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Wind? eff u.
By Kevin | April 14, 2009
I successfully squeezed in a run after work, and before dinner. I aimed for 6-miles in an hour or less, and ended up with 6.5-miles in 63 minutes, for a 9:40/mi. avg. The big story of the run, however, was the wind. It was nasty.
Although I wasn’t wearing my HR monitor, it would have showed my added exertion to fight the wind. I’m guessing my avg. HR was probably around 175, much higher than it should be for this manageable pace. I felt like I was fighting the whole way. There were a few short stints where the wind was almost at my back, but for most of the run, it was either head-on, or coming from one side or the other.
I’m convinced that side-winds are harder than head-on winds. Head-on is difficult, to be sure, but side-winds had me fighting for balance the whole time. My running form was all over the place, and it shows in my erratic pacing graph as captured by the Garmin Forerunner 405. My pace was anywhere between 6:18 and completely stopped…though, not including the warm-up first mile, it averaged around 9:25-ish.
I decided to tack on an extra half-mile just to prove to myself that the wind didn’t win. Then, came inside and, after stretching out, tackled Week 5-Day 1 of the Hundred Pushup Challenge. I barely squeaked out all the sets: 23, 24, 22, 22, 26.
So, my weekly mileage is up to 18 now, and I hope to get in two more runs this week. This is the highest it’s been since May of last year, when I was doing 50-60 miles a week. Just 19 days now until the NJ Marathon (May 3). I feel like I’m cramming for an exam or something.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
April 15th, 2009 at 9:26 am
So you say you were winded? No fun. But, looking at your Garmin log, it appears that you were doing a fartlek (www.geocities.com/Colosseum/track/8210/fartlek.html) type of training. I used this when training with our soccer team and it proved fun and beneficial. Stay with it. You’re doing fine.