Several years ago I ran a 20 mile road race up in Round Rock. It started and finished at the Dell Diamond baseball ground and consisted of two 10 mile loops. It was super humid and extremely windy with gusts of 40mph. It seemed like you were forever running into a headwind, and by the second loop it had gotten hot as well. I had to dig deep to go back out for that second loop and the whole race just sucked (they never held it there again). It still holds pole position in my "races I hate the most" hall of shame.
Well today's 12 mile run felt the same way. It was warm, humid and super windy at the start. The first mile was directly into the wind, and for some reason my ankle felt a whole lot stiffer than it did yesterday. After that first mile, my legs felt super tight and I was not looking forward to the rest of the run. Whatever happened to the "running is easy" groove I had going about a month ago? It seemed that the rest of the guys were having similar problems, so I offered my usual coach's tough love solution - "I know how to stop the pain, finish the damn thing". Once we got out into the country roads, we could really hear the wind howling, and at some places it was as much as I could do to keep going forward. Did I ever mention I hate running in the wind? It was definitely one of those "suck it up, grit your teeth and put your head down" types of runs.
Despite this we kept up a good pace, and I pushed myself to finish in 1:44:24 (8:42 pace). A decent enough time considering the conditions, but I'm hoping a cold front will come through in time for Thursday's Texas marathon.
Running Gods - I could do with a little break here.
Pikelets
5 days ago
1 comment:
Todays run was really hard. I runa out and back that runs East and West. The part into the wind was pure torture! Good luck with the marathon on Thursday!!
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