The Wind Cries Mary

Hurricane Ike smashed into the Texas coast this morning leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. There were all kinds of predictions that Ike would sideswipe Austin, with predictions of 2 to 4 inches of rain, and what did we get? Not even a drop. West Texas is struggling with torrential rain, Ike is devastating East Texas, yet here in the capitol city we are dry as a bone. That's just weird.

One thing we did get from Ike was very high winds which made my 17 mile run this morning a real bitch. Last week I had a great run and averaged around 7:50. This week I struggled running into a headwind for most of the run and averaged around 8:45. On the few occasions I wasn't running into the wind it was super humid which quickly turned my singlet into a soggy, slappy, clingy, chafing deadweight. Did I ever mention that I hate running in the wind? Heat I can handle, cold - love it. But the wind robs me of any rhythm and I expended a lot of energy just trying to stay upright. This was a real head down, grit your teeth, wait for it to be over run.

I started out at 5:30 and got in a 10 miler before meeting up with my group to do another 7 miles. I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to going another 7, but I made myself head back out. My plan for these runs is that I would do my solo run beforehand, and then run with the group which would force me to keep up a fast pace on tired legs. Wearing a coach's shirt usually means that you have a target on your back and everyone in your group wants to finish ahead of you, which in turn motivates you to keep the pace going. Unfortunately most of my group weren't that motivated today and turned around at 3 miles, but three of us continued on the extra half mile to get in the full 7. On the way back I swept up one chap from one of the other pace groups who had missed his turnaround. I ran with him until we got back into the park when he stopped for water and told me to go on.

Once I finished, I had enough time to get in a stretch and gobble down some pretzels before heading off to work to manage some system upgrades. Tomorrow is my last group run with the work crowd before next week's Silicon Labs marathon relay. I'm debating whether or not to run Ken's beforehand. I must admit, the temptation of a rare lie in is very appealing.