Sunday, November 21, 2004

Closing In on Two Hours

Today's run: Time: 1:26:40 (+ 20 min rest time). Distance: 12.8 km (+ 1.8 km rest distance). Speed: 9.5 kmh. There was also my screwing up at the start with my GPS/timer. The first ten minutes and 1.5 km were run without the interval timer. When I started the interval timer, of course everything started from zero, so the above times and distances are off. Actual distance was about 16.1 km and 1 hour 52 minutes.

Weather: Cloudy and 7C at the start, climbing to 8C by the end.

Lots of traffic on the park paths this morning, lots of friendly hellos and g'mornings. Even the dogs were friendly.

It seemed like I went a lot farther then I thought I would. At the end of the tenth interval, I was at least a half kilometre farther than I had gotten the week before at that point which was my turn around point then. Today it was at 11 intervals. I'm also surprised at my speed. I wasn't trying to go fast, just trying to maintain an even pace so I could last the whole morning. I expected it to be closer to 9 kmh. Even so, I was longer getting back to the start point on the return leg.

As usual, everything hurt until about 4 intervals in, which is when everything finally seems loosened up and it gets fun. I stayed on the paved path all the way out, but just before the turn-around point, the shale path that parallels the paved one joins for a moment, so I used it for my return. It runs closer to the river and threads through some thick cottonwood stands.

The beavers have been busy in these stands; lot's of fresh stumps and wood chips. There are also some really huge trees, that have been wrapped in chicken wire fencing, though occasionally you see one that the parks people have missed and have been chewed on. Here's a picture from an earlier run, about a month ago, to give you the idea.

This tree was about 45 centimetres through.

There are some stands that have been pretty well cleaned out. There's a bench on the west path, that used to be in a nice shady spot, now it's out in the open. That took them all of a couple of days, and they built a pretty big dam right beside. The creek is only 10 metres wide at that point, but the dam must raise the water level almost a metre.

1 comment:

Shane said...

Man, with those beavers doing that much damage it's a good thing you keep movin'! Pretty cool picture.