boot setup, either by error or design (some distros will not do this without you going in with a hammer and fixing it yourself).
This would lead to things like having to mash the F8 key when switching OSes, which is a pain compared to a nice Grub menu. I faffed about on several of the distros, convinced I could sort it out. I could not.
I tried a bunch of things to help distros see Windows 11, from disabling fast boot, to twiddling with various BIOS settings, to unplugging USB drives. None of this has made any difference.
I thought about taking the SSD from my old PC with Linux Mint on it and adding it to the new PC, but this has its own problems:
Probably needing to run some kind of boot repair to get Grub working properly.
The old system has an Nvidia card and I don’t know how gracefully Mint would handle suddenly running on an AMD system before the right drivers could be installed.
Also, opening up both PCs and moving the drive is just a hassle, and I’m kind of reaching my hassle limit.
So at the moment I’m at a standstill. I think I might try either Mint or Kubuntu again. Mint I know will not recognize Windows 11, and the manual partioning seems weirdly uncooperative. It is very possible this is a me issue. Or I might try Kubuntu again, which has generally been a smoother experience. I’ve even thought about nuking Windows 11 altogether, but I don’t have replacements for all the programs I use quite yet, so I’d prefer to dual boot for now.
I’ll probably decide on how I next want to faff about in the next few days.
Until then, here is a penguin, but not the Linux penguin.
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. The sky cleared up substantially during the run.
It was my first run of Spring 2026 and as a bonus it was both partly sunny and unusually mild, a nice change after multiple days of torrential rains.
I wore two layers (hoodie and t-shirt), which actually turned out to be one too many, as I doffed my Echo hoodie about halfway through the run, meaning I got an early start to my 2026 tan. 😀
I missed Wednesday’s run due to said torrential rains and felt a little sloggy (that’s the best way I can describe it) today but kept up a fairly consistent pace throughout, with an average of 5:45/km and a BPM of 149. Neither is outstanding, but both are perfectly cromulent.
Strangely a lot of dogs were off-leash. Bad dog owners! Fortunately the dogs themselves were well-behaved.
The trail was in pretty good shape despite the heavy rain–or so I thought! It was actually fine right up till the end of the run, where the newly-resurfaced stretch was seeing water ingress:
It should be fine with more normal amounts of rain. I think.
Puddles aside, it was nice to return to the lake, get some sun and round off the week with a decent effort.
View from the bridge over Deer Lake Brook, post-run.
Stats:
Run 1,018 Average pace: 5:45/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW) Start: 11:24 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 28:56 Weather: Partly sunny Temp: 12-13°C Humidity: 89-85% Wind: light to moderate BPM: 149 Weight: 171.3 pounds Total distance to date: 6,915 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (185/278/463)
I’ve never watched Stargate SG-1, but I knew the series was shot around Vancouver. Looking over the Wikipedia page, I found this entry for one of the characters, played by Corin Nemec:
From the country of Kelowna on the planet Langara. As someone who worked at Langara College for almost nine years, I find this quite amusing. It also reminds me of a first season episode of The X-Files where Mulder and Scully go the sleepy town of Steveston, Massachusetts, which looks suspiciously like Steveston, BC. I mean, it saved them having to change any of the signs when shooting on location. It’s just smart planning.
