Week 4 has altogether been windy. This will come as no surprise to many of you as you’ll have been outside. Wind is a real pain for us runners though (snigger – you know I don’t mean that kind of wind).
There are certain aspects of a windy day that you usually take for granted, which suddenly don’t appear to apply when you’re out running. The main one of these is this simple belief:
If you have a strong headwind and turn round to run the other way, you will now have a tailwind.
Sounds fairly straightforward doesn’t it? That’s what I thought. Until last Monday. I set off on my Monday recovery run and it was pretty blowy to say the least. You can see from the clouds it wasn’t that pleasant to be out:
You’d be right to think this looks like an airfield. It is. I work within running range of two local airfields which are both littered with public footpaths. This helps to mix up the runs and seems quite high as far as airfield density is concerned. Anyway, you didn’t want to read about airfields, we were talking about wind.
I set out and the wind was really tough and right in the face. It’s hard to explain how strong the wind is in writing but it was strong enough to blow me into the verge a couple of times. This inevitably always happened when there was some oncoming traffic. To them, it’s not clear quite how windy it is so I imagine they think they’re approaching a seriously drunk guy staggering around with oddly reflective gloves on.
It’s ok though, this was a ‘there and back’ run so I’ll be flying when I turn round at the airfield to run home. You know where this is going don’t you? Of course you do, you’ve read the title. How is it then that when I turned round, lo and behold, there was no tailwind. It was still blowing in my face? This seems to happen again and again,surely it’s not just me?! Believe me, this is absolutely not because I’m running so fast I’m generating my own headwind.
The same goes for hills. I often do a circular route which is apparently uphill the entire time! Throw in a constant headwind on that circular route and you have the ultimate runner’s run!
Not that you’d guess from this opening tirade but it’s been a good running week and I completed my January running with a total of 263km for the month. This is certainly the best start I’ve had for any year.
It may have been a windy week but by Thursday it was at least sunny for interval day:
After a weekend away, it was late on Sunday when we got back. The plan required me to run a sub-40 10k or sub-32 8k but at 9pm in the dark and drizzle I just couldn’t find enough willpower. I managed 10k in total but only a quick 5k in the middle. I made sure it was the same pace as intended though, even if it wasn’t as long. Something is better than nothing and life is going to get in the way of running again before the marathon I’m sure. Sometimes family and fun comes first.
In short this has been my week:
Mon: 4 miles easy
Tues: 6 miles half marathon pace
Wed: 8 miles easy
Thu: 8 miles intervals – 7x800m (3min 800m)
Fri: 5 miles easy
Sun: 6 miles, middle 3 at 10k pace
This week is really ramping up the miles now and in a weird way I’m kind of looking forward to it. Here’s the plan and I’ll let you know how I get on. You let me know if you ever encounter a downhill tailwind run too:
longruntom 