Still windy

Welcome to my blog, where I pretend I'm going to comment intelligently on running, but actually I just bitch and moan about how windy it is when I want to go on a long run. After all it's not like I live on the Scottish coast or anything, and I'd never do anything as daft as running to a windfarm. I'm just a victim of bad luck.

It was very windy today, I'm no meterologist, but I think getting on for 8 or 9 on the Beaufort scale if I recall my high school geography correctly.

My made up training plan said I needed to run 18 miles today, so rather than argue with this arbitrary state of affairs I set off into the wind. 18 miles was meant to be easy after 24 last weekend, but the wind and the hills added some spice. It was straight into the wind and uphill for the first few miles and it was hard work. At least I was expecting it, and knew what I was up against straight away, this helped me get to a point of quick acceptance, which is crucial in dealing with the wind, you've never going to win, you're always going to find it slower and harder than normal and the faster you can accept this the better. So I accepted and I ran slowly uphill into the wind.

I was trying a new route today in order to try and give me more elevation as I think I need to be better going uphill ahead of the highland fling. As I gained altitude and got more exposed it all began to get trickier. At about mile 7 it all came to a head. I was climbing the steepest hill of the day right into the teeth of the wind. What started off as a slow and determined plod, gradually became a slow and determined walk, then a slow walk, then a backwards walk as I was struggling to breathe, and then a I think I'll stop and take a few photos they'd look awesome on my blog.

To be fair I was at this point approaching a windfarm, which I assume someone has situated in a place likely to attract a lot of wind. I was in a good place mentally, I accepted I'd get there eventually and this was the case. I thought descending into the headwind would be easier, but not really. It tore at my clothes and made me weave across the track like a drunk

Then joy of joy's I changed direction. Suddenly I was running uphill with a following wind and being blown along so fast I could barely keep control. At some points it was very muddy but there was no opportunity to pick a route, the wind just said "on, on, on" and I got muddy, in some cases I had to jump small puddles, the wind pushed me to jumps that I think would be in with a medal chance in the Olympics. All this was going uphill, when I made it to the Elmscleugh road and started going down with a following wind and a tarmac road I really flew, 6.20 pace with very little effort, and before I knew it I was back in something approximating civilisation with the back of the run well and truly broken. Truly the wind is a mixed blessing.

I plodded on home for my 18 miles fairly pleased to have held it all together. I'm running a marathon next weekend around Kelso racecourse which should be a good test of where I'm at. I'm looking forward to trying a few different things in a small low key marathon so should be fun, but not sure how I'll cope mentally with the laps.

The wind

It's windy today. To be honest I live by the Scottish Coast, it's windy most days

So after 3 hard weeks, this was meant to be an easy week in my Highland Fling training. It hasn't gone that well for being easy. I've run less distance, but then I accidentally set a 10k personal  best (42:36 if you're the kind of person who is wondering) during my run the the club on Tuesday. And then was fairly close to a 5k best at the club handicap on Thursday. So much for lowering the intensity. That said it's nice to be running well, and it was great not to come last in the 5k handicap, which has been my fate the last three times.

So today was the day to get my easy week back on track. A nice easy 10 or so miles, nice and steady, come back feeling good. I decided to run to the power station and back - yes this is every bit as glamorous as it sounds, there is a cement factory and a landfill site and everything. But it's nice and flat.

The beautiful Scottish coast

I was kind of concious of the tail wind on the way out, and when I found myself being briefly pushed along a 7m/mile pace I kind of knew it was going to be a problem. But the trip home was horrendous. It was so hard to run. Sometimes the wind was head on, and I ended up going so slowly, sometimes it was from the side and I still ended up going slowly but with sore knees from my feet landing funny as they were blown out of kilter. Sometimes it rained and it was like running through angry bees.

Pace on the way out was just over 8m/mile on average, on the way back it was just under 9.5m/mile, and more worryingly my mental state just crumbled from nice and positive to really negative and fed up my anger and frustration at the wind opened the door for all sorts of self doubt. Sure didn't feel easy.

At least next week is supposed to be a hard week.