I Couldn’t Get Wetter Running Underwater

After this morning’s “run” I had to put in another effort this evening. Otherwise I’d have effectively bunked off ANOTHER session, and now that I’m a grown-up (I recently came of age - 38), I can’t just do that. As it says on my blog’s title now - no more excuses.

The trouble is that over the course of the day the weather’s taken a turn for the worse. And by the time I’d got Daughter from school, finished up in the office, lent a little bit of a hand to the painting Wife’s doing on our top staircase,  it had moved on from this morning’s bight-sunny-and-breezy, to Hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-weather-system-scorned. But no excuses or whining or complaining from me. No siree!

I opted to do my inland circuit, heading out into the rain for the first two miles, followed by a wind-assisted run down into Tynemouth, and then the run along the prom to home, with just a cross-wind to deal with. This was pretty tough going though - it was raining really hard for the first half hour or so, and most of that was blown in my face by a fierce wind. After only about a mile and a half, I could feel that even my underwear was soaked from front to back. Ewww! And just because I’d scorned the Goretex socks when I got changed to go out, I reckon I trod in a decent depth puddle on pretty much every tenth step or so.

Just peachy. I mean really great. . .
. . . actually it was kinda fun. And I DID enjoy it. I had a little discomfort at the base of my Achilles tendons about half way round, and experimented with this high cadence, mid-foot running that Brad and Joe Friel have been on about recently. Unbelievable! The discomfort vanished almost at once, and the running just seemed easier. Hmmmm.

Or maybe that was the wind assistance. Or the placebo effect. Doesn’t matter - I’ll take all the help I can get.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/11/2008
• Time: 16:10:21
• Total Time: 00:43:00.00
• Distance: 6 miles
• Average Pace: 7:10.11/mile

So tomorrow I’m scheduled to  go out on the bike. I’ve a couple of appointments lined up in Newcastle that I can cycle to. EXCEPT . . . and I know this is officially a No More Excuses post, but . . . the weather forecast is for 45 mph mean wind speeds tomorrow. Now I’m keen, but that’s frankly edging over towards suicidal. So I’ll have a look at the weather tomorrow when I get up, and make a decision then.

Filed under: No More Excuses, Run, Whitley Bay, Wind